t arrest the attention of every passer-by on the river. It
encloses a great square of about 580 yards in the side; the walls are
40 feet thick, and in most places still reach a height of 20 feet. The
diagonal of the square runs, roughly, N. and S., and the S.W. wall is
parallel to the river. The S.W. corner has disappeared; indeed the
river now runs over the point where it must have stood. There is
evidence that the Nile has moved eastward at this point, but not to
any great extent, within the last 2000 years, for some remains of a
landing-stage, believed to be Roman, can still be seen a little south
of the town. About a quarter of the area inside the walls was cut off
from the rest by a curved double wall, and only inside this smaller
area are there many traces of buildings. Here, in the early part of
the century, was a large mound, but now the sebakhin have carried it
all away, and we look over a most desolate space, at one part red with
the broken pottery of all periods, thrown out from the sebakh-digger's
sieve, at another white with the salt that everywhere permeates the
soil. A few great brick walls remain, and the foundations of the
temple, but no part of the superstructure. Outside this town, but
inside the great square of the walls, the character of the ground is
quite different. There are no great masses of pottery, hardly any
brick walls; in the lower parts little parallel ridges in the soil
show that cultivation has been carried on there within the last few
years; for the rest, the ground is covered with pebbles, much like
the untouched desert, and here and there are fragments of pottery,
evidently of early date. These were most numerous on two or three
slight rises which, as we afterwards found, had contained groups of
tombs. Thus, on the day we arrived, was presented the first puzzle of
El Kab. The greater part of the enclosure had never been inhabited, at
least by people living in houses and using pottery. What, then, could
have been the purpose of the huge walls? The north wall (strictly, the
north-west, but called north for convenience) could be crossed by
walking up the great sand-slope, which reaches to its top on both
sides. This is driven up by the prevalent north wind. A similar, but
much smaller, heap has drifted against the north side of the south
wall. From the top of the north wall one has a good view of the whole
neighbourhood. The town lies at the mouth of a wide valley, flanked by
broken rang