I took a pleasant boat ride across the river, past the beautiful grounds of the Savoy Hotel, to the rock tombs of the great persons of ancient Elephantine. I tarried a little too long at the tombs, or else did not start soon enough, for darkness came upon us soon after leaving them. For some distance the boatman walked on the shore and towed the boat with a long rope, while I tried to keep it off of the rocks with the rudder. There was not enough wind to make the sail useful, and as we were passing around the end of Elephantine Island we drifted against the rocks, but with no other loss than the loss of some time. It was my desire to see the Nilometer on the island, and I did see it, but not until after I had sent the boatman to buy a candle. This ancient water-gauge was repaired in 1870, after a thousand years of neglect. The following description by Strabo is taken from Baedeker's _Guide to Egypt_: "The Nilometer is a well, built of regular hewn stones, on the bank of the Nile, in which is recorded the rise of the stream--not only the maximum, but also the minimum, and average rise, for the water in the well rises and falls with the stream. On the side of the well are marks measuring the height for the irrigation and other water levels. These are published for general information. * * * This is of importance to the peasants for the management of the water, the embankments, the canals, etc., and to the officials on account of the taxes, for the higher the rise of the water, the higher the taxes." It needs to be said, however, that this "well" is not circular, but rectangular, and has a flight of steps leading down to the water. On the way back to Cairo I stopped at Luxor, on the site of the ancient city of Thebes. The chief attraction here is the Temple of Luxor, six hundred and twenty-one feet long and one hundred and eighty feet wide. In recent times this temple was entirely buried, and a man told me he owned a house on the spot which he sold to the government for about four hundred and fifty dollars, not knowing of the existence of a temple buried beneath his dwelling. Some of the original statues of Rameses II. remain in front of the ruins. I measured the right arm of one of these figures, from the pit where it touches the side to the same point in front, a distance of about six feet, and that does not represent the entire circumference, for the granite between the arm and the body was never entirely cut away. Near by stands a large red granite obelisk, with carvings from top to bottom. A companion to this one, for they were always erected in pairs, has been removed. In ancient times a paved street led from this temple to Karnak, which is reached by a short walk. This ancient street was adorned by a row of ram-headed sphinxes on each side. Toward Karnak many of them are yet to be seen in a badly mutilated condition, but there is another avenue containing forty of these figures in a good state of preservation.