[Illustration:  450.jpg THE ANCIENT QUAY OP PHILAE, NOVEMBER, 1904.]

     This is entirely covered when the reservoir is full, and the
     palm-trees are farther submerged.

The photographs accompanying the present chapter show the dam, the Kiosk in process of conservation and underpinning (1902), and the shores of the island as they now appear in the month of November, with the water nearly up to the level of the quays.  A view is also given of the island of Konosso, with its inscriptions, as it is now.  The island is simply a huge granite boulder of the kind characteristic of the neighbourhood of Shellal (Phila?) and Aswan.

On the island of Elephantine, opposite Aswan, an interesting discovery has lately been made by Mr. Howard Carter.  This is a remarkable well, which was supposed by the ancients to lie immediately on the tropic.  It formed the basis of Eratosthenes’ calculations of the measurement of the earth.  Important finds of documents written in Aramaic have also been made here; they show that there was on the island in Ptolemaic times a regular colony of Syrian merchants.

South of Aswan and Philse begins Nubia.  The Nubian language, which is quite different from Arabic, is spoken by everybody on the island of Elephantine, and its various dialects are used as far south as Dongola, where Arabic again is generally spoken till we reach the land of the negroes, south of Khartum.  In Ptolemaic and Roman days the Nubians were a powerful people, and the whole of Nubia and the modern North Sudan formed an independent kingdom, ruled by queens who bore the title or name of Candace.  It was the eunuch of a Candace who was converted to Christianity as he was returning from a mission to Jerusalem to salute Jehovah.  “Go and join thyself unto his chariot” was the command to Philip, and when the Ethiopian had heard the gospel from his lips he went on his way rejoicing.  The capital of this Candace was at Meroe, the modern Bagarawiya, near Shendi.  Here, and at Naga not far off, are the remains of the temples of the Can-daces, great buildings of semi-barbaric Egyptian style.  For the civilization of the Nubians, such as it was, was of Egyptian origin.  Ever since Egyptian rule had been extended southwards to Jebel Barkal, beyond Dongola, in the time of Amenhetep II, Egyptian culture had influenced the Nubians.  Amenhetep III built a temple to Amen at Napata, the capital of Nubia, which lay under the shadow of Mount Barkal; Akhunaten erected a sanctuary of the Sun-Disk there; and Ramses II also built there.

[Illustration:  452.jpg THE ROOK OF KONOSSO IN JANUARY, 1902, BEFORE THE BUILDING OF THE DAM AND FORMATION OF THE RESERVOIR.]