I was always under the impression that there were secret places yet undiscovered in these dark chambers, and Salame and I were always looking for them. At Denderah, at Edfû, at Medinet Habu, at Philæ,[120] there have been found crypts in the thickness of the walls and recesses under the pavements, for the safe-keeping of treasure in time of danger. The rock-cut temples must also have had their hiding-places; and these would doubtless take the form of concealed cells in the walls, or under the floors of the side-chambers. To come out from these black holes into the twilight of the great hall and see the landscape set, as it were, in the ebon frame of the doorway, was alone worth the journey to Abou Simbel. The sun being at such times in the west, the river, the yellow sand-island, the palms and tamarisks opposite, and the mountains of the eastern desert, were all flooded with a glory of light and color to which no pen or pencil could possibly do justice. Not even the mountains of Moab in Holman Hunt’s “Scapegoat” were so warm with rose and gold. Thus our days passed at Abou Simbel; the workers working; the idler idling; strangers from the outer world now and then coming and going. The heat on shore was great, especially in the sketching-tents; but the north breeze blew steadily every day from about an hour after sunrise till an hour before sunset, and on board the dahabeeyah it was always cool. The happy couple took advantage of this good wind to do a good deal of boating, and by judiciously timing their excursions contrived to use the tail of the day’s breeze for their trip out, and the strong arms of four good rowers to bring them back again. In this way they managed to see the little rock-cut temple of Ferayg, which the rest of us unfortunately missed. On another occasion they paid a visit to a certain sheik who lived at a village about two miles south of Abou Simbel. He was a great man, as Nubian magnates go. His name was Hassan Ebn Rashwan el Kashef, and he was a grandson of that same old Hassan Kashef who was vice-regent of Nubia in the days of Burckhardt and Belzoni. He received our happy couple with distinguished hospitality, killed a sheep in their honor, and entertained them for more than three hours. The meal consisted of an endless succession of dishes, all of which, like that bugbear of our childhood, the hated air with variations, went on repeating the same theme under a multitude of disguises; and, whether roasted, boiled, stewed or minced, served on skewers, smothered in rice, or drowned in sour milk, were always mutton _au fond_.