File:Up the Nile, and home again. A handbook for travellers and a travel-book for the library. (1862) (14577578687).jpg

Identifier: upnilehomeagainh00fair (find matches)
Title: Up the Nile, and home again. A handbook for travellers and a travel-book for the library.
Year: 1862 (1860s)
Authors: Fairholt, F. W. (Frederick William), 1814-1866
Subjects:
Publisher: London, Chapman and Hall
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ssessed; and the modern women ofEkhmim, with similar hopes and equal credulity,offer their vows to these relics for a numerous off-spring. Many blocks and fragments of statues inother parts of Egypt are supposed to be endowedwith the same property; but, he slily adds, thepopulation of the country is still on the decline. About three miles further up the river, and onthe same side, is the Coptic monastery of which thefollowing woodcut is a view. It stands on a sandymound, and is encircled by arid cliffs. It is a goodspecimen of these lonely, prison-like homes of theChristian monks. A high wall completely hides theconventual buildings; the domes of the sacrededifices only appearing above it. One small gategives ingress to the whole \ when this is closed, the SIOTTT TO KENEH. 197 building is at once converted into a fortress sufficientlysecure against the attacks of Arabs ; these evil neigh-bours, with their convenient desert, being close uponthem. The double tower and small enclosure in
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advance of the gate and walls, is entirely devotedto pigeons, for whose use and breeding it has beenespecially constructed. A more gloomy home forman it might be difficult to find; Egypt was thechosen place for the self-tormenting ascetics of theearly and middle ages,—a class of persons deservingof anything but veneration, although enrolled among saints/5 It cannot be too clearly remembered,that they are only saints of mans making, and theirclaim to the title would be clearly disputed in thepresent day. St. George is the patron saint of the CopticChristians, and his exploit with the dragon is 198 UP THE XILE. delineated in very ancient paintings in thesechurches, as well as upon the temples they con-verted into churches, as at Dakke in Xubia. It willbe remembered that his legendary history lays thescene of the famous encounter in Egypt, and thatthe lady freed from the monster by his prowess wasthe daughter of the Sultan of Egypt. The dragonis merely a winged crocodile ; and it is so

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