284 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. 



whilst at other points the sahel or tehama of the coast is occupied by the low hills 

 of the tertiary epoch, moving sand-hills, and coraline reefs. The pyramid-shaped 

 islet of Zemerjit, which lies 60 miles o£P the coast in a line with the Râs-Benas 

 headland, serves as a landmark to the vessels entering the dangerous waters of the 

 Arabian Sea. 



The Nubian Gold Mines. 



The Elba Mountains merge in the interior with other heights of divers forma- 

 tions, in which the ancient Pharaohs worked gold and silver mines. It is certain 

 that, during its long period of splendour, Egypt was very rich in precious metals ; 

 in this respect the monuments are in harmony with the statements of the Greek 

 authors. Nubia appears to have furnished the greater part of the gold, and accord- 

 ing to a tradition, to which weight is added by the heaps of rubbish and galleries 

 hewn in the auriferous rocks and formerly inhabited caves, the principal mining 

 centre was at Wady- Allaki, which is a series of ravines stretching away to the west 

 of the Elba Mountains. These ravines were worked till the middle of the twelfth 

 century of the Christian era. The Pharaohs, Ptolemies, Greek emperors, and Arab 

 caliphs were obliged to protect their colonies of miners against the attacks of the 

 surrounding nomad peoples, successively termed Blemmyes, Bejas, and Bisharins ; 

 but the difficulties of obtaining sufficient wood to lio^ht the mines or water for the 

 miners were probably the greatest obstacle in the way of profitably working the 

 mines. All the supplies from the springs of the district had been carefully 

 husbanded, and along the ancient desert routes, above the springs, crosses sur- 

 mounted by a circle are still to be seen, indicating the presence of water. 



The description given by Diodorus Siculus, as well as the appearance of the 

 galleries, shows that the gold was not collected in the sands, but extracted from 

 the rock itself by the crushing process. This method was extremely costly, and 

 could not now be adopted imless the mines were extremely rich, like certain 

 Californian " placers." But the first exploration, undertaken by Linant de 

 Bellefonds for Mohammed Ali, followed by numerous visits made by various 

 geologists, have proved that the ancient mines of Nubia are no longer sufficiently 

 rich to be profitably worked. 



Hitherto no inscriptions or sculptures have been discovered in the mining 

 region ; however, a column found at Kuban, on the right bank of the Nile between 

 Korosko and Assuan, and the texts of the Egyptian temple of Padesieh, built on 

 the riverain route to the mines of Akito, shed much light on the resources of the 

 Pharaohs. Moreover, there is in the museum of Turin a fragment of an Egyptian 

 map, which represents a mining station with its shafts, depots, galleries, reservoirs, 

 and temple of Ammon. This precious document, the oldest of its kind, since it 

 dates from the time of Ramses II., is disposed in a way inversely to that of our 

 maps, the east side, which is that of the Red Sea, being to the left of the sheet. 

 It is as yet uncertain what mining district it is intended to represent. 



