J5T.58.] TO JOHN TORREY. 577 



things. Abou-Simbel the great rock temples of 

 this region, and the main thing to go up into Nubia 

 for we hope to reach to-morrow or day after. We 

 should have been there now, but were delayed at 

 Assouan by long negotiations before we could get 

 put up the Cataracts, and afterwards lost forty-eight 

 hours by breaking the rudder of our larger boat. No 

 letters till we get back to Thebes (Luxor) some 

 weeks hence. There I trust there is something from 

 you. . . . 



TO JOHN TORREY. 



January, 1869. 



. . . At Luxor, on our way up, we stopped only 

 half a day, and took our first view of the great temple 

 at Karnak. Left on the morning of January 8 ; 

 reached Esneh, the capital of Upper Nubia, in early 

 morning of the 10th. Sunday, passed the day and 

 night there. The Ptolemaic temple, or rather the 

 first court of it, very perfect and thoroughly cleared 

 out within, the columns especially beautiful and all 

 perfect. January 12, having sailed past Silsilis quar- 

 ries, etc., by night, reached Assouan before noon. 

 Here we reached the granite rocks and the basalt, and 

 the next day visited the quarries whence the obelisks 

 and all the great shafts, blocks, sarcophagi, granite 

 colossi, etc., have been taken during several thousand 

 years, the last almost two thousand years ago ; and 

 here are the chisel-marks and places cut to receive the 

 wedges as sharp and fresh as if the workmen had only 

 just left off work. Of course we viewed the obelisk 

 left in the rough, only partly detached. We were 

 moored right opposite Elephantine, and during the 

 two or three days' delay before we could arrange to 



