It chanced that we witnessed many funerals in Nubia; so many that one sometimes felt inclined to doubt whether the governor of Assûan had not reported over-favorably of the health of the province. The ceremonial, with its dancing and chanting, was always much the same; always barbaric, and in the highest degree artificial. One would like to know how much of it is derived from purely African sources, and how much from ancient Egyptian tradition. The dance is most probably Ethiopian. Lepsius, traveling through the Soudan in A.D. 1844,[72] saw something of the kind at a funeral in Wed Medineh, about half-way between Sennaar and Khartûm. The white fillet worn by the choir of mourners is, on the other hand, distinctly Egyptian. We afterward saw it represented in paintings of funeral processions on the walls of several tombs at Thebes,[73] where the wailing women are seen to be gathering up the dust in their hands and casting it upon their heads, just as they do now. As for the wail--beginning high and descending through a scale divided not by semi-tones but thirds of tones to a final note about an octave and a half lower than that from which it started--it probably echoes to this day the very pitch and rhythm of the wail that followed the Pharaohs to their sepulchers in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. Like the zaghareet, or joy-cry, which every mother teaches to her little girls and which, it is said, can only be acquired in very early youth, it has been handed down from generation to generation through an untold succession of ages. The song to which the fellâh works his shâdûf and the monotonous chant of the sakkieh-driver have, perhaps, as remote an origin. But of all old, mournful, human sounds, the death-wail that we heard at Derr is perhaps one of the very oldest--certainly the most mournful. The temple here, dating from the reign of Rameses II, is of rude design and indifferent execution. Partly constructed, partly excavated, it is approached by a forecourt, the roof of which was supported by eight square columns. Of these columns only the bases remain. Four massive piers, against which once stood four colossi, upheld the roof of the portico and gave admission by three entrances to the rock-cut chambers beyond. The portico is now roofless. Nothing is left of the colossi but their feet. All is ruin; and ruin without beauty.