to be well waxed together.  One of the boys, about ten years of age, clothed in a peculiar manner, was finely formed, and made a favorable impression on my mind.  I would like to see what could be made of him if he were taken entirely away from his unfavorable surroundings and brought up with the care and attention that many American boys receive.  He and another lad went with me to see the obelisk in the granite quarry, and I tried to teach them to say:  “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  As I was repeating the first word of the sentence and trying to induce one of them to follow me, he said, “No blessed,” and I failed to get either of them to say these beautiful words.  In Egypt and other countries there are millions of persons just as ignorant of the gospel and just as much in need of it as the curly-headed Bisharin lad who conducted me to the granite quarry.

I took a pleasant boat ride across the river, past the beautiful grounds of the Savoy Hotel, to the rock tombs of the great persons of ancient Elephantine.  I tarried a little too long at the tombs, or else did not start soon enough, for darkness came upon us soon after leaving them.  For some distance the boatman walked on the shore and towed the boat with a long rope, while I tried to keep it off of the rocks with the rudder.  There was not enough wind to make the sail useful, and as we were passing around the end of Elephantine Island we drifted against the rocks, but with no other loss than the loss of some time.  It was my desire to see the Nilometer on the island, and I did see it, but not until after I had sent the boatman to buy a candle.  This ancient water-gauge was repaired in 1870, after a thousand years of neglect.  The following description by Strabo is taken from Baedeker’s Guide to Egypt:  “The Nilometer is a well, built of regular hewn stones, on the bank of the Nile, in which is recorded the rise of the stream—­not only the maximum, but also the minimum, and average rise, for the water in the well rises and falls with the stream.  On the side of the well are marks measuring the height for the irrigation and other water levels.  These are published for general information. * * * This is of importance to the peasants for the management of the water, the embankments, the canals, etc., and to the officials on account of the taxes, for the higher the rise of the water, the higher the taxes.”  It needs to be said, however, that this “well” is not circular, but rectangular, and has a flight of steps leading down to the water.

On the way back to Cairo I stopped at Luxor, on the site of the ancient city of Thebes.  The chief attraction here is the Temple of Luxor, six hundred and twenty-one feet long and one hundred and eighty feet wide.  In recent times this temple was entirely buried, and a man told me he owned a house on the spot which he sold to the government for about four hundred and fifty dollars, not knowing of the existence