1 A JOURNEY IN THE EAST: 271 



Girgeh, but at daybreak the steamer got under weigh again, 

 and early in the morning we lay-to beside the large and 

 beautiful palm-forest of the insignificant mud-built village of 

 Beliane, where we had an opportunity of visiting one of the 

 temples built by Rameses and of experiencing the magic 

 charms of these monuments thousands of years old. 



"While we were inspecting the halls and chambers of the 

 temple, some vultures flew over from the neighbouring desert 

 mountains and circled high above us. We immediately 

 resolved to decoy these huge birds of prey, and the first thing 

 to be done was to look out for a proper place on which to 

 expose the bait. 



Behind the temple are some high heaps of ruins and rub- 

 bish, from which there is an open view of the wide desert 

 plains, which extend from the margin of the cultivated land 

 up to the base of the barren mountains, with their beautiful 

 forms and high precipices. This plain I now proceeded to 

 explore, looking for a suitable place, and while so doing I 

 found the remains of some old walls and half-ruined tombs, 

 while a few hundred yards from the temple there was a 

 regular field of the dead. 



In the days of the Roman emperors an entire legion had 

 here fallen victims to famine and epidemics, and the unburied 

 bodies of the Roman warriors are still lying about in wild 

 confusion, bodies one may literally say; for the African sun, 

 the burning sand, and the purity of the air have preserved 

 and turned them into natural mummies. I came across 

 entire bodies and detached legs, arms, and hands to which the 

 brown shrivelled flesh still adhered, and I was especially im- 

 pressed by a grinning skull with a scalp and dark lumps of 

 flesh on the cheek-bones ; another, which was less repellent, 

 I took with me as a memento. One had absolutely to wade 

 through skeletons and the dust of bodies. 



It was a true desert scene, with the dazzling white plain, 



