The largest of the two most considerable pyramids,
named QuntAr, was about thirty-five feet high, and
towards the south-east were the remains of an ante-
chamber. Around these two were grouped twenty-
one smaller ones, of which four, like the larg^esfc
pyramid, were built entirely of sandstone, but are
now mostly in ruins ; others consisted only of black
basalt. Finally, westward of all the ground plan of
a large apparently quite massive and consequently
completely ruined pyramid was to be seen, whose
foundation was in the rock. It appears also that
this pyramid, which by its solid architecture was
distinguished from all the surrounding ones, be-
longed to a royal dynasty of Napata ; thus it was
easier to account for the want of city ruins here
than on the opposite side.
Three quarters of an hour down the stream on
the right, lies the little village of ZAma. Near
it, towards the mountains, rises an old fortress, with
towers of defence, called Karat N^gil, the outel*
walls of which were ruined and destroyed about
fifty or sixty years ago, when the present inhabitants
of Zuma settled hore. The name is derivod from
that of an old king of the country, called N^gil,
in whose time tbe surrounding land, which is now
barren, was still r^iched and fertilized by th«
Nile.
The first discovery on the road to the fortress
was another number of pyramids, of which eight
were yet about twenty feet high; including the
ruined ones, which seemed to have been as usual
the most massive, there were altogether thirty ; to



258 LETTERS FROM EGYPT.
the south-west the old quarries are yet to be seen,
which had furnished the materials for the pyra-
mids.
