Between Kom Ombo and Silsilis, we lost our painter. Not that he either strayed or was stolen; but that, having accomplished the main object of his journey, he was glad to seize the first opportunity of getting back quickly to Cairo. That opportunity--represented by a noble duke honeymooning with a steam-tug--happened half-way between Kom Ombo and Silsilis. Painter and duke being acquaintances of old, the matter was soon settled. In less than a quarter of an hour, the big picture and all the paraphernalia of the studio were transported from the stern-cabin of the Philæ to the stern-cabin of the steam-tug; and our painter--fitted out with an extempore canteen, a cook-boy, a waiter, and his fair share of the necessaries of life--was soon disappearing gayly in the distance at the rate of twenty miles an hour. If the happy couple, so weary of head-winds, so satiated with temples, followed that vanishing steam-tug with eyes of melancholy longing, the writer at least asked nothing better than to drift on with the Philæ. Still, the Nile is long, and life is short; and the tale told by our log-book was certainly not encouraging. When we reached Silsilis on the morning of the 17th of March the north wind had been blowing with only one day’s intermission since the 1st of February. At Silsilis, one looks in vain for traces of that great barrier which once blocked the Nile at this point. The stream is narrow here, and the sand-stone cliffs come down on both sides to the water’s edge. In some places there is space for a footpath; in others, none. There are also some sunken rocks in the bed of the river--upon one of which, by the way, a Cook’s steamer had struck two days before. But of such a mass as could have dammed the Nile, and, by its disruption, not only have caused the river to desert its bed at Philæ,[176] but have changed the whole physical and climatic conditions of Lower Nubia, there is no sign whatever. The Arabs here show a rock fantastically quarried in the shape of a gigantic umbrella, to which they pretend some king of old attached one end of a chain with which he barred the Nile. It may be that in this apocryphal legend there survives some memory of the ancient barrier. The cliffs of the western bank are rich in memorial niches, votive shrines, tombs, historical stela, and inscriptions. These last date from the sixth to the twenty-second dynasties. Some of the tombs and alcoves are very curious. Ranged side by side in a long row close above the river, and revealing glimpses of seated figures and gaudy decorations within, they look like private boxes with their occupants. In most of these we found mutilated triads of gods,[177] sculptured and painted; and in one larger than the rest were three niches, each containing three deities.