are apt to be exaggerated, owing to their great contrast to the surrounding deserts. “The fair appearance then of this oasis is in a great measure fictitious; and has chiefly its origin in the relief afforded to the mind, wearied by the monotony and dreariness of the surrounding wastes. It seems to me therefore, that the only rational way of accounting for the exaggerated epithets which the ancient writers and some modern travellers have applied to this district, is to attribute them to their surprise, at finding in such a fearful region any verdure, any habitable spot, and to the exhilarating effect on the spirits of this agreeable contrast to the dreary deserts which they have just crossed. But comfortless as was my journey through the wilderness, and beautiful as the woods of palm-trees, doums, and acacias in the Oasis certainly are, still the vivid recollection of the superior loveliness of the banks of the Nile, prevents my consenting to call these regions ‘the Gardens of the Hesperides’; and sadly must the oasis have diminished in beauty, if it ever merited the praise which Herodotus bestowed upon the place, in calling it ‘the Island of the Blessed.’” Hoskins, who was accompanied by two other Englishmen, made splendid use of the fortnight spent in the oasis, although unfortunately, just before the termination of his visit, he sustained a violent attack of fever. Their departure is thus described: “After ascending the mountain which bounds the Oasis, we lingered some time at the summit, to take, I may certainly say, our last view of the place; for having, as the Arabs say, got all its antiquities on paper, and having providentially once escaped its pestilential atmosphere, we shall never, I think, by any possibility, have the slightest inclination to revisit such a baneful region.” Most of these early explorers found time to cut their names on the walls of the temple of Hibis, and Cailliaud must have spent hours in this occupation, as he has left a long and neatly executed inscription recording himself as the original and genuine discoverer of that noble edifice. The names of these explorers, who in some cases suffered considerable hardships in visiting the oases, are, however, quite overshadowed by the numberless scrawls made in recent years by a host of otherwise unknown petty officials of the Government, who have had to take their turn of duty and banishment in the greatly dreaded desert. The dated names cut in the walls of the temple are of some value, as an examination of them frequently yields reliable evidence of the rate of weathering of the stone since the time at which they were inscribed.