the frontier foot of old Egypt, commanding the Nile. Occasionally the Pharoahs sent armies into the mysterious southern regions, and brought back spoils, gold, silver, spices, slaves, and dwarfs, leaving, as Rameses II did at Abou Simbel and other places on the Nile, huge sculptured memorials of his renown. It is some 1,800 miles further up the river before Khartoum is reached, and it was not until Kitchener's military line of railway was laid recently that there was any mode of getting there, save by the tortuous course of the river, and negotiating various cataracts. As yet no civilian is allowed to use the railway. No doubt, in future the Sudan will, under our occupation, become a great field for British enterprise. When the great dam is finished, eighty feet in height, it will hold up the water for some miles, storing it for gradual use, instead of running to waste at high Nile, and distributing it during low Nile. But it will almost submerge the island, leaving only the slightest foothold for the temples. I am glad to have seen Philæ in its primitive beauty, soon to be a thing of the past.
Returning down the river, we had to tack constantly against the prevailing northerly wind, a slow process. I had a few days in Cairo, and must limit myself in this letter to a visit to the Coptic Church, and convent, of Abu El Seyfen. Its priest, Abu El Malek, a tall, venerable man in black robes, received us most courteousty; a young Copt acted as interpreter. This church, like others, has an internal arrangement, somewhat like ours, of nave, aisles, side chapels, and sanctuary. Pierced woodwork screens shut off the side chapels and baptistery. The sanctuary—there is no chancel—is apsidal, with a large stone altar, square, on a low level, with a high stone
