The impressive ruin at Um el Dabâdib, 36 kilometres N.N.W. of Kharga, seems to me to have been a fortified monastery, the interior being filled with vaulted cells. Its appearance is quite distinctive, lacking as it does the round buttresses of Qasr Lebekha and Dêr el Ghennîma, though the walls are still of great thickness, and loopholed for defence. Outside are the remains of a town of considerable size, and here doubtless several hundred workmen were quartered when the extensive subterranean waterworks, which exist in the locality, were in course of construction. A fourth large ruin, of somewhat similar architecture, occupies a conspicuous position on the edge of the escarpment overlooking the Bellaida district, about 2 kilometres north of the temple of Hibis. Ball describes this under the name of Qasr Ain Mustapha Kashef, a name which, of course, merely refers to its position near a well of that name. The interior consists of tiers of arched chambers, and according to Schweinfurth there is little doubt that the building was a monastery. All the above-mentioned forts and monasteries are built of large sun-dried bricks measuring, as a rule, 35 × 17 × 9 centimetres, and it is noteworthy that the walls, where of exceptional thickness, were built in sections, perhaps to allow of their drying more readily. Besides those described, a great many other mud-brick buildings are to be found scattered through the oasis, the majority of which possess no very distinctive features. One, however, being sure to attract the attention of visitors may be specially referred to; this is a high rectangular tower occupying a very conspicuous position on the open plain to the west of Jebel Têr, measuring 5 by 6½ metres at the base, the walls tapering slightly upwards to a height of about 15 metres. It was originally divided into storeys and provided with a staircase, and may very probably have been used as a watchtower. The remains of a circular brick or pottery kiln are to be seen twenty paces to the south. The exact age of these numerous brick buildings cannot be stated with certainty, and we can only hope that when the pottery, coins, and other objects which exist in the ruins of the adjoining towns have been systematically collected and examined, it may be possible to date them with more accuracy. At present we can only conjecture that while the greater number were erected during the Roman occupation, between 30 B.C. and A.D. 395, some of them may date from the succeeding Byzantine period. Many of the cemeteries contain mummy-cases on which the likeness of the deceased is carved in wood on the outside, or fashioned in stucco and painted in colours. Three of these from an ancient burial-place in the Bellaida district, between Jebel Têr and Jebel Tarif (one of a number of cemeteries of Roman age which await the attention of archæologists), are shown in one of our illustrations. [Illustration: THE CHRISTIAN NECROPOLIS.]