About ten o’clock, descending very rapidly, with green marble and jasper on each side of us, but no other green thing whatever, we had the first prospect of the Red Sea, and, at a quarter past eleven, we arrived at Cosseir. It has been a wonder with all travellers, and with myself among the rest, where the ancients procured that prodigious quantity of fine marble, with which all their buildings abound. That wonder, however, among many others, now ceases, after having passed, in four days, more granite, porphyry, marble, and jasper, than would build Rome, Athens, Corinth, Syracuse, Memphis, Alexandria, and half a dozen such cities. It seemed to be very visible, that those openings in the hills, which I call Defiles, were not natural, but artificial; and that whole mountains had been cut out at these places, to preserve a slope towards the Nile as gentle as possible: this, I suppose, might be a descent of about one foot in fifty at most; so that, from the mountains to the Nile, those heavy carriages must have moved with as little draught as possible, and, at the same time, been sufficiently impeded by friction, so as not to run amain, or acquire an increased velocity, against which, also, there must have been other provisions contrived. As I made another excursion to these marble mountains from Cosseir, I will, once for all, here set down what I observed concerning their natural appearance. The porphyry shews itself by a fine purple sand, without any gloss or glitter on it, and is exceedingly agreeable to the eye. It is mixed with the native white sand, and fixed gravel of the plains. Green unvariegated marble, is generally seen in the same mountain with the porphyry. Where the two veins meet, the marble is for some inches brittle, but the porphyry of the same hardness as in other places. The granite is covered with sand, and looks like stone of a dirty, brown colour. But this is only the change and impression the sun and weather have made upon it; for, upon breaking it, you see it is grey granite, with black spots, with a reddish cast, or blush over it. This red seems to fade and suffer from the outward air, but, upon working or polishing the surface, this colour again appears. It is in greater quantity than the porphyry, and nearer the Red Sea. Pompey’s pillar seems to have been from this quarry.