DESCRIPTIONS OF EGYPT. 
183 
feet thick, formed of huge stones, and running 
from north to south, is asserted to have been dis- 
covered in this desert. * This the Arabs suppose 
to have been formed by an ancient Egyptian king, 
and term it The Wall of the Old Man. In the 
cells of this arid region, the ancient Ascetics, e- 
qually ignorant and uncivilized as the savage Tro- 
glodytes who preceded them, lived a life, according 
to the expression of Sicard, more angelic than hu- 
man. The monasteries of St Anthony and St Paul 
are still inhabited by Coptic monks, who, while 
they claim an absolute power over daemons, ser- 
pents, and wild beasts, are unable to protect them- 
selves from the Arabs of the desert. In the vici- 
nity of these monasteries the only partridges in 
Egypt are found, f To the east of Syene, at the 
distance of about forty miles, Mount Baram indi- 
cates the situation of the Basanites Lapis Mons 
of Ptolemy, from the quarries of which a hard 
black stone, often employed in forming domestic 
utensils, has long been dug. The Roman station, 
Castra Lapidariorum, is supposed to have been si- 
tuated in its vicinity. The city Alabastron lay 
much lower in the desert of the Thebaid, and al- 
most in the parallel of the ancient Oxyrinchus. 
Its ruins may be observed on the north of Mount 
* Maillet, Descr. de PEgypte, p. 321. 
f Granger, Voyage en Egypte, p. 400. 
