Then a stumbling step would bring the attention down to the pathway once more, where a lizard, scuttling away over the stones, would direct one’s glance into some shadowed cranny where the creepers flowered amongst the gravel. At intervals along the path small piles of stones had been placed upon the rocks at the wayside, either to mark the road or to act as the record of the passage of a pilgrim, this latter being the custom obtaining amongst desert people from remote times, though I have never been able to ascertain clearly whether it has a religious origin. Guiding ourselves by these little heaps when the path was obscure, at length we came, quite suddenly, upon the Coptic ruins to which the pilgrims were wont to journey; and here we dismounted for a few minutes. High upon a ledge of rock, a hundred feet from the valley, a small, ruined building of unburnt bricks clung perilously to the cliff, and marked the site where a forgotten Coptic hermit had dwelt in the early centuries of the Christian era. A chimney in the rock appears to have led up to it, for there is some more brickwork to be seen here. But probably a rope-ladder against the face of the cliff was also used, for these anchorites were not uncommonly as agile as they were saintly, choosing to live, as they so often did, in inaccessible caverns, or on the perilous topes of ruined temples, or even upon the capital of an ancient column. Upon the shelving cliff-side ran a ledge of rock, a continuation of that on which the building was erected. This had been made into a kind of promenade about a hundred yards in length, blocked at the far end by a stout wall. A low fender of stone passed along the brink of the ledge, thus preventing the danger of a headlong fall into the valley below on the part of the star-gazing hermit, who, presumably, took his daily constitutional at this fine elevation. In honour of the saint, as it would appear, a small chapel had been built at the foot of the cliff; and, though this is now much ruined, two of its arches, constructed of thin, red bricks, are still intact, and some of the white-washed walls are yet standing. Near this chapel there are the much-destroyed ruins of what seems to have been a small monastic settlement, perhaps founded in honour of the hermit of the cliff dwelling; but very little now remains of the settlement.