JOURNAL RELATING TO NUBIA. 



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the heads only of two others. The distance between each as they 

 are placed in line, is eighteen feet ; between the opposite rows, thirty 

 feet. They are about eleven feet from the nose to the extreme parts. 

 The two first are much decayed, or were never finished ; the third, 

 making the second in the left row, is highly finished ; but the head, 

 which lies near it, has been struck off : the work of the head in the 

 opposite row is equally well executed. Between the two front 

 sphinxes are gigantic figures in alto relievo on pilasters. They are 

 about fourteen feet high, and formed the entrance to the avenue. 

 They have the left leg advanced ; they wear a breast-plate and pyra- 

 midal casque, and are four feet broad across the shoulders. On the 

 back of the pilasters are hieroglyphics as well as on that part of the 

 pilasters left uncovered by the statues. Similar statues, now thrown . 

 down, stood in front of the gateway of the moles ; one of them is 

 buried in the ground up to the waist, the other shows the whole length, 

 but is half covered with sand. All these are of the same hard sand- 

 stone as the moles. I could not discover any Greek inscriptions. 



May 28. — Having left Seboo the evening before, we arrived at 

 Ouffendoonee, where there are architectural remains in the neigh- 

 bourhood of a considerable village. I landed, and near the water- 

 side found an oblong building of about fifty-four feet in length, and 

 thirty in breadth, which seems to have been part of a Christian 

 church. There are sixteen columns, six on the north and south sides, 

 and four on the east and west, all perfect, of about two feet three 

 inches in diameter. At the east end a sort of chancel projects south- 

 ward at right angles with the south columns, on which are painted 

 scriptural figures, like those in the churches of the modern Greeks. 

 The capitals are not alike, nor do they appear to have been finished. 

 They support a die and entablature composed of single stones from 

 column to column, about six feet in length ; the shafts are proportion- 

 ably small. I saw many painted Greek inscriptions on the frieze of 

 the interior, in small characters, which I could scarcely distinguish ; 

 the first words of all were TO riPOIKTNHMA ; in the centre of the 

 frieze at the west end on a small stone tablet was the word IOHANNI 

 painted in red letters. 



