Wf1/4624(15)

Inscription: Signed 'Frith' in the negative.

Genre: Landscape Photography

View looking towards the Nile, with excavated mounds of rock of the in the foreground: 'We are twelve miles from Cairo. Our 'ark' is moored at the village of Toura, a name which is probably derived from that of the ancient town which once stood here called, Triocus Magnus ... The ancient historians mention the mountains which bound the plain of Toura as the site of the quarries from which the material for the Pyramids was obtained; and an inspection of these quarries will confirm this information, for they are of great extent, and contain hieroglyphic tablets and inscriptions, with the names of early kings. The northern portion is still worked, and a railway has been laid down by the Pacha from the mountain to the river; but many of the ancient quarries are on the very summit of the hill, around the place from which our view is taken. We have had a long weary trudge over that hot sandy plain; it is four or five miles across, and the rocks are steep and high; and the black sailor-man, with bare legs and feet, who carried our camera, had to rest half-way up, and eat his all-day biscuit and smoke a pipe; but we are amply rewarded by the view from the summit. This is a worthy glimpse of the Nile valley; you can see the great river for twenty or thirty miles, fringed with palm groves and villages, and dotted with white sails; and you see in the dim distance the Pyramids of Geezeh, perhaps twenty miles away, but cutting great broad-based wedges into the clear blue sky. This view was taken during the progress of the inundation, a large tract of country in the direction of the Pyramids being overflowed. The quarries consist of innumerable caves or chambers, many of them connected by subterraneous passages, and are interesting not only from their extent and antiquity, but because that here may be seen the manner in which the stone was cut. Tiers of stones were removed in the form of steps until the intended floor of the quarry was reached ...'