Coming back several months later, I looked for them again, but without success; for the intense midday sun was then pouring full upon the rocks, to the absolute obliteration of everything like shallow detail. While watching vainly, however, for the stelæ, I was compensated by the unexpected sight of a colossal bas-relief high up on the northward face of a cliff standing, so to say, at the corner of one of those little recesses or _culs-de-sac_ which here and there break the uniformity of the range. The sculptural relief of this large subject was apparently very low; but, owing to the angle at which it met the light, one figure, which could not have measured less than eighteen or twenty feet in height, was distinctly visible. I immediately drew L----’s attention to the spot; and she not only discerned the figure without the help of a glass, but believed like myself that she could see traces of a second. As neither the stelæ nor the bas-relief would seem to have been observed by previous travelers, I may add for the guidance of others that the round and tower-like rock upon which the former are sculptured lies about a mile to the southward of the sheik’s tomb and palm-tree (a strikingly picturesque bit which no one can fail to notice), and a little beyond some very large excavations near the water’s edge; while the bas-relief is to be found at a short distance below the Coptic convent and cemetery. Having for nearly twelve miles skirted the base of Gebel Abufayda--by far the finest panoramic stretch of rock scenery on this side of the second cataract--the Nile takes an abrupt bend to the eastward, and thence flows through many miles of cultivated flat. One coming to this sudden elbow the wind, which had hitherto been carrying us along at a pace but little inferior to that of a steamer, now struck us full on the beam and drove the boat to shore with such violence that all the steersman could do was just to run the Philæ’s nose into the bank and steer clear of some ten or twelve native cangias that had been driven in before us. The Bagstones rushed in next; and presently a large iron-built dahabeeyah, having come gallantly along under the cliffs with all sail set, was seen to make a vain struggle at the fatal corner, and then plunge headlong at the bank, like King Agib’s ship upon the Loadstone Mountain. Imprisoned here all the afternoon, we exchanged visits of condolence with our neighbors in misfortune; had our ears nearly cut to pieces by the driving sand; and failed signally in the endeavor to take a walk on shore. Still the fury of the storm went on increasing. The wind howled; the river raced in turbid waves; the sand drove in clouds; and the face of the sky was darkened as if by a London fog. Meanwhile, one boat after another was hurled to shore, and before nightfall we numbered a fleet of some twenty odd craft, native and foreign.