‘A JOURNEY IN THE EAST, 281 
large and well-cultivated island, where we steamed up the 
eastern arm of the river, and soon saw the small but charmingly 
situated temple of Kum-Ombu; and as night was falling we lay 
to below the temple, near a dahabeeyah occupied by Europeans. 
The dragoman belonging to this. party—a clever Dal- 
matian sportsman, called Paulovich—came on board the 
steamer after dinner and advised us to get a bleating kid and 
go to the temple, hide ourselves well, and watch for wolves. 
No sooner said than done; and at nine o’clock I crept with 
Hoyos up the steep banks, and rambling about the desolate 
temple we found, on its western side, a pillar which would 
serve as a good hiding-place. So we tied the kid up a few 
paces in front of it, and watched for two hours with the 
greatest attention ; but nothing stirred. 
It was a weirdly beautiful scene: the old temple, with its 
gloomy colonnades, and the boundless desert, broken only by 
a few rocks and ruins, all illumined by the splendid African 
moon—not with the pale lamplight moonshine of Hurope, but 
with a brightness like that of day, which showed the smallest 
stone, and allowed the sportsman on the watch and even the 
artist at his drawing to see quite clearly. 
Unluckily the Europeans from the dahabeeyah were also 
out shooting near our hiding-place, and came past the temple 
with the cackling hens that they had taken with them as 
lures; so that our best hopes vanished, and we returned 
to our steamer. Still, I shall never forget that beautiful 
moonlight night. 
The ruins of the temple are exceptionally picturesque, but 
half-buried in the sand; and Kum-Ombi (7.e. the hill of 
Ombu; hieroglyphic Nubi, i.e. the golden town; Greek 
Ombos or Ombi) was the capital of the district, afterwards 
called Ombites. Both the town and the temple were detested 
by the rest of Egypt; for here Set, the ancient Hgyptian 
Typhon, was worshipped in one of his principal forms. The 
