JOURNAL RELATING TO NUBIA. 425 



The first gate is plain, with a cornice and fillet above the door-way, 

 which is about sixteen feet high ; the masonry of it is twelve feet 

 thick ; there are openings at the top differing from any thing I had 

 seen in other temples, and which in fortification would be called 

 orgues. 



The second gateway is twenty-two paces distant, and has a winged 

 globe in the cornice ; the next is nine paces distant, and the portico 

 is fourteen paces from this. 



The breadth of the latter is nearly sixty feet ; the columns are 

 plain, with the capitals of the centre differing from those on the 

 sides ; they are half engaged in a wall. The centre is raised to form 

 a gateway ; the depth of the portico is about fourteen feet, and has 

 hieroglyphics in the interior. The ceiling of the portico was com- 

 posed of single stones reaching from the front to the hinder part ; 

 three of them remain. The portico is divided by a lateral wall from 

 several small rooms, which seem to be mere passages to the sanctuary ; 

 on the side walls of the first are hieroglyphics and figures ; beyond is 

 a second chamber ; and last of all the sanctuary ; in which are two 

 Monolithic temples of single blocks of granite in high preservation 

 and much ornamented. The largest is about twelve feet long and 

 three wide ; the other rather smaller. The last rooms are without 

 hieroglyphics, and the doors without cornice or ornament. The second 

 room and side chambers have ceilings ; that of the sanctuary is in 

 ruins. The whole depth from the front of the portico to the end is 

 seventy feet. The shafts of the columns are about fifteen feet high 

 and three in diameter, and without ornament. 



June 1. — I arrived at Philse soon after sunrise. The approach to 

 this place from the south presented a view still more sublime and 

 magnificent than that from the north and west. If it was placed, as is 

 generally stated, on the boundary * line of the ancient kingdom, and 



* The word Philae is not, according to M. Quatremere, derived from the Greek, but 

 from the Egyptian Pilakh extremite, alluding to its being the frontier town of Egypt. — 

 Mem. sur l'Egypte, i. 388. For the Greek origin of the word see Tillemont H. des Em. iv. 



3 I 



