We observe more foundations built thus at Tafah, where we arrive next morning. As the mason’s work at Tafah is of late Roman date, it follows that earthquakes were yet frequent in Nubia at a period long subsequent to the great shock of B.C. 27, mentioned by Eusebius. Travelers are too ready to ascribe everything in the way of ruin to the fury of Cambyses and the pious rage of the early Christians. Nothing, however, is easier than to distinguish between the damage done to the monuments by the hand of man and the damage caused by subterraneous upheaval. Mutilation is the rule in the one case; displacement in the other. At Denderah, for example, the injury done is wholly willful; at Abou Simbel it is wholly accidental; at Karnak it is both willful and accidental. As for Kalabsheh, it is clear that no such tremendous havoc could have been effected by human means without the aid of powerful rams, fire, or gunpowder; any of which must have left unmistakable traces. At Tafah there are two little temples; one in picturesque ruin, one quite perfect, and now used as a stable. There are also a number of stone foundations, separate, quadrangular, subdivided into numerous small chambers, and inclosed in boundary walls, some of which are built in the concave courses just named. These sub-structions, of which the painter counted eighteen, have long been the puzzle of travelers.[171] Tafah is charmingly placed; and the seven miles which divide it from Kalabsheh--once, no doubt, the scene of a cataract--are perhaps the most picturesque on this side of Wady Halfeh. Rocky islets in the river; palm groves, acacias, carobs, henna and castor-berry bushes and all kinds of flowering shrubs, along the edges of the banks; fantastic precipices riven and pinnacled, here rising abruptly from the water’s edge and there from the sandy plain, make lovely sketches whichever way one turns. There are gazelles, it is said, in the ravines behind Tafah; and one of the natives--a truculent fellow in ragged shirt and dirty white turban--tells how, at a distance of three hours up a certain glen, there is another birbeh, larger than either of these, in the plain and a great standing statue taller than three men. Here, then, if the tale be true, is another ready-made discovery for whoever may care to undertake it. This same native, having sold a necklace to the idle man and gone away content with his bargain, comes back by and by with half the village at his heels, requiring double price. This modest demand being refused, he rages up and down like a maniac; tears off his turban; goes through a wild manual exercise with his spear; then sits down in stately silence, with his friends and neighbors drawn up in a semicircle behind him.