Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/486

 896 NORTH-EAST AI'EICA.. of Khmunu, which the Greeks and Romans called HermopoUs Magna, and whose necropolis, excavated in the Libyan hills, contains large numbers of mummified ibises and cynocephals. Farther east on the right bank, over against the town of Mallaireh-el-Arish, the palm groves surrounding Sheikh- Ahailch are strewn with ruins, the remains of the ancient Antinoc, founded by Hadrian in honour of Antinous. Numerous monu- ments of this Roman city, notably some superb Doric and Corinthian colonnades, were still standing down to the middle of the present century. But they have since been destroyed to supply lime and building materials for the modern buildings in the district. This part of the Arabian range also contains a vast number of sepulchral chambers. North of Sheikh- Abadeh the cliffs conceal other grottoes, some of which are nearly five thousand years old. These subterranean buildings which take the name of Bciii-Ifassan, from a neighbouring village, comprise the most interesting tombs in all Egypt, precisely because they are not consecrated to kings and high officials of the royal courts. The pictures on the walls have less conventional pomp, and represent fewer funeral rites and mystic ceremonies ; but they introduce us to the very life of the people : its struggles, its pursuits of all kinds, its family circles ; its sports and games, such as pitch and toss, tennis, hot cockles, and even cricket. The painted bas-reliefs of these tombs reveal to us the Egyptians of the olden times, such as they were in war, on their farms, in the workshop, in their hours of relaxation and repose. Here are revealed all the secrets of their crafts, and the very tricks of their jugglers and mountebanks. MiNIEH — AbU-GiKG. Minieh, or Miniet, which has replaced the ancient Miinat-Khnfu, or "Nurse of Cheops," is a provincial capital, and still one of the great cities of Egypt. It has preserved no remains of its ancient monuments ; but a large market is held under its wide-sprefading sycamores, and its sugar factory is one of the most active in the country. On a cliff near Minieh stands the famous Deir-el-Bakara, or " Convent of the Pullej%" so called from a pulley-rope by which its Coptic monks let them- selves down to the river, and swim out to ask bakshish of every passing vessel. In the interior of the Arabian desert, but much nearer to the Red Sea than the Nile, are situated two other convents of the " Lower Thebais," Saint Anthony and Saint Paul, the first of which, with a community of about fifty monks, is the oldest Christian monastery not only in Egypt, but in the whole world. Both possess shady gardens enclosed within the convent walls. The town of Abu-Girg, standing near the Nile and on the railway, has sup- planted in commercial importance its former rival Behnesch, which lies more to the north-west on the Bahr- Yusef amid the ruins of the ancient Pauisjat, the Oxyrrhin- chos of the Greeks. Then follow farther down the valley Mar/haga, Feshn, and Beni-Suef, the last-named capital of a province and a trading-place, where some cloth-mills are kept going. From time immemorial this has also been the chief