That towered edifice and central keep--quarried, broken up, carried away piecemeal, reduced to powder, and spread over the land as manure--has now disappeared almost to its foundations. Only the well in the middle of the inclosure, and the great wall of circuit remain. That wall is doomed, and will by and by share the fate of the rest. The well, which must have been very deep, is choked with rubbish to the brim. Meanwhile, in order to realize what the place in its present condition is like, one need but imagine how the Tower of London would look if the whole of the inner buildings--white tower, chapel, armory, governor’s quarters, and all--were leveled in shapeless ruin, and only the outer walls and moat were left. Built up against the inner side of the wall of circuit are the remains of a series of massive towers, the tops of which, as they are, strangely enough, shorter than the external structure, can never have communicated with the battlements, unless by ladders. The finest of these towers, together with a magnificent fragment of wall, faces the eastern desert. Going out by the north entrance, we find the sides of the gateway, and even the steps leading down into the moat, in perfect preservation; while at the base of the great wall, on the outer side facing the river, there yet remains a channel or conduit about two feet square, built and roofed with stone, which in Murray is described as a water-gate. The sun is high, the heat is overwhelming, the felucca waits; and we turn reluctantly away, knowing that between here and Cairo we shall see no more curious relics of the far-off past than this dismantled stronghold. It is a mere mountain of unburned brick; altogether unlovely: admirable only for the gigantic strength of its proportions; pathetic only in the abjectness of its ruin. Yet it brings the lost ages home to one’s imagination in a way that no temple could ever bring them. It dispels for a moment the historic glamor of the sculptures, and compels us to remember those nameless and forgotten millions, of whom their rulers fashioned soldiers in time of war and builders in time of peace. Our adventures by the way are few and far between; and we now rarely meet a dahabeeyah. Birds are more plentiful than when we were in this part of the river a few weeks ago. We see immense flights of black and white cranes congregated at night on the sand-banks; and any number of quail may be had for the shooting. It is matter for rejoicing when the idle man goes out with his gun and brings home a full bag; for our last sheep was killed before we started for Wady Halfeh, and our last poultry ceased cackling at Abou Simbel.