Vol.I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

CHAPTER VIII.
The Churches of Upper Egypt.
The Monasteries of St. Antony and St. Paul in the Eastern Desert.
The Convent of the Pulley. The White and the Red Monastery.
Church at Armani. The Churches of Nakddah. Church at
A ntinoe. Miscellaneous.
P to this point the descriptions of churches
and places of interest in Egypt have been
drawn entirely from my own observation
and experience: but there now comes a
large branch of the subject which is still almost
absolutely unexplored, and to which I can unhappily
contribute nothing, except a collection of scanty
notes derived from other travellers. The hurried
yet formal progress of the khedive, which I accom-
panied through Upper Egypt to the First Cataract,
did not give me a chance of a single visit to a
Coptic church : nor can I well hope ever again to
ascend the valley of the Nile. But it will be some-
thing to indicate some portion of the work which has
yet to be done, especially in these troubled times,
when the danger is lest a surge of Muslim fanaticism
should sweep away all the still unchronicled remains
of Christian antiquity, ere a '
learned rover '
can be
found to record them.
The number of monks and monasteries in Upper
Egypt, from the fourth century onwards, seems to have