There are large mounds of rubbish, and fragments of pottery, in this place. Several travellers have expressed their astonishment at the immense heaps of rubbish consisting chiefly of pottery which are met with on the sites of ancient Egyptian towns; and, if we are to attribute their formation to the accumulation of the fragments of earthen vessels used by the inhabitants for domestic purposes, they are indeed truly surprising; but I ascribe their origin to another cause. In Upper Egypt, the walls of the peasants houses are very frequently constructed in part of jars placed one over the other, and cemented together with mud; in walls of inclosures, or in such as require only a slight roof, the upper part is very generally formed of the same materials; in the parapets also of the flat-roofed houses a double or triple row of red pots, one over the other, usually runs round the terrace, to conceal the females of the family when walking upon it. Pots are preferred to brick, because the walls formed of them are lighter, more quickly built, and have a much neater appearance. They possess, likewise, another advantage, which is, that they cannot be pierced at night by robbers, without occasioning noise, by the pots falling down, and thus awakening the inmates of the dwelling, while bricks can be removed silently, one by one, as is often done, by nightly depredators, who break into the houses in this manner. If then we suppose that pot walls were in common use by the ancient inhabitants, the large mounds of broken pottery may be satisfactorily accounted for. As for stone, it seems to have been as little used for the private habitations of the ancient Egyptians, as it is at the present day. Near Wady Meharraka the island of Derar commences. At eight hours and three quarters is the village of Korty. About two hundred yards from the river stands a ruined temple; it is the smallest I have seen, and may truly be called an Egyptian temple in miniature, being only ten paces in length; the cella and adytum are yet standing; the pronaos seems to be buried under the sand. Of the sculptures, a few figures, and the winged globe over the gates, remain; but the whole temple is in a very mutilated state. At the end of nine hours and a half, we stopped at the house of a Shikh, on the southern extremity of Wady Dakke (وادي دقّه).