JOURNAL RELATING TO NUBIA. 



413 



them, forming a front of about one hundred and ten feet. The upper 

 part of the moles to within three or four layers of stone above the 

 gateway was in ruins. The moles are eighteen or twenty feet thick, 

 of solid masonry ; within is a court of about forty feet, now filled with 

 broken shafts and capitals ; it appears to have had a colonnade to the 

 side walls joining the moles with the portico. The latter consists of 

 four columns, a lateral wall divides this portico from a suite of four 

 inner apartments, the door-ways to which have the winged globe in 

 the cornice. Three of these apartments are covered with hierogly- 

 phics and symbolic figures ; there are remains of colouring very fresh 

 and clear. All the apartments are encumbered with ruins, and have 

 scarcely any ceiling left, 



The front of the portico is plain, with the exception of a winged 

 globe over the gateway. Within are scriptural paintings ; a head 

 similar to those represented in the churches of the Greeks appears 

 with a nimbus around it, above the ruins on the wall of the last apart- 

 ment, with some Greek characters. The moles have no hieroglyphics 

 or symbolic figures excepting a few at the gateway, and these are in 

 the first outline. The shafts of the columns are nearly six feet in 

 diameter ; the height appears to contain from five to six diameters, 

 a common proportion in Egyptian architecture. On a column is a 

 Greek inscription in red letters*; there are two more also which I 

 did not copy, and one in Coptic. 



May 18. — In the morning we sailed, but were obliged to moor 

 below Abouhore on the east bank, which is enclosed by barren rocks 

 of sand-stone and granite ; I mounted to the summit of these and 

 found the whole country to the east as far as the eye could reach 

 broken into masses of rock presenting a most frightful and desolate 

 appearance. On the shore I observed remains of Roman brick- 

 work. 



May 19. — We reached Abouhore, and were again obliged to stop. 

 Here the hills recede and leave a large space of ground for cultivation 



* See the remarks on Greek inscriptions at the end of the volume. 



