In some of the tombs I saw the massive stone boxes in which lay the mummies of the dead kings. I measured one ten feet long, six feet wide, and eight feet high. It was hollowed out of a block of granite, and would weigh many tons. That mighty burial casket was cut out of the quarries of Aswan far above here, on the banks of the Nile. It must have been brought down the river on a barge and carried to this place. When it was finally on the ground it had to be lowered into the vault. All these feats were done without modern machinery. As I went through the tombs I saw several such caskets, and the archæologist who guided me showed me the holes in the stone walls of the entrance ways where beams had been put across in order that ropes might be used to prevent these stone masses from sliding too far when let down. It is a difficult job for us to handle safes. One of these stone boxes would weigh as much as several safes, yet the old Egyptians moved them about as they pleased. Indeed, I venture to say that the civil engineers of the Pharaohs could teach us much. All through this region there are enormous monuments which it would puzzle the engineers of to-day to handle. For instance, there are the Colossi of Memnon, the two mammoth stone statues that sit upon pedestals in the Nile valley within a few miles of where I am writing. Each is as high as a six-story building, and the stone pedestals rise thirteen feet above the ground. As I rode by them on my way home from the Valley of the Kings I climbed up and ran a tape measure over their legs. Each leg is nineteen feet from sole to knee. The feet are each over three yards in length, so long that one would fill the box of a farm wagon from end to end, and so wide that it could hardly be fitted within it. Each arm from finger tips to elbow measures five yards, and the middle finger of each hand is a yard and a half long. As I stood beside the pedestal, with my feet on Gingerbread’s saddle, I could not reach the top. These two colossal figures sit side by side on the edge of the Nile valley with the desert mountains at their backs. They were set up in honour of an Egyptian king who lived more than thirty-five centuries ago. The temple he constructed behind them has now entirely disappeared. The statues overlook green fields, and as I gazed at the giant shapes I thought how they had watched the people sowing and reaping through all these centuries. Not far from these monuments are the ruins of the temple of Rameses II, according to some authorities the Pharaoh who “would not let the people go.” Among them I saw the remains of a statue of that old king, once part of a structure at least sixty feet high. There is no granite nearer here than in the quarries of Aswan, so this mighty monument must have been cut there and brought down the Nile to Thebes, a distance of one hundred and thirty-five miles.