At dawn next day we steamed onwards, rounded the great bend of the Nile between Korôsko and Derr, and halted during the morning at the foot of the hill of Kasr Ibrîm upon which the commanding ruins of an ancient fortress basks in the sunshine. One climbs up a winding path upon the north side of the hill, and mounts under impregnable walls to the narrow gateway, which it is almost surprising to find open. From inside this doorway a staircase rises to the higher levels of the hill; and now the ruined walls of the barracks cluster in close array before one, while over to the right another and more elaborate doorway, flanked by massive pylons, stands almost on the edge of the cliffs. These two doorways date from about B.C. 25, when the Roman General Petronius placed a garrison here after he had defeated the one-eyed Ethiopian queen, Kandake, and her thirty thousand warriors and driven them into the Sudan. A few hundred years later a Byzantine garrison erected a Christian church on the hill-top a short way to the south; and threading one’s way through the narrow streets between the deserted houses, this building suddenly comes into view. The ruin has a peculiar charm. The masonry arches and the well-built apse have, at the first glance, almost a Norman appearance; and here, as it were, at the top of the world, the scene is so foreign to Egypt that it holds all the charm of novelty to the Egyptologist, tired, as to some extent he must be, of the temples beside the Nile. The cliffs on the west side of the ruins drop almost sheer to the river, and from the top one may throw down stones which strike the green water far out of earshot and only just within sight. Sitting here in the morning sunshine, after our hot climb up the hill, a silent contentment possessed us which no words of mine can attempt to express. The river, the cultivation, and the desert were stretched out below us, all far away, and inviting only a mild quizzical contemplation. From this eminence we patronised Egypt, and smiled at all her petty troubles. What a place, we both declared, in which to build a little house! We could sit at the door all day long, smoking a pipe and musing upon the world’s worries at this safe distance from them. On second thoughts, however, my friend came to the conclusion that in a dreamer’s life of this kind a very good piano would be necessary and a few reproductions of great pictures. A small library, too, would be essential, and perhaps a few congenial friends. I was about to discourse with some heat upon the oppressiveness of culture and the intolerable demands it makes upon its devotees, chaining them to cities and communities wherein alone its rites may be practised, when I was checked by a glance at my watch; and forthwith we descended the hill down to the steamer and its sun-baked decks.