scarcely rise above the horizon, and lie like a white
edging between the green of the plain and the blue of the sky. The
Arabian hills do not form one unbroken line, but a series of mountain
masses with their spurs, now approaching the river, and now withdrawing
to the desert at almost regular intervals. At the entrance to the
valley, rise Gebel Mokattam and Gebel el-Ahmar. Gebel Hemur-Shemul and
Gebel Shekh Embarak next stretch in echelon from north to south, and are
succeeded by Gebel et-Ter, where, according to an old legend, all the
birds of the world are annually assembled.[*]

* In Makrizi's _Description of Egypt_ we read: "Every year,
upon a certain day, all the herons (Boukir, _Ardea bubulcus_
of Cuvier) assemble at this mountain. One after another,
each puts his beak into a cleft of the hill until the cleft
closes upon one of them. And then forthwith all the others
fly away But the bird which has been caught struggles until
he dies, and there his body remains until it has fallen into
dust." The same tale is told by other Arab writers, of which
a list may be seen in Etienne Quatremere, _Memoires
historiques et geographiques sur l'Egypte et quelques
contrees voisines_, vol. i. pp. 31-33. It faintly recalls
that ancient tradition of the Cleft at Abydos, whereby souls
must pass, as human-headed birds, in order to reach the
other world.

[Illustration: 12.jpg THE HILL OF KASR ES-SAYYAD. 2]

2 From a drawing by Boudier, after a photograph by
insinger, taken in 1882.

Then follows Gebel Abufeda, dreaded by the sailors for its sudden gusts.
Limestone predominates throughout, white or yellowish, broken by veins
of alabaster, or of red and grey sandstones. Its horizontal strata are
so symmetrically laid one above another as to seem more like the walls
of a town than the side of a mountain. But time has often dismantled
their summits and loosened their foundations. Man has broken into their
facades to cut his quarries and his tombs; while the current is secretly
undermining the base, wherein it has made many a breach. As soon as any
margin of mud has collected between cliffs and river, halfah and wild
plants take hold upon it, and date-palms grow there--whence their seed,
no one knows. Presently a hamlet rises at the mouth of the ravine,
among clusters of trees and fields in miniature. Beyond Siut, the light
becomes more glowing, the ai