It was at about noon in the month of August when my friend and I, perspiring in a rest-house at Sohag in Upper Egypt, conceived the idea of setting out at once for a sixty-mile ride into the Eastern Desert and back. The weather during the last few days had been unusually hot, and the thermometer had registered with regularity each afternoon its 115 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade. Looking now through the half-closed shutters towards the Nile, one saw the muddy river rushing past in full flood with the sun glaring down upon it from a leaden sky; the parched fields and weakly coloured trees stirring in the baking hot wind; and, in the distance across the water, the hazy hills of the Eastern Desert with no apparent vestige of shade upon them. In the sandy garden around the house the few flowers appeared to be scorched, and the despairing gardener could be seen lying asleep in the single patch of shadow. The sparrows, sitting upon the palings, held their beaks open and kept remarkably still. A dog, with its tongue lolling out of its mouth, crawled dejectedly past the sentry at the gate, who was too hot to kick it. The morning’s work being finished, we were seated in the long chairs, clad in pyjamas, drinking lukewarm lemonade, and talking about Scotch moors, when the idea came. My friend had told me of a remarkable valley which he had visited some years ago, called the Wady Salamûni, wherein there were the ruins of a Coptic monastery still the object of a pilgrimage on certain occasions to pious Copts, and near by a well, known as Bir el Ain, charmingly situated amongst the rocks. It was to this well that we proposed to ride. Speedily we arranged for horses to be sent round, and rapidly we filled our saddle-bags with the requirements for twenty-four hours: a small pillow and a blanket apiece, some hard-boiled eggs, cold meat, and biscuits, and two large bottles of water. That done, we dressed and ate a hasty luncheon, setting forth in the blaze of the sunshine at the infernal hour of one.