Destinations: The Enchanted Island

Early in Agatha Christie’s mystery, Death on the Nile, the novel’s diminutive hero strolls through the serene public gardens of the Cataract Hotel in Aswan, Egypt. Immaculately clad in his white linen suit and panama hat, Hercule Poirot stops to admire the hotel’s spectacular view. “It enchants me,” he says, “the black rocks of Elephantine, and the sun, and the little boats on the river.”

Today, more than 60 years after Dame Agatha published her tangled tale of murder and intrigue on the cruise ship Karnak, Elephantine remains an enchanting place. A small, picturesque island positioned just north of the swirling waters of the Nile’s first cataract, Elephantine was once an important trading center between northern and southern Egypt. Originally called Abu, meaning elephant in Egyptian, the island’s name was changed to Elephantine by the Greeks—these names, perhaps, a reflection of the area’s once-prosperous ivory trade or the looming black cliffs along Elephantine’s coastline.