216 Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson on the Nile, and 



are built in the dyke ; and F the Hajer or slope of the desert, 

 extending from the junction of the irrigated land at H to the 

 limestone mountains, G. This section is given as if the dyke 

 were in one straight line, E. and W. from the river ; but in 

 reality they follow a tortuous course, visiting the various 

 towns on their way, and serving as roads, as well as an impe- 

 diment to the arbitrary overflow of the inundation. The 

 direction of a dyke, varying according to circumstances, may 

 be represented as in No. 2. It is on a plain of about five miles 

 in breadth. Some dykes are much more circuitous and indi- 

 rect even than this, but in all cases the principal care is to 

 place them so as to oppose the greatest force to the largest 

 body or pressure of water, and to ofl'er the readiest means of 

 communication from one village to another. 



I have already observed that the deposit gradually raising 

 the bed of the river, and the proportionate elevation of the 

 water of the inundation, tend to increase the extent of the 

 arable land of Egypt, and that there is now a larger tract of 

 cultivable soil E. and W. from the river than at any previotis 

 period. This I shall endeavour to illustrate by a similar sec- 

 tion, in which it will be seen that if the Nile, rising from its 

 ancient bed, AB, No. 3, inundated the country in the direc- 

 tion and at the elevation EF, it would, when raised to CD, 

 its modern bed (the land being also raised in proportion to G), 

 extend its inundation on the line GH to a far greater distance 

 over the Ilajer or slope of the desert, and give an additional 

 tract of cultivable land from F to H. That this has actually 

 taken place I have satisfactorily ascertained by excavations, 

 and by observing the quantity of alluvial deposit accumulated 

 round the base of ancient monuments, and by a comparison of 

 the height to which the water now rises and formerly rose 

 in the nilometcr of Elephantine. 



In the plain of Thebes are some colossal statues of Amunoph 

 the Third, of which two still occupy their original site, and 

 one of these has long been known under the name of the 

 " Vocal Memnon." They stood on either side of the dromos, 

 leading to a temple built by that Pharaoh, and at intervals, 

 between them and the temple, were other colossi, statues, and 

 tablets, long since thrown down or mutilated, and nearly 



