KUBTI— KENEH— KOSSEIE. 385 



The subterranean structures of Thebes have altogether supplied whole collec- 

 tions, which now form the pride of the various Euroj)ean museums. From the 

 crest of the surrounding hills and heaps of refuse, a magnificent panoramic view is 

 afforded of the groups of stupendous monuments in everlasting stone, raised by the 

 Setis and Ramses on the opposite side of the river. 



KuBTi — Keneh. 



The great bend described by the Nile in an easterly direction below Thebes, 

 and the wide breaches in the Ai'abian range at this point affording easy access 

 to the Red Sea, could not fail to confer paramount commercial importance on this 

 section of the valley. But the site of its central emporium has frequently been 

 shifted, each city, ruined by wars or even razed to the ground by conquering hosts, 

 still springing up again at some distance from its predecessor. In this region 

 Kuhti, the Coptos of the Greeks, and now the obscure village of Gtift or lioff, was 

 the oldest trading-place, dating from the eleventh dynasty, some five thousand 

 years ago. As a royal residence it was for a time the rival of Thebes itself, and 

 down to the massacre of the Christians which took place in the reign of Diocletian, 

 it continued to flourish as the entrepôt of the produce imported into Egypt by the 

 Red Sea and the port of Berenice. 



In the year 1883, while exploring a temple of Isis, Maspero discovered at 

 Coptos two black basalt square blocks, bearing the fragments of a remarkable 

 inscription, which had reference to the construction by the Roman legionaries of 

 some wells or cisterns on the routes from Coptos to Berenice and Mvos Hormos. 

 Coptos was succeeded as an emporium by Kus or Gus, the Apollinaris Parra of the 

 Romans, which stood some 5 or 6 miles farther down on the same right bank of the 

 river. During the time of the Caliphs and Mameluk sultans, Kus became the most 

 flourishing place in Upper Egypt. It is now replaced by Keneh, the Kainopolis, 

 or " New Town," of the Greeks, as the chief mart for the transit trade between the 

 Nile Valley and the Red Sea. Keneh is the capital of a province, and the centre 

 of a large pottery industry, supplying Lower Egypt with vast quantities of the 

 finest earthenware produced in the country. These objects are made by mixing 

 the ashes of alfa grass with the soft clay washed down from the Arabian range 

 by the "Wady-Keneh when suddenly flushed by the rare tropical downpours of this 

 region. 



KOSSEIR. 



The opening of the Suez Canal, and the consequent displacement of the 

 commercial centres, has greatly diminished the importance of Keneh as the 

 entrepôt of the traffic between the Nile and Red Sea. Owing to the same causes 

 the seaport of Kosseir, the outport of this trade and the place where the pilgrims 

 embark for Mecca, has also recently lost much of its activity and population. 

 Nevertheless the caravans still find their way across the desert between these two 

 points, and we still hear of the projected railway, some 120 miles long, which it is 



25— AF. 



