THE LATE MME. DE FRANQUEVILLE.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—May I through the Spectator call attention to a small error in the interesting biography of Sophia, Comtesse de Franqueville; reviewed in your columns on October 11th ? Writing of Lady Sophia Palmer's stay in Egypt and visit to the great temple of Aboo-Simbel, Lady Laura Ridding says (p. 94) that after that year-1882—no European tourist was allowed to travel up the Nile as far as these Nubian temples for seventeen years; in fact not until after the overthrow of Male:limn at Omdurman on September 2nd, 1898. I do not suggest that there were no restrictions, but I believe they varied from time to time, in accordance with local 'conditions. Certainly in February, 1892, it was possible to go fo Aboo-Simbel, for ray sister and cousins, who spent that winter on the Nile, in a dahabeeyah, visited Ahoo-Simhel as their furthest point on February 22nd. My sister noted in a diary that Captain Johnson, R.E., and twelve sappers were at work breaking up a stone which threatened to fall on one of the large figures on the front of the temple.—I am, Sir, &c., J. E. Calm. Onslow Gardens, S.W. 7.
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