This Pharaoh, Rameses II, was one of the greatest kings of ancient Egypt. His temples are scattered throughout the Nile valley and his statues are the largest ever discovered. One was found in the Nile delta which measures forty-two feet in height, and there are others sixty-six feet high at Abu Simbel in Nubia, about as far up the Nile as Chicago is distant from the mouth of the Hudson. They are seated on thrones and are hewn from the solid rocks. These figures stand in front of the temple, also cut out of rock. This building is said to have been erected by him in honour of his favourite wife, Nefertari, and there are statues of his children about it. These show that he was very much of a family man, for inscriptions on the various monuments mention one hundred and sixty-two of his children by name. CHAPTER XVI THE NILE IN HARNESS Within a mile or so of the red granite quarries, out of which Pompey’s Pillar and the obelisks were taken by the ancient Egyptians, just below the island of Philæ, with its stone temples built ages ago to the Goddess Isis, far up the Nile valley, on the edge of Lower Nubia, I write these notes for my American readers. I am in the heart of the desert, seven hundred miles south of the Mediterranean Sea, at the point where the great river drops down over the first cataract. I have come here to describe the Aswan Dam, which the British built to harness the Nile and thereby save Egypt from famine. We all look upon this as the oldest of rivers, but the Nile god of to-day has many new aspects. For ages he has been ramping and charging at his own sweet will, but he is now being harnessed and will have to work in the traces like an old plough mule. In the past he has been feeding his daughter Egypt or not, as he pleased. He has sometimes stuffed her to repletion, and at others has held back his supplies of water and mud, causing a famine. This was the case during the seven hungry years of Joseph’s time, and the fat years of that day were undoubtedly produced by high Niles. Such ups and downs have occurred in Egypt from time to time since the dawn of her history, and it is only in comparatively recent years that man has attempted to control the old river and by a system of dams hold back the waters and let them out over the farms as needed. To master the Nile has cost many millions of dollars which have gone into building the great barrages in the lower river, and more important than all, the mighty dam away up here at Aswan.