Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/47

Rh station for making observations on the recent transit of Venus. The spot is marked by a block bearing the following inscription:— Mountseirsinaiwe00hull Page 047.png

Next in interest to the Pyramids we may place the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Cairo, a collection of surpassing interest and variety, illustrative of ancient Egyptian art, collected mainly through the instrumentality of Mariette Bey. The museum stands by the banks of the Nile. It unfortunately happened that at the time of our visit the Director, to whom I had a letter of introduction, was absent, and the official catalogue had not then been published, but with the aid of either "Murray" or "Baedeker," and the inscriptions accompanying the objects themselves, the visitor need be at no loss.

In this place I may refer to the Nile oscillations. On the wall of Shepherd's Hotel is to be seen a map, or diagram, upon which is represented the oscillations of the water for each year as it comes round. Those for the year 1882-3 were as follows:—