Sir Archibald Edmonstone, Bart., accompanied by two friends, visited Dakhla and Kharga in 1819, and constructed a rough but fairly accurate map, showing the relative position of the two oases, with their bounding escarpments and principal villages. Their situation in the Libyan Desert, with regard to the Nile Valley, is, however, greatly in error, being shown fully a degree too far west and nearly half a degree too far north. Edmonstone followed the Derb el Tawîl route from Beniâdi in the Nile Valley to the village of Belat in Dakhla, returning by the Ain Amûr road to Kharga, and thence to Farshut. The major portion of the account of his travels refers to Dakhla, of which oasis he must, indeed, be regarded as the modern discoverer. Hoskins explored Kharga in 1835, and published a most valuable and engaging account of his travels a couple of years later. This work, entitled ‘Visit to the Great Oasis of the Libyan Desert,’ contains a number of illustrations depicting the scenery, the chief monuments and their hieroglyphics, etc., made from original drawings and paper casts. Many of the inscriptions are given in full, both in the original and translated into English, and the work of all previous writers and explorers is carefully summarized. In some cases I have verified the accuracy of Hoskins’ drawings by comparing them with photographs taken from the same points, and have been much struck with the insignificant amount of decay which some of the buildings have undergone during the course of over seventy years. Rizagat, near Thebes, was Hoskins’ starting-point, and he entered the depression by the Bulaq pass, crossing the oasis-floor to the eminence known as El Gorn el Gennâh. Surveying the oasis from this point of vantage, Hoskins remarks that the attractions of the cultivated portions of the depression, those “Tufted isles that verdant rise amid the Libyan waste,”