Fae TS Rg Net fe Slim ace 
RT. 58.] TO JOHN TORREY. 517 
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 
he 
TO JOHN TORREY. 
January, 1869. 
- At Luxor, on our way up, we stopped only 
had: a je. 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 sab 
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 Elephantiné, and during the 
two or three days’ delay before we could arrange to 
