i86 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



of a hammer; but the works of old times were more ap- 

 parent in it, than in any mountain we had feen. Duels, or 

 channels, for carrying water tranfverfely, were obierved evi- 

 dently to terminate in this quarry of jafper: a proof that 

 water was one of the means ufed in cutting thefc hard 

 ftones. 



About ten o'clock, defcending very rapidly, with green 

 marble and jafper on each fide of us, but no other green 

 thing whatever, we had the firft profpect. of the Red Sea, 

 and, at a quarter pad eleven, we arrived at Coffeir. It has 

 been a wonder with all travellers, and with myfelf among 

 the reft, where the ancients procured that prodigious quan- 

 tity of fine marble, with which all their buildings abound. 

 That wonder, however, among mam/ others, now ceafes, 

 after having paffed, in four days, more granite, porphyry, 

 marble, and jafper, than would build Rome, Athens, Corinth, 

 Syracufe, Memphis, Alexandria, and half a dozen fuch ci- 

 ties. It feemed to be very viiible, that thofe openings in the 

 hills, which I call Defiles, were not natural, but artificial ; and 

 that whole mountains had been cut out at thefe places, to 

 preferve a Hope towards the Nile as gentle as poffible: this, 

 I fuppofe, might be a defcent of about one foot in fifty at 

 moft ; fo that, from the mountains to the Nile, thofe heavy 

 carriages muft have moved with as little draught as pof- 

 fible, and, at the fame time, been fufhciently impeded by 

 friction, fo as not to run amain, or acquire an increafed ve- 

 locity, againft which, alfo, there mud have been other pro- 

 vifions contrived. As I made another excurfion to thefe 

 marble mountains from Cofieir, I will, once for all, here fet 

 down what I obferved concerning their natural appear- 

 ance. 



The 



