Edfou is thus described by Mr. Stephens:—'At one corner of this miserable place stands one of the magnificent temples of the Nile. The propylon (or gateway), its lofty proportions enlarged by the light of the moon, was the most grand and imposing portal I saw in Egypt. From a base of nearly 100 feet in length, and 30 in breadth, it rises on each side of the gate in the form of a truncated pyramid, to the height of 100 feet, gradually narrowing, till at the top it measures 75 feet in length and 18 in breadth. Judge, then, what was the temple to which this formed merely the entrance; and this was far from being one of the large temples of Egypt. It measured, however, 440 feet in length and 220 in breadth, about equal to the whole space occupied by St. Paul's Churchyard. Its dromos, pronaos, columns, and capitals, all correspond; and enclosing it is a high wall, still in a state of perfect preservation. I walked round it twice, and, by means of the wall erected to exclude the unhallowed gaze of the stranger, I looked down upon the interior of the temple. Built by the Egyptians for the highest uses to which a building could be dedicated—for the worship of their gods—it is now used by the pasha as a granary and storehouse.'
Few travelers proceed farther up the Nile than Philöe, as the journey through Nubia is less safe or agreeable than that within the Egyptian territory. Yet without a visit to the Nubian valley of the Nile, which extends to near the head branches of the river in Abyssinia, much of the ancient grandeur of this part of the world will remain unexplored. Nubia, which is at present a Turkish province, subject to the pasha of Egypt, is frequently called by the name Ethiopia—from the black complexion of whose inhabitants the term Ethiopian came in early times to signify one who is black, or a negro. This country of Nubia, or Ethiopia, is understood by some historians to have enjoyed a degree of civilization and refinement in art at a date even earlier than Egypt; and till the present day, it possesses pyramids and other monuments of architectural skill as wonderful, in the eyes of the traveler, as those in the lower divisions of the Nile.
So much for a glance at the archaeological treasures of Egypt; let us now return to Cairo, in order to undertake an excursion which has been seldom performed.
The Petrified Forest. This extraordinary curiosity is situated eight
or ten miles south from Cairo, and is reached by a journey on the back of
a donkey through a rugged piece of country. The ground over which
you travel is a dry gravely soil, without a particle of vegetation. Having
proceeded for some miles through a rocky valley, a sudden turn to the
right takes you through a low range of sand-hills, and in less than a quarter
of an hour you arrive at the forest. And such a forest! Trees lying
prone on the ground, and transferred into stone. The world contains
nothing so wonderful as a work of nature. On every side the prostrate
forest extends as far as the eye can reach. Plains and rolling hillocks of
sand sweep on and on to the horizon, all strewed thickly over with fragments
of fallen trees. They lie at some places so close to each other,
that a sure-footed Cairo donkey can scarcely thread his way through them:
at other places they are few and far between, scarcely within stone-throw
of each other, as if those had been the thickets, these the openings, in the
forest. The trees are nowhere round in the surface, but sharp and angular,
