Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/475

 KUBTI— KENEH— KOSSEIB. 886 The subterranean structures of Thebes have altogether supplied whole collec- tions, which now form the pride of the various European museums. From the crest of the surrounding hills and heaps of refuse, a magnificent panoramic view is afforded of the groups of stupendous monuments in everlasting stone, raised by the Setis and liamses on the opposite side of the river. Kuirri — Eeneh. The great bend described by the Nile in an easterly direction below Thebes, and the wide breaches in the Arabian range at this point affording easy access to the Red Sea, could not fail to confer paramount commercial importance on this section of the valley. But the site of its central emporium has frequently been shifted, each city, ruined by wars or even razed to the ground by conquering hosts, still springing up again at some distance from its predecessor. In this region Kubti, the Copfos of the Greeks, and now the obscure village of Gv/t or Kqff, was the oldest trading- place, dating from the eleventh djiiasty, some five thousand years ago. xVs a royal residence it was for a time the rival of Thebes itself, and down to the massacre of the Christians which took place in the reign of Diocletian, it continued to flourish as the entrepot of the produce imported into Egypt by the Red Sea and the port of Berenice. In the year 1883, while exploring a temple of Isis, Maspero discovered at Coptos two black basalt square blo<k.s, bearing the fragments of a remarkable inscription, which had reference to the construction by the Roman legionaries of some wells or cisterns on the routes from Coptos to Berenice and Jilyos Hormos. Coptos was succeeded as an emporium by Kiis or Gus, the Apollinaris Parra of the Romans, which stood some 5 or 6 miles farther down on the same right bank of the river. During the time of the Caliphs and Mameluk sultans, Kus became the most flourishing place in Upper Egypt. It is now replaced by Keiieh, the Kninopolis, or " New Town," of the Greeks, as the chief mart for the transit trade between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea. Kcneh is the capital of a province, and the centre of a large pottery industry, supplying Lower Egypt with vast quantities of the finest earthenware produced in the country. These objects are made by mixing the ashes of alfa grass with the soft clay washed down from the Arabian range by the Wady-Keneh when suddenly flushed by the rare tropical downpours of this region. KOSSEIR. The opening of the Suez Canal, and the consequent displacement of the commercial centres, has greatly diminished the importance of Eeneh as the entrep6t of the traffic between the Nile and Red Sea. Owing to the same causes the seaport of KoHsei'r, the outport of this trade and the place where the pilgrims embark for Mecca, has also recently lost much of its activity and population. Nevertheless the caravans still find their way across the desert between these two l)oints, and we still hear of the projected railway, some 120 miles long, which ii is 25— AP.