* Domichen, Geographische Inschriften, vol. i. xxxi. 1. 1, where the dwarfs and pigmies who came to the court of the king, in the period of the Ptolemies, to serve in his household, are mentioned.  Various races of diminutive stature, which have since been driven down to the upper basin of the Congo, formerly extended further northward, and dwelt between Darfur and the marshes of Bahr-el-Ghazal.  As to the Danga, cf. what has been said on p. 226 of the present work.

[Illustration:  270.jpg THE ROCKS OF THE ISLAND OF SEHEL, WITH SOME OF THE VOTIVE INSCRIPTIONS]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph taken by Deveria in 1864.

Partly by commerce, and partly by pillage, the lords of Elephantine became rapidly wealthy, and began to play an important part among the nobles of the Said:  they were soon obliged to take serious precautions against the cupidity which their wealth excited among the tribes of Konusit.  They entrenched themselves behind a wall of sun-dried brick, some seven and a half miles long, of which the ruins are still an object of wonder to the traveller.  It was flanked towards the north by the ramparts of Syene, and followed pretty regularly the lower course of the valley to its abutment at the port of Mahatta opposite Philas:  guards distributed along it, kept an eye upon the mountain, and uttered a call to arms, when the enemy came within sight.  Behind this bulwark the population felt quite at ease, and could work without fear at the granite quarries on behalf of the Pharaoh, or pursue in security their callings of fishermen and sailors.  The inhabitants of the village of Satit and of the neighbouring islands claimed from earliest times the privilege of piloting the ships which went up and down the rapids, and of keeping clear the passages which were used for navigation.  They worked under the protection of their goddesses Anukit and Satit:  travellers of position were accustomed to sacrifice in the temple of the goddesses at Sehel, and to cut on the rock votive inscriptions in their honour, in gratitude for the prosperous voyage accorded to them.  We meet their scrawls on every side, at the entrance and exit of the cataract, and on the small islands where they moored their boats at nightfall during the four or five days required for the passage; the bank of the stream between Elephantine and Philae is, as it were, an immense visitors’ book, in which every generation of Ancient Egypt has in turn inscribed itself.  The markets and streets of the twin cities must have presented at that time the same motley blending of types and costumes which we might have found some years back in the bazaars of modern Syene.  Nubians, negroes of the Soudan, perhaps people from Southern Arabia, jostled there with Libyans and Egyptians of the Delta.  What the princes did to make the sojourn of strangers agreeable, what temples they consecrated to their god Khnumu and his companions, in gratitude for the good things he had