286 EXTRACTS FROM 
its steep bank and were hastening up the bushy slope to the 
magnificent temple. After inspecting every part of it we 
walked to the most southerly point of the island ; and it was 
with sorrowful feelings that I clambered out to the very 
brink of its precipitous shore, and looked up the sacred stream 
over the widening valley and the plains of Nubia. 
A large portion of our journey was now accomplished, for 
we had reached our southernmost goal, and though the inter- 
tropical region of Nubia, the tropics, and by night the highest 
stars of the famous Southern Cross were luring and enticing 
us onward, we could follow them no longer. 
We aie the lunch which we had brought with us, in one of 
the ancient pavilions of the temple, now known as the kiosk. 
This building, with the terrace in front of it, rears itself proudly 
above the rushing stream on a high embankment, and is still 
in perfect preservation. 
From the entrance of its pillared hall one enjoys a distant 
view of exceptionally picturesque beauty, and there is an in- 
describable poetic charm in this wilderness and in the luxu- 
riantly green island with its grand memorials of a time long 
past away, which rises in its midst from the waters of the 
sacred stream. Philee is a picture which impresses itself upon 
the memory as one of the brightest: points of the journey, and 
one that can never be forgotten. 
Descending from the temple to the bank, we rowed up- 
stream to the Cataracts in a very primitive boat, and for a long 
time we could still see the rocky island, the black-granite cliffs, 
the flowering shrubs, and the towering temple, while the brown 
oarsmen sang melancholy songs that harmonized with the 
grandeur and beauty of the scene. 
Landing below the actual commencement of the Cataract, 
where the stream is split up into different branches, we walked 
along the rocky bank to a point from which one can see the 
whole of this wild confusion of rocks and water. The Cata- 
