At the point where the causeway passes the boulder the hard surface of the upper desert literally bristles with countless little heaps of stones, each consisting of a small upright slab of rock held in place by two or three others. Fragments of pottery indicate that a bowl, perhaps containing water, had been placed beside each pile. Here, then, are the memorials of the travellers who set out for distant Arthet from the fair city on the island, which may from this point be seen floating in the blue waters of the Nile below. These stones are the prayers of those who asked a prosperous journey from the gods of their city: from the old ram-headed Khnum who lived in the dark caverns below the Nile; from Satet, the horned goddess whose bow and arrows were the terror of her enemies; and from Anuket with the crown of lofty feathers. For a short distance one may follow the paved road, now, as it passes southwards and westwards amidst the blackened rocks and golden sand-drifts of this lifeless land; but presently it tops a deeply shadowed ridge of rock and sand, and so descends into, and is lost amidst, the wide, undulating desert, ablaze with the light of the setting sun. There are not many persons who will find themselves able to follow the road by camel, as I did, or to take ship up the Nile, to Arthet, in order to see the terminus of the first part of the highway. The road descends to the river behind the rich fields of the straggling village of Tomâs, near Derr, the present capital of Lower Nubia. The scenery here is beautiful in the extreme. A short distance down-stream a bluff of rock, projecting to the water’s edge, and half-covered with drift-sand, marks the probable boundary between Arthet and Sethu. One might slide here from the top of the bluff down the golden slopes to the verdant thorn-bushes which dip towards the river, and from either side of the track one’s figure would be seen sharply against the deep blue of the sky. Sliding, one would see on the left the rocks and the sand of Sethu, and distantly the superb array of the mountains of Wawat; while on the right the green bay into which the road descended would lie spread as a feast to the eye. Farther up-stream a wooded island rests upon the mirror of the Nile, whither the inhabitants must often have fled at the approach of the Egyptians from the desert.