1^4 TRAVELS IN UPPER 



The excessive heat of the sun rendered the 

 country through which I was passing truly a 

 torrid region. During my stay at Kous the ther- 

 mometer of Reaumur, placed in the shade, rose 

 to thirty-five degrees. 



We left Kous the 17th July, accompanied by 

 four Arabs. We followed the Nile on the eastern 

 side on horseback. We stopped in the middle of 

 the day at a village, the name of which, Nouzarie, 

 indicates that it is peopled by Cophts or Christians 

 of Egypt. We soon reached Karnak, a miserable 

 village, whose cottages would serve to heighten 

 the magnificence of the splendid ruins which sur- 

 round them, if there were any thing in the world 

 to be compared with the remains of Thebes, that 

 famous city of antiquity which was celebrated \>y 

 Homer. Luxor^ another village, built at the 

 southern extremity of the scat which this illus- 

 trious city held on this side of the river, lies about 

 a league farther off. It would have required more 

 lime than 1 had to spare, and more safety than 

 was to be found in this soil, covered over with 

 ruins and highway robbers, to have minutely 

 examined relics which immortality had preserved 

 amid the shock of ages and the rage of barbarism. 

 It would be no less difficult to describe the sensa- 

 tiop.s which the sight of objects so grand, so ma- 

 jestic, raised within rac. It was not a simple admi- 

 ration 



