396 NORTH-EAST APEICA. 



of Khmunu, whicli the Greeks and Romans called Hermopolis Magna, and whose 

 necropolis, excavated in the Libyan hills, contains large numbers of mummified 

 ibises and cynocephals. 



Farther east on the right bank, over against the town of Mallaiceh-el-Arish, the 

 palm groves surrounding Sheikh- Ahadeh are strewn with ruins, the remains of the 

 ancient Antinoe, founded by Hadrian in honour of Antinous. Numerous monu- 

 ments of this Roman city, notably some superb Doric and Corinthian colonnades, 

 were still standing down to the middle of the present century. But they have 

 since been destroyed to supply lime and building materials for the modern buildings 

 in the district. This part of the Arabian range also contains a vast number of 

 sepulchral chambers. 



North of Sheikh- Abadeh the cliffs conceal other grottoes, some of which are 

 nearly five thousand years old. These subterranean buildings which take the name 

 of Béni-Hassan, from a neighbouring village, comprise the most interesting tombs 

 in all Egypt, precisely because they are not consecrated to kings and high officials 

 of the royal courts. The pictures on the walls have less conventional pomj), and 

 represent fewer funeral rites and mystic ceremonies ; but they introduce us to 

 the very life^of the people : its struggles, its pursuits of all kinds, its family circles ; 

 its sports and games, such as pitch and toss, tennis, hot cockles, and even cricket. 

 The painted bas-reliefs of these tombs reveal to us the Egyptians of the olden 

 times, such as they were in war, on their farms, in the workshop, in their hours of 

 relaxation and repose. Here are revealed all the secrets of *their crafts, and the 

 very tricks of their jugglers and mountebanks. 



MiKiEH — Abu-Girg. 



Minieh, or Miniet, which has replaced the ancient Munat-Khnfu, or " Nurse of 

 Cheops," is a provincial capital, and still one of the great cities of Egypt. It has 

 preserved no remains of its ancient monuments ; but a large market is held under 

 its wide- spreading sycamores, and its sugar factory is one of the most active in the 

 country. On a cliff near Minieh stands the famous Deir-el-Bakam, or " Convent 

 of the Pulley," so called from a pulley-rope by which its Coptic monks let them- 

 selves down to the river, and swim out to ask bakshish of every passing vessel. 



In the interior of the Arabian desert, but much nearer to the Red Sea than 

 the Nile, are situated two other convents of the *' Lower Thebais," Saint Anthony 

 and Saint Paul, the first of which, with a community of about fifty monks, is the 

 oldest Christian monastery not only in Egypt, but in the whole world. Both 

 possess shady gardens enclosed within the convent walls. 



The town of Abu-Girg, standing near the Nile and on the railway, has sup- 

 planted in commercial importance its former rival Behneseh, which lies more to the 

 north-west on the Bahr- Yusef amid the ruins of the ancient Pamsjat, the Oxyrrhin- 

 chos of the Greeks. Then follow farther down the valley Maghaga, Feshn, and 

 Beni-Saef, the last-named capital of a province and a trading-place, where some 

 cloth-mills are kept going. From time immemorial this has also been the chief 



