With regard to temperature, we found it cool--even cold, sometimes--in December and January; mild in February; very warm in March and April. The climate of Nubia is simply perfect. It never rains; and once past the limit of the tropic there is no morning or evening chill upon the air. Yet even in Nubia, and especially along the forty miles which divide Abou Simbel from Wady Halfeh, it is cold when the wind blows strongly from the north.[1] Touching the title of this book, it may be objected that the distance from the port of Alexandria to the second cataract falls short of a thousand miles. It is, in fact, calculated at nine hundred and sixty four and a half miles. But from the Rock of Abusîr, five miles above Wady Halfeh, the traveler looks over an extent of country far exceeding the thirty or thirty-five miles necessary to make up the full tale of a thousand. We distinctly saw from this point the summits of mountains which lie about one hundred and forty-five miles to the southward of Wady Halfeh, and which look down upon the third cataract. Perhaps I ought to say something in answer to the repeated inquiries of those who looked for the publication of this volume a year ago. I can, however, only reply that the writer, instead of giving one year, has given two years to the work. To write rapidly about Egypt is impossible. The subject grows with the book, and with the knowledge one acquires by the way. It is, moreover, a subject beset with such obstacles as must impede even the swiftest pen; and to that swiftest pen I lay no claim. Moreover, the writer who seeks to be accurate, has frequently to go for his facts, if not actually to original sources (which would be the texts themselves), at all events to translations and commentaries locked up in costly folios, or dispersed far and wide among the pages of scientific journals and the transactions of learned societies. A date, a name, a passing reference, may cost hours of seeking. More pleasant is it to remember labor lightened than to consider time spent; and I have yet to thank the friends who have spared no pains to help this book on its way. To S. Birch, Esq., LL.D., etc., so justly styled “the parent in this country of a sound school of Egyptian philology,” who, besides translating the hieratic and hieroglyphic inscriptions contained in chapter eighteen, has also, with infinite kindness, seen the whole of that chapter through the press; to Reginald Stuart Poole, Esq.; to Professor R. Owen, C. B., etc.; to Sir G. W. Cox, I desire to offer my hearty and grateful acknowledgments. It is surely not least among the glories of learning that those who adorn it most and work hardest should ever be readiest to share the stores of their knowledge.