show that cultivation has been carried on there within the last few years; for the rest, the ground is covered with pebbles, much like the untouched desert, and here and there are fragments of pottery, evidently of early date. These were most numerous on two or three slight rises which, as we afterwards found, had contained groups of tombs. Thus, on the day we arrived, was presented the first puzzle of El Kab. The greater part of the enclosure had never been inhabited, at least by people living in houses and using pottery. What, then, could have been the purpose of the huge walls? The north wall (strictly, the north-west, but called north for convenience) could be crossed by walking up the great sand-slope, which reaches to its top on both sides. This is driven up by the prevalent north wind. A similar, but much smaller, heap has drifted against the north side of the south wall. From the top of the north wall one has a good view of the whole neighbourhood. The town lies at the mouth of a wide valley, flanked by broken ranges of sandstone hills. An hour's walk up this valley is to be seen the little square block of Amenhotep III's temple, the great isolated rock of the graffiti, and, rather nearer, the small temple of Rameses. The low hill to the left, half a mile away, is the hill of tombs. The row of black dots sloping downwards to the east are the doorways of the tombs; they follow the bed of soundest rock. Further to the north is a rock looking, in the distance, like a huge mushroom. This is a hill of which there remains only the upper part, resting on great pillars; the flanks of the hill and all the inside of it except these pillars have been quarried away, the stone being used probably for the temples of El Kab. The strip of cultivated land is very narrow at this part, often less than 500 yards wide. Immediately to the east of the walls the ground has been disturbed, being covered with small and equal rises and depressions; scraps of XIIth dynasty pottery scattered over its surface showed that here was the cemetery of the Middle Kingdom. _Note._--I stopped for five hours at Kafr-es-Zaiat on the railway journey from Alexandria to Cairo to examine a site, which may be the Serapeum of the Saite nome. On the map, in the Description de l'Egypt, some ruins are marked as the village of El Naharieh, north of Kafr-es-Zaiat. I found, on talking with the people, that ruins had existed there thirty years ago, but that now all the ground they had covered had been brought into cultivation. Under the mats in the mosques some blocks of granite of old Egyptian work may be seen, and I noticed the cartouche of Necho twice. The sheikh of the village had, too, a fine lintel, used as a gate-post. This he kindly had moved for me, and on it I saw the name of the Serapeum of the Saite nome, _Hat-biti_, again with the cartouche of Necho. (_Cf._ de Rougé, Géographie de la Basse Égypte, p. 22.) * * * * * CHAPTER I.