We have put off more extensive research till our return; but to select from the inexhaustible matter for our end, and with relation to what has already been given in other works, will be difficult. On the 18th of October we quitted Thebes. Hermonthis we saw _en passant_. The great hall of Esneh was some years ago excavated by command of the Pasha, and presented a magnificent appearance. At El Kab, the ancient Eileithyia, we remained three days. Still more remarkable than the different temples of this once mighty place are its rock-tombs, which belong chiefly to the beginning of the War of Liberation against the Hyksos, and throw much light upon the relation of the several dynasties of that period. Several persons of consideration buried there bear the curious title of a male nurse of a royal prince, expressed by the well known group of _mena_, with the determinative of the female breast in Coptic, [Illustration: Koptic];[58] the deceased is represented with the prince in his lap. The temple of Edfu is also among the best preserved of them; it was dedicated to Horus and Hathor, the Egyptian Venus, who is once named here “Queen of men and women.” Horus, as a child, is represented, as all children are on the monuments, as naked, with his finger to his lips; I had already explained from it the name of Harpocrates, which I have now found completely represented and written as Harpe-chroti, _i. e._ “Horus the Child.”[59] The Romans misunderstood the Egyptian gesture of the finger, and made of the _child_ that _can_ not speak, the God of Silence, that _will_ not speak. The most interesting inscription, unremarked and unmentioned as yet by any one, is found on the eastern outer wall of the temple, built by Ptolemaeus Alexander I. It contains several dates of King Darius, of Nectanebus, and the falsely named Amyrtæus, and has reference to the lands belonging to the temple. The glowing heat of that day caused me to postpone the more careful examination and the paper impression of this inscription till our return.[60] Gebel Silsilis is one of the richest places in historical inscriptions, which generally bear some reference to the ancient working of the sandstone quarries.