PREFACE
TO THE
SECOND EDITION.
Having experienced the public condescension towards me, not only in the acceptance of my Narrative, but in their general approbation, I conceive it my duty to express my sincere feeling of gratitude and devotion towards the British nation; and should chance again put me in the way of dedicating my humble services to Great Britain, I shall never fail to remember the generous enthusiasm by which the simple account of my operations, &c. has been received. I think it also my duty to make some remarks on events which have happened since the publication of my work, and which are calculated to strengthen my opinion in various points, in particular concerning the Temple of Jupiter Ammon in the Oasis el Cassar, and on the Egyptian Labyrinth. According to the descriptions of my old guides, Herodotus and Diodorus, I was led to suppose that the Oasis el Cassar might have been the seat of Jupiter Ammon, as I mention in vol. ii. page 210. It agreed in all points—in its products, and in the distance from the sea, mentioned by Herodotus, cap. clxxxi. Speaking of the Libyans who inhabited the sea-coast, he tells us, that penetrating the Desert for ten days’ journey west, pillars of salt are discovered, from the summits of which flows a stream of water equally cool and sweet; he speaks also of the celebrated Fountain of the Sun, which I mention in my Narrative, vol. ii. page 215. The amazing quantity of salt, the distance, and the fountain, together with many other concomitant circumstances, would have been sufficient proof to induce a hasty writer to conclude that he had reached the seat of Jupiter Ammon; but as I do not possess either the talent or the skill to enable me to judge at first view, caution is therefore the only method I can adopt previous to giving my firm opinion. The Oasis named Siewha was the only rival to that of El Cassar; its distance from the sea, its situation and products, combined to favour a supposition that it might have been the seat of Ammon, though it has not the above fountain. Mr. Brown, the celebrated traveller, and Hermann, have visited that Oasis; but neither asserts positively that place to have been the seat of Jupiter Ammon.
I have the pleasure to acquaint my kind reader, that since my first edition has been published, intelligence has been received that Mahomed Ali, the Pacha of Egypt, had sent an expedition of three hundred soldiers to Siewha; and that two European travellers, Messrs. Linon and Ricci, took that opportunity to visit the above Oasis; and that having examined it at their leisure, they found but scanty and insignificant remains of antiquity. Admitting, therefore, that Siewha is not likely to be the sacred spot where Ammon had his temple, what other can it be in these deserts but that which I visited? There are, indeed, two other Oases, that of Siout and that of Esne, (the Augila and the Garamantes mentioned by Herodotus, cap. clxxxii.); but these are so situated that they confirm me in my first opinion. According to that author, the first is about ten days farther on from the Oasis el Cassar; and the second is at other ten days from that, which is towards the Lotophagi. Having considered all these circumstances, with the ruins and tombs I found in the Oasis el Cassar, which has not yet been visited by any European, I hope my reader will not condemn me if I venture to assert, that the seat of Jupiter Ammon cannot be any other than the Oasis el Cassar, described in vol. ii. pages 211, 212.
The next is the Egyptian Labyrinth. There is scarcely any point in the various opinions of the antiquarians which has been so much disputed as this: the seat of the Egyptian Labyrinth is so elaborately described by Herodotus and Pliny, that one would suppose one could go straight to it, and find it there; but to the disappointment of travellers, there is not a single vestige whatsoever left to prove its situation. Many industrious antiquarians have formed various conjectures on that subject, but none give us a positive idea of the seat of this stupendous edifice. Many inquiries have been made of me since the appearance of my publication, and I have been almost blamed for not having found its seat. One of the northern journals supposes that I have positively trod upon it, according to my own description, without perceiving that I was on these magnificent ruins. This the writer supposes to be that very place which I called the city of Bacchus, as described in vol. ii. page 158, and plate 23.
The supposition, which arose from the circumstances of my having found several cellars under ground, which would agree thus far with the description of the Labyrinth, is very ingenious and fair from one who has not seen that place; but to prove that I have not committed such an error, I shall only refer to the description of those magnificent ruins, given by Herodotus in cap. cxlviii. and to the description I give of several cellars constructed under ground of sun-burnt bricks, and not more than ten or twelve feet square: as I think the comparison with these 1500 apartments, courts, and stupendous halls covered with white marble, of a sublime workmanship, will fully persuade my reader, that the most enthusiastic mind could not find the smallest ground to suppose that spot to have been the great Labyrinth of Egypt.
The next, and perhaps the most interesting point, will give more ground to criticism than any other part of this work. It is my asserting that the Egyptians knew how to form arches with the key-stone. I must certainly acknowledge, that in an enlightened age and country like this, it is somewhat presumptuous on my part, to make an assertion which will, if proved right, change the epochs and the origin of arches. I had time to reflect; I took the opinion of many wise and learned men on this subject; and I fully ascertained that they are still in the dark as to whether the Egyptians did or did not know the construction of arches with the key-stone. The arches I have described to be in Thebes are supposed by some to be Roman, by others Saracen; but none can decide, or give any other reason that the Egyptians did not know the use of arches, than that they built no bridges; and that the Greeks themselves had no bridges, till a certain epoch, for want of knowing how to make arches.
In the midst of all these several suppositions, I beg my reader to permit me to give my humble opinion, as it is said that every one can speak his own. In the first instance, I beg to observe, that the manner of building and erecting walls, by the Egyptians, is so totally different from that of any other nation, that if any traveller please to pay a little attention to all he sees in Egypt, particularly on what is known to be done by other nations, and then to compare them with the Egyptian works, he will find that there is a peculiarity in the latter, which renders them totally distinct from any other. I will not enter on the stony works, as that would carry me too far to explain the point intended; but confine myself to the brick work, as my principal document, by which I shall endeavour to persuade my reader, that the Egyptians knew how to construct arches by the key-stone, as we do in these days. The reason I give in this volume, at page 273, will perhaps be convincing enough to any one who will go and make his observations on the spot, as he will see clearly that none but the Egyptians could have taken the amazing trouble and labour to erect such walls, to no other purpose than to enclose their tombs; and it cannot be said that the Greeks built those arches in Thebes; for if the Egyptians had not known that art, the Greeks must have been equally ignorant of it.
The Romans are the only people who, according to some, could have erected these arches. I cannot agree with such supposition, as I cannot find a reason why the Romans should make such laborious work to preserve the Egyptian tombs, at an epoch when the Egyptian nation was almost extinct, and regarded by the Romans themselves as a conquered nation, and especially, when their old rites and customs were almost lost in oblivion. I cannot see, I repeat, what interest the Romans could have for so doing: I must therefore persist in observing, that these works are so totally different from the Roman manner of building, and so peculiar to the Egyptians, that I am certain if any impartial traveller will make the above observations in examining the difference of the works of other nations, particularly the Saracens, which are to be seen in various places in Thebes, and indeed, near to these very arches, and built with the same bricks from the ruins of the Egyptians, he will not hesitate to conclude that these arches were built by the Egyptians.
The only point which could be produced, perhaps, against my assertion is, that the Greeks might come to the knowledge of the arch, and introduce it into Egypt at an epoch when the rites and religious ceremonies of the Egyptians were still in force, I mean under the early Ptolemies; but how this can agree with the epoch of the first invention of the arch, I leave to others more instructed than myself to consider, and even then it still will prove that these arches now existing in Thebes were made by the Egyptians.
Further Observations on the Arches erected with Key-stones.
Since the publication of my work on Egypt, &c. intelligence has been received from that country, stating that Mahomed Ali’s expedition reached Dongola. Some English and French travellers, who followed these troops, observed several small pyramids on each side of the Nile: connected with which they found some small temples, which, according to their account, are erected on vaults or arches with key-stones. As the fronts of these temples are of Egyptian architecture, and connected with the said vaults, the arches themselves must consequently have been erected by the Egyptians, a circumstance which strongly corroborates my opinion given in vol. i. page 273, viz. that the Egyptians were acquainted with the use of arches made with key-stones, previous to the time of the Greeks.
It would not be improper to observe that we have no account of any other nation beside the Egyptians, having erected pyramids in Egypt or in Ethiopia. From the latitude in which these monuments are situated, they must be of the most primitive ages, probably, long previous to the invasion of the Greeks of these countries; and as the temples are connected with the pyramids, none but the Egyptians could have erected them.
I hope that some more able antiquarian than myself, will take this observation into notice, and by his own more correct remarks prove to the lovers of antiquity and the fine arts, that architecture in some of its branches, is probably of earlier origin than Vitruvius himself has stated it to be.