"We had an agreeable surprise in two ways: we found the papyrus plant represented on the walls of the temple, and the guide took us to a spot near the ruins where the papyrus was growing. We had often heard of this plant, and longed to see it. You know, probably, that it was the substance from which the Egyptians made their scrolls, whereon most of their writing was done, and it is from 'papyrus' that our modern word 'paper' is derived. [Illustration: THE PAPYRUS JUNGLES OF THE NILE.] "The plant that we saw was a small one, or rather there was a little cluster of small plants growing in a pond among other aquatic products. It is uncertain whether the papyrus ever grew naturally in this part of Egypt; at all events, it is not easy to find it at present, except where it is artificially cultivated. In Abyssinia and farther up the Nile the papyrus grows in marshy ground, and sometimes little else can be seen for miles and miles. It has a mass of roots that spread out in the mud, and throw up a cluster of stalks from five to ten feet high. The plant is a very graceful one, and it is no wonder that the Egyptians made free use of it in their ornamentation. "In making paper from the papyrus plant the Egyptians used to cut it into thin slices, which they laid side by side, and then covered with other slices at right angles to the first. In this form it was slightly moistened and pressed down, and the sheet could be made of any size by simply extending it and connecting the edges. It was used for many other purposes than the manufacture of paper: boats, baskets, and boxes were made from the papyrus plant; cordage was spun from the fibres, the pith was eaten as food, a salve was made from the pulp and applied to sores, and the roots were burnt as fuel in houses, or fashioned into useful or ornamental articles. Altogether the papyrus seems to have been nearly as useful to the inhabitants of Egypt three thousand years ago as the bamboo is to the native of China and Japan to-day. "Wherever there was space to scratch or write a name on the walls, we found that previous travellers had not scrupled to convert the Temple of Philæ into an autograph album. Names of those who had come there in the last two hundred years were visible in great numbers; the most prominent memorial of this kind was a tablet recording the occupation of Philæ by General Desaix's army at the time Egypt was held by Napoleon I. This tablet was defaced by some Englishmen in 1848, but was afterward restored by French visitors, and has since been undisturbed.