This part of the valley of the Nile is not very pleasing or fertile, the eastern bank being almost entirely swallowed by the desert. The village is called Abou-Hammed; and consists of a few houses, or rather wretched huts, built of mud and straw. The fortified house of Sheakh Halif is almost as large as the village itself: since his death it has not been occupied. It consists of a large quadrangular brick enclosure, with a circular tower at each corner. In the centre is a building of one story, in which are the divans and sleeping-room of the Sheakh. Along the enclosing walls are innumerable little huts,—the apartments of his wives and concubines, the latter of whom are said to have at one time amounted to no fewer than sixty. Opposite to this village is the Island of Mograt, which is principally remarkable for numerous fine doum trees, profusely scattered upon it. The Sheakh of this district paid me a visit, and informed me that it contained, chiefly residing on the island, twenty-five families; which, he said, probably consisted of 300 individuals. I remarked, that this was allowing a very great proportion for each family; but he replied, that one family consists sometimes of forty persons; a fact only to be accounted for by the polygamic privileges of the Mahometans. I am told that the district contains forty sakkeas, which confirms this estimate of the population, as seven or eight persons may always be reckoned to a wheel. The peasants of the island informed me that they pay twelve dollars and two ardebs of wheat as a tax for each sakkea. I searched over the eastern side of this island for antiquities; but without success, except a small fragment of a wall of unburnt bricks, apparently Saracenic. I neither found nor heard of any vestiges of its ancient rulers. The island is very rocky; I observed some of hornblende slate, and granite, with disseminated fragments of quartz, and beautiful specimens of Egyptian jasper. The Sheakh complained of its being rocky and not very fertile: “We toil hard,” said he, “but earn little:” yet this part of the valley of the Nile seems very healthy. The malaria which, higher up, after the time of the inundation, causes so much sickness and mortality, is here unknown. The tropical rains sometimes extend lower than this place, but not regularly: for three years rain has been entirely wanting, and the peasants complain of not having herbage in the valleys for their camels. I crossed the river to the Island of Mograt, on a raft or boat of the rudest description,—three logs of wood lashed together, with sides and square ends constructed in the same primitive manner. Perceiving that the natives passed in these safely, I did not hesitate to trust myself upon one. A peasant, with a clumsily constructed paddle, impelled and guided the raft; another holding up with one hand part of his dress, as a protection against the wind, while with the other he was employed in baling out the water.