The Critic in the Orient

Among the Ruins of Luxor and Karnak

Luxor, the ancient city of Upper Egypt, which may be reached by a night train ride from Cairo, is the center of the most interesting ruins on the Nile. The city itself has been built around the splendid temple of Luxor, founded by Amenophis III, but altered and extensively rebuilt by Rameses II. From the Nile the colonnade of this temple is a beautiful spectacle, as the huge columns are in perfect preservation. Big tourist hotels make up most of the other buildings. The town boasts a good water front, which is generally lined in the winter season with tourist steamers. The view across the Nile is fine, as it includes the lofty Libyan range of mountains, in whose flanks were cut the tombs of the Pharaohs. Here, in two or three days, one may study the ruins of Luxor, Karnak and Thebes—names that the historian still conjures with.

All the Egyptian temples were built on one general plan, like the mosques of North India, and Luxor does not differ from the others, except that it surpasses them all in the beauty of its colonnaded pillars. Seven double columns, about fifty-two feet high, with lotus capitals, support a massive architrave, while beyond them are double columns on three sides of a great court. This temple of Luxor was originally built by Amenophis III of the eighteenth dynasty in honor of Ammon, the greatest of Egyptian gods, his wife and their son, the moon-god Khons. The successor of this monarch erased the name of Ammon and made other changes, but Seti I restored Ammon's name, and then came Rameses II, the builder who never wearied in rearing huge temples and in carving colossal figures of himself.

Rameses added a colonnaded court in front of the temple, built an enormous pylon, with obelisks and colossal statues that celebrate his own greatness, and erased the cartouches of the original builder, substituting his own and thus claiming credit for the erection of the whole temple. Were the spirit of the great Rameses allowed to return to earth and reanimate the mummy that now forms the most interesting exhibit in the Cairo Museum, how great would be his humiliation to know that his ingenious devices to appropriate the credit of other men's work have been exposed? In nearly all the remains of Upper Egypt, Rameses figures as the sole builder, but the cunning of modern archaeologists has stripped him of this credit and has revealed him as the greatest of royal charlatans.

The general plan of the Luxor temple is repeated at Karnak and all other places in Egypt. The pylon, two towers of massive masonry, formed the entrance to the temple, the door being in the middle. The towers of the pylon resemble truncated pyramids and, as they were formed of large stones, they frequently survived when all other parts of the temple fell into ruins. The surfaces of the pylon afforded space for reliefs and inscriptions, telling of the glories of the king who reared the temple. In most cases obelisks and colossal statues of the royal builder were placed in front of the pylon. From the pylon one enters the great open court, with covered colonnades at right and left. This court was the gathering place of the people on all big festivals, and in the center stood the great altar. Back of this court, on a terrace a few feet higher, was the vestibule of the temple upheld by columns, the front row of which was balustraded. Behind this was the great hypostyle hall, extending the whole width of the building, with five aisles, the two outer ones being lower than the others. The roof of the central aisle is upheld by papyrus columns with calyx capitals, while that of the other aisles is supported by papyrus columns with bud capitals. Behind this hall is the inner sanctuary, containing the image of the god in a sacred boat. Around the sanctuary were grouped various chambers for the storage of the priests' vestments and for the use of watchmen and other attendants.

In the Luxor temple the surface of the pylon is devoted to a record of the achievements in war of Rameses II, the monarch who finally revised the temple and put his seal on it. Behind the pylon is the great court of Rameses, entirely surrounded by two rows of seventy-four columns, with papyrus bud capitals and smooth shafts. Then comes a colonnade of seven double columns, fifty-two feet high, with calyx capitals; a second court, that of Amenophis III, with double rows of columns on three sides; the vestibule of the temple, two chapels, the birth-room of Amenophis and several other chambers.

Each monarch who reared a temple to his chosen deity devoted much space to statues of himself, with grandiloquent accounts in hieroglyphs of his exploits in war and peace and of the many peoples who paid him tribute. Rameses appears to have had most of the evil traits of the arbitrary despot. With unlimited men and material he was engaged during the greater part of his long reign in erecting colossal structures which were designed to perpetuate in enduring stone the record of his achievements. But Time has dealt Rameses some staggering blows. His tomb at Thebes, which was planned to preserve his mummy throughout the ages, fell in and is the only one of the tombs of the kings that cannot be shown. The mummy of this ablest and proudest of the Pharaohs is now on exhibition at the Cairo Museum with a score of others and excites the ribald comment of the Cook's tourist, who drops his "h's" and knows nothing of Egyptology. Yet the mummy of Rameses is by far the most interesting of those shown at the museum because the head and face are so essentially modern. The other rulers of Egypt were plainly Orientals, but this man, with the high-bridged, sensitive nose, the long upper lip, the strong chin and the powerful forehead, might have stepped out of the political life of any of the great European nations during the last century.

The impressiveness of the temple of Luxor depends mainly upon the rows of columns, nearly sixty feet in height, which give one a vivid idea of the majesty of Egyptian architecture in its best estate. These columns show few traces of the destroying hand of time, although they were carved from soft limestone. Probably the escape of this temple from the ruin that befell Karnak and Thebes was due mainly to its sheltered position and also to the fact that a Coptic church and the houses of peasants were built among the columns. The refuse that aided to preserve these remains of Ancient Egyptian architecture was fully twenty feet deep when the work of excavation was begun. Hence Luxor satisfies the eye in the perfect arrangement of the columns and in the massiveness of the work. Here also on the pylon and the walls of the court may be seen some beautiful reliefs and inscriptions which depict scenes in the campaigns of Rameses II against the Hittites, sacrificial processions and hymns to the gods.

From ancient Luxor to Karnak, a distance of a mile and one-half, the way was marked in the time of the Pharaohs by a double row of small sphinxes, many of which still remain in a half-ruined condition. This avenue leads to the small temple of Khons, the moon-god, made noteworthy by a beautiful pylon. This pylon is one hundred and four feet long, thirty-three feet wide and sixty feet high and is covered with inscriptions and reliefs. This small temple serves as an introduction to the great temple of Ammon, the chief glory of Karnak, to which most of the Pharaohs contributed. This temple is difficult to describe, as it covers several acres and is a mass of gigantic masonry, full of majesty even in its ruin. What it was in the days of its builders, with its vast courts lined with beautiful designs in brilliant colors, the imagination fails to conceive. Its greatest features are the main pylon (three hundred and seventy feet wide and one hundred and forty-two and one-half feet high), the great hypostyle hall of Seti I and Rameses II, the festival temple of Thotmes III and the obelisk of Queen Hatasu. From the pylon a superb view may be gained of the ruins of Karnak.

The hypostyle hall is justly ranked among the wonders of the world, as it is no less than three hundred and thirty-eight feet in breadth by one hundred and seventy feet in depth and it is estimated that the great church of Notre Dame in Paris could be set down in this hall. Sixteen rows of columns—one hundred and thirty-four in all—support the roof. Looking down the two central rows of columns toward the sanctuary, one gets some idea of the effect of this colossal architecture when the pillars were all perfect and the fierce sunshine of ancient Egypt brought out their barbaric wealth of gold and brilliant colors.

The walls of this immense hall are covered with pictures in relief depicting the victories of Seti and Rameses over the Libyans and the people of Palestine. These designs represent the two monarchs as performing prodigies of valor on the field of battle and then bringing the trophies of war as an offering to the gods. The festal hall of Thotmes III is made noteworthy by twenty unique columns arranged in two rows. The Temple of Karnak was made beautiful by two fine obelisks of pink granite from Assuan, erected by Queen Hatasu. One is in fragments, but the other rises one hundred and one-half feet from amid a ruined colonnade. It is the loftiest obelisk known with the single exception of that in front of the Lateran in Rome, which is taller by only three and one-half feet. The inscription records that it was made in seven months.

The impression left by the ruins of Karnak is bewildering. The modern mind has great difficulty in conceiving how any monarch, no matter how great his resources, could spend years in erecting these huge structures in honor of his gods. Here are scores of colossal statues of Rameses, Seti and Amenophis, each of which required six months to carve from a single slab of red or black granite. Here are hundreds of columns of from forty to sixty feet high, covered from capital to base with richly carved hieroglyphs. Here are splendid halls, larger than anything known in our day, which were picture galleries in stone, blazing with gold, red, purple and other colors. And here are obelisks that have preserved through all these centuries the story of their dedication.

The mind is staggered by so great a mass of work, representing untold misery of thousands of wretched slaves brought from all parts of the then known world. These slaves were made to work under the terrible Egyptian sun; if they were overcome by the heat and stopped for a moment's rest their bare backs felt the cruel lash of the overseer; if they fell under the heat and the burden they were dragged out and their bodies thrown to the vultures and the jackals. So, while we stand in amazement before these relics of the enormous activity of a people who have passed away, we cannot fail to note that these huge stones were cemented with the blood and tears of the bond slave, and that if they could find a voice they would tell of unthinkable atrocities which they witnessed in those old days, before brotherly love came into the world.

Tombs of The Kings at Ancient Thebes

The Greeks and Romans who went up the Nile as far as the "hundred-gated" city of Thebes declared that the Tombs of the Kings, cut in the limestone sides of the Libyan range of mountains, were among the wonders of the world. The tourist of to-day will confirm this early impression, for in Egypt nothing gives one a more vivid idea of the enormous pains taken by the Pharaohs to preserve their dead from desecration than do these tombs. Here for several miles in the flanks of these mountains—sterile, desolate beyond any region that I have ever seen—are scattered the rock-hewn tombs of the monarchs who carried the arms of Egypt to all parts of the known world of their day. Like their temples, the Egyptians built their tombs after a uniform plan—the only variation was in the arrangement of the minor chambers and in the inscriptions which told of the history of the king whose mummy reposed in the vault.

Seven miles across the river the Pharaohs chose the site of their tombs. Imagination could not conceive a greater abomination of desolation than the rocky mountainside in which these tombs are carved; but fortunes were lavished on the construction of these resting places of the dead. Historians and travelers have told of the great city which grew up about the tombs of the Egyptian kings—the temples, the homes of priests and the huge settlements of thousands of workmen who spent years in the laborious carving and decoration of these burial places. But to-day nothing remains of these cities, and of the temples only a few columns, pillars and broken statues bear witness to their former grandeur. Yet the tombs have resisted the destroying hand of the centuries, and the walls of several of them actually retain the brilliant colors laid on by the painters over four thousand years ago. When you go down the roughly-hewn steps into the mortuary chambers, carved out of the solid rock, it is borne in upon you that here time has stood still; that during all the ages that have seen the rise of Christianity and the growth of empires greater than Thebes ever dreamed of, the mummies of these Pharaohs reposed here undisturbed. Now by the aid of skilfully arranged electric lights you may descend into most of these tombs, marvel at the beauty of the decorative inscriptions on the walls, gaze upon the massive granite sarcophagi in which the mummies were placed, and get a genuine taste of the antiquity that you have read about but never fully realized before. This is the service of the tombs of the kings—the actual turning back of the centuries so that one feels the touch of the ancient days as vividly as he feels the hot, dust-laden, oppressive air of the mausoleum.

The excursion from Luxor to the tombs of the kings and the Colossi of Memnon, not far away, is a hard day's trip. The tourist crosses the Nile in a small boat and takes a donkey or a carriage. The road leads along a large canal, passing the remains of the great temple of Seti I at Kurna, and thence winds around through two desert valleys into a gorge lined on both sides with naked, sun-baked rocks that give back the heat like the open doors of a furnace. Bare of any scrap of verdure, desolate beyond expression, these rocky walls that shut in this gorge form a fitting introduction to the tombs of the kings. The road finally turns to the left and enters a small valley, encircled by huge rocks, cut by ravines. Here one may see in the sides of the mountain wall the first of the rock-hewn tombs, which happens to be that of Rameses IV. One enters the large gateway and passes down an ancient staircase cut in the solid rock, at an angle of forty-five degrees. Three corridors and an ante-room, all carved out of rock, lead to the main chamber, which contains the mammoth granite sarcophagus of the king (ten feet long, eight feet high and seven feet wide), beautifully decorated with inscriptions. Four other rooms follow, the walls of each being covered with inscriptions. Recesses are found in the main hall for the storage of the furniture of the dead and in several of the other rooms.

The theory of the Egyptians in the arrangement of these tombs was that the dead king, guided by the great sun-god, voyaged through the underworld every night in a boat. Hence he must have careful guidance in regard to his route. This was furnished by elaborate extracts from two sacred books of the Egyptians. One was entitled The Book of Him Who Is in the Underworld and the other was the Book of the Portals.

The walls of these tombs reveal extracts from the sacred books in great variety, but all designed to serve as a guide to the dead kings. The best tombs are those of Amenophis II, Rameses III, Seti I and Thotmes III. They are all of similar design but the tomb of Seti I (discovered by the Italian savant, Belzoni) is finer than any of the others. It includes fourteen rooms, most of which are richly adorned with inscriptions and designs from the sacred books. The sculptures on the walls are executed with great skill and the decorations of the ceilings show much artistic taste. In the tenth room are many curious decorations, the ceiling, which is finely vaulted, being covered with astronomical figures and lists of stars and constellations. From this room an incline leads to the mummy shaft. The mummy of Seti I is in the Cairo Museum, while the fine alabaster sarcophagus is in the Soane Museum in London. The tomb of Amenophis II is noteworthy as the only one which contains the royal mummy. In a crypt with blue ceiling, spangled with yellow stars and with yellow walls to represent papyrus, is the great sandstone sarcophagus of the king. Under a strong electric light is shown the mummy-shaped coffin with the body of the king, its arms crossed and the funeral garlands still resting in the case. The effectiveness of this mummy makes one regret that the others have been removed to the Cairo Museum, instead of being restored to their original places in these tombs. Most of these royal mummies were removed to a shaft at Deir-el-Bahri to save them from desecration by the invading Persians, but when the mummies were found it would have been wise to replace them in these tombs rather than to group them, as was done, in the Cairo Museum. One or two mummies in that museum would have been as effective as two dozen.

Not far from these tombs is the fine temple of Queen Hatasu at Deir-el-Bahri. This queen was the sister and wife of King Thotmes III, and for a part of his reign was co-regent. The temple, which was left unfinished, was completed by Rameses II. A short ride from this temple brings one to the Ramessium, the large temple (which is badly preserved) erected by Rameses II and dedicated to the god Ammon. The pylon is ruined, but one can still decipher some of the inscriptions that tell of Rameses' campaign against the Hittites. The first court is a mass of ruined masonry, but it contains fragments of a colossal statue of Rameses, the largest ever found in Egypt. It probably measured fifty-seven and one-third feet in height, as the various parts show that it was twenty-two and one-half feet from shoulder to shoulder. The colossal head of another statue of Rameses was found near by. The great hall had many fine columns, of which eighteen are still standing. These columns are very impressive and give one some idea of the majesty of the temple when it was complete. Not far away are the tombs of the queens, including the fine mausoleum of the consort of Rameses II, part of whose name was Mi-an-Mut.

A half mile from the Ramessium brings one to the Colossi of Memnon, the two huge seated figures of stone, which were long included among the seven wonders of the world. These figures were statues of King Amenophis III and were placed in front of a great temple that he built at this place; but time has dealt hardly with the temple, as scarcely a trace of it remains. The figures with the pedestals are about sixty-five feet high and, as they are on the level plain near the banks of the Nile, they can be seen from a great distance. Though carved from hard sandstone these figures have suffered severely from the elements, so that the faces bear little trace of human features; still they are impressive from their mere size and from the fact that they have come down to us across the centuries with so little change.

The southern statue is in the best preservation, but the northern one is of greatest interest because for ages it was believed to give forth musical notes when the first rays of the rising sun fell on its lips. The Greeks called it the Statue of Memnon, and invented the fable that Memnon, who was slain at Troy by Achilles, appeared on the Nile as a stone image and every morning greeted his mother (Eos) with a song. So many good observers vouched for these musical notes at sunrise that the phenomenon must be accepted as an historical fact. The Romans invented the legend that when these sounds occurred the god was angry. Hence the emperor, Septimius Severus, apparently to propitiate the god, made some restorations in the upper portion of the statue, whereupon the mysterious musical sounds ceased. Some modern experts in physics have deduced the theory that this statue, carved from hard, resonant stone, really gave forth sounds when warmed up by the early sun after the heavy dews of night. Similar sounds have been observed elsewhere, due to the splitting off of very small particles of stone by sudden expansion. Whatever the cause of these mysterious sounds, the speaking statue has served as an inspiration to many poets.

Sailing Down The Nile on a Small Steamer

Few pleasure trips are more enjoyable than a steamer ride down the Nile from Luxor to Cairo. My plans did not permit an extensive Nile trip, so I went up the Nile by rail and came down by the Amenartas, one of Cook's small boats. For one who has the leisure the best scheme is to take one of Cook's express boats and make the round trip to Assouan from Cairo. The Egypt and the Arabia are two luxurious steamers specially arranged for the comfort of tourists.

The Nile at Luxor is about a half-mile wide at extreme low water in December, although the marks on the bank show that it spreads over several miles of flat land when the heavy rains come in June and July. It is as muddy as the Missouri or the San Joaquin, but the natives drink this water, refusing to have it filtered. They claim, and probably with reason, that this Nile water is very nutritious. The Egyptian fellah or peasant seldom enjoys a hot meal. He chews parched Indian corn and sugar cane, and eats a curious bread made of coarse flour and water. Despite this monotonous diet the native is a model of physical vigor, with teeth which are as white and perfect as those of a Pueblo Indian.

All around Luxor are evidences of the tremendous force of the Nile waters when in flood. At various headlands near the city the banks of the Nile have been stoned up with solid walls, so that these may receive the full sweep of the flood waters. The great dam at Assouan, perhaps the finest bit of engineering work in the world, holds up the main current of the Nile and prevents the destructive floods which in the old days frequently swept away all the soil of the fellah's little farm. This dam has now been increased twelve feet in height, so that no water pours over the top.

The farmers in Egypt irrigate in the same way as the ryots of India. They lay off a field into small rectangular patches, with a ridge around each to keep the irrigation water in it. These rectangles make the fields look like huge checker-boards. Plowing is done exactly as in the time of Cleopatra. A forked stick, often not shod with iron, serves as a plow, to which are frequently harnessed a camel and a bullock by a heavy, unwieldy yoke. When these two unequally yoked animals move across the field, agriculture in the Orient is seen at its best. Unlike the Japanese, the Egyptian women do not work in the fields. Their labors seem to be limited to carrying water in large jars on their heads and to washing clothes in the dirty Nile water. The most common sight along the river is that of two women, with their single cotton garment gathered up above their knees, filling the water jars or rinsing out clothes in water that is thick and yellow with dirt.

The steamer Amenartas started down the river at two in the afternoon. The current was strong and the little steamer easily made fifteen miles an hour. Now began a series of exquisite views of river life, which changed every minute and saved the voyage from monotony. The first thing that impresses the stranger who is new to Egypt is the number and variety of the shadoufs for bringing the Nile water to the fields. These consist of three platforms, each equipped with two upright posts of date palm trunks, with a crossbar. From this crossbar depends a well sweep, with a heavy weight at one end and a tin or wooden bucket at the other. One man at the level of the river scoops up a bucket of water and lifts it to the height or his head, pouring it into a small basin of earth. The second man fills his bucket from this basin and in turn delivers it to the third man, who is about six feet above him. The third man raises the water to the height of his head and pours it into a ditch which carries it upon the land. The heavy weights on the shadouf help to raise the water, but the labor of lifting this water all day is strenuous. The shadouf men work with only small loin cloths, and occasionally one of these fellows in a sheltered hole toils stark naked.

Despite the fact that their work is as heavy as any done in Egypt, they receive the wretched pittance of two piasters or ten cents a day, out of which they must spend two and one-half cents a day for food. The shadouf is as old as history, and the methods in use for raising this Nile water are the same to-day that they were in the earliest dawn of recorded history.

As in India, there is a great dearth of farmhouses in these rich lands. The peasants are herded in squalid villages, the mud huts jammed close together, and the whole place overrun with goats, donkeys, pigs, chickens and pigeons. The houses are the crudest huts, with no window and no roof.

Life in these villages along the Nile is as primitive as it is among the Pueblo Indians of Arizona and New Mexico. Although their religion admonishes them to wash before prayers, these peasants appear to pay little heed to such rites. Men, women and children are extremely dirty, and it is unusual to find anyone with good eyes. Inflammation of the eyelids is the most common complaint and this disease is aggravated by the fact that the natives make no effort to drive away the flies that fasten upon the sore eyes of their little children. This is due to the common superstition that it brings ill luck to brush off flies. At every small station where the steamer stopped to land native passengers and freight a score of villagers would be lined up, each afflicted with some eye complaint, and all swarming with small black flies.

At only a few towns along the Nile from Luxor to Cairo were there any houses which looked like comfortable homes. The great majority of the houses were of sun-dried brick, and these were often in a ruinous condition. Yet with their framework of graceful date palms, these squalid villages would delight the eye of an artist. For nearly the whole distance the west side of the Nile is marked off from the desert by the high Libyan mountains, gleaming white and yellow in the brilliant sunshine. These limestone cliffs were chosen for the tombs of the kings at Thebes, and all along the river one could make out with a glass frequent tombs carved in the steep sides of these hills. The other side of the river was flat, with low ranges of hills. At sunrise and at sunset the most exquisite colors transformed the country into a veritable fairyland. The sun sank behind bands of purple and amethyst, and his last rays brought out in sharp silhouette the statuesque forms of women water-carriers and long lines of laden camels moving in ghostly silence along the river bank. Very beautiful also were the pictures made by the dahabiehs and other native boats, with their big lateen sails and with the motley gathering of natives in the stern. All these boats have enormous rudders which rise high out of the water and add greatly to the effectiveness of the picture as seen against the sunset glow.

The atmosphere along the Nile is wonderfully clear, the sky is as blue and lustrous as fine silk, and the wind blows up clouds in fantastic shapes, which add greatly to the beauty of the scenery. All day the little steamer passes half-ruined villages, embowered in feathery palms, with camels in the background and an occasional bullock straining at the wheel which lifts the Nile water on the shadouf. All day natives passed along the sky line, some on donkeys, others on camels, still others driving in front laden animals, whose forms could scarcely be distinguished amid the thick clouds of dust raised by their heavy feet. The creak of the shadoufs could be heard before we came abreast of the tireless workers.

Seen from the steamer the glamour of the Orient was over all this poverty-stricken land, but seen near at hand were revealed all the ugly features of dirt, disease, hopeless poverty, unending work that yields only the coarsest and scantiest food. We passed miles on miles of waving fields of sugar cane, with great factories where this cane was worked up into sugar. We passed broad fields of cotton, with factories near at hand for converting the product into cloth. Principalities of wheat—great seas of emerald green that stood out against a background of sandy desert—lined the banks at frequent intervals. But all these evidences of the new wealth that scientific irrigation has brought to this ancient valley of the Nile means nothing to the Egyptian peasant. These great industries are in the hands of native or foreign millionaires, who see to it that the wages of the native workers are kept down to the lowest level.

Before the Pyramids and the Sphinx

Wintry winds in Cairo, which raised clouds of dust and sand, prevented me from seeing the pyramids until after my return from Luxor. Then one still, warm day it was my good fortune to see at their best these oldest monuments of man's work on this earth. Yet impressive as are these great masses of stone rising from barren wastes of sand, they did not affect me so powerfully as the ruins of Karnak and the tombs of the Kings of Thebes. Three pyramids were constructed at Gizeh and four other groups at Sakkara, the site of the ancient city of Memphis. That these pyramids were built for the tombs of kings has now been demonstrated beyond question, so that the many elaborate theories of the religious significance of these monuments may be dismissed. The ancient city of Memphis was for centuries the seat of the government of Egypt, and the tombs that may be seen to-day at Sakkara preceded the rock-hewn tombs at Thebes in Upper Egypt. The great antiquity of the tombs at Sakkara makes these of importance, although much of the work is inferior to that at Thebes.

The pictures of the pyramids are misleading. They give the impression that these great masses of stone rise near palm groves and that the Sphinx is almost as huge as the pyramid of Cheops which overshadows it. In reality, the pyramids are set on a sandy plateau, about fifteen feet high, while the Sphinx is practically buried in a hollow to the west of the great pyramid and can only be seen from one direction. When you stand in front of the big pyramid you can form no idea of its size, but you know from the guide book that it is seven hundred and fifty feet long and four hundred and fifty-one feet high. The height of each side is five hundred and sixty-eight feet, while the angle of the sides is fifty-one degrees fifty minutes. These statistics do not make much impression on the mind but, when it is said that this huge pyramid actually covers thirteen acres, the mind begins to grasp the stupendous size of this great mass of masonry. This pyramid to-day is of dirty brown color, but when finished it was covered with blocks of white limestone.

These were removed by various builders and have served to erect mosques and temples. Had this covering remained intact it would be impossible to climb the pyramid of Cheops. From Cairo and the Nile, as well as from the desert, the pyramids are an impressive sight. Unique in shape and massive as the Libyan hills beyond them, they can never be forgotten, for they represent more perfectly than any other remains in Egypt the control by the early kings of unlimited labor and materials.

It used to be the fashion to sneer at the stories told by Herodotus, but the excavations in Egypt during the last thirty years have demonstrated that this old Greek traveler was an accurate observer and that what he saw may be accepted as fact. He was the first to give any detailed description of the pyramids and of the enormous work of building them. Herodotus visited Egypt about 450 B. C., and he related that one hundred thousand men were employed for three months at one time in building the great pyramid of Cheops. The stone was quarried near the site of the citadel in Cairo, and ten years were consumed in constructing a great road across the desert to Gizeh by which the stone was transported. The remains of this road, formed of massive stone blocks, may now be seen near the Sphinx. The construction of the big pyramid alone required twenty years. The story of Herodotus that one hundred thousand men were once employed on this pyramid is plausible, according to Flinders-Petrie, as these months came during the inundation of the Nile, when there was no field work to occupy their time.

The ascent of the pyramid is an easy task for any one in good physical condition and accustomed to gymnastic work. Two Bedouins assist you from the front while an ancient Sheik is supposed to help push you from the rear. In my case the Bedouins had a very easy job, while the Sheik enjoyed a sinecure. The stones are about a yard high, and the only difficulty of the ascent lies in the straddle which must be made to cover these stones. The ascent is made on the northeast corner of the pyramid, and much help is gained by inequalities in the great slabs of limestone which enable one to get a foothold. Two rests were made on the upward climb, but we came down without any rest, covering the whole trip in about fifteen minutes.

The view from the summit is superb. On two sides, the south and west, sketches the sandy desert, broken only by the groups of pyramids at Abusir, Sakkara and Dashhur, which mark the bounds of the ancient city of Memphis.

The average tourist has more curiosity about the Sphinx than about the pyramids, and here the reality is not disappointing. An impressive figure is this of a recumbent stone lion one hundred and eighty-seven feet long and sixty-six feet high, with a man's head that is full of power and pride. The nose is gone and the face is badly scarred, but here is the typical Egyptian face, with the fine setting of the eyes and the graceful head.

The journey to the rock tombs of Sakkara and the site of ancient Memphis is tedious, as it includes a ride across the sandy desert of eighty miles. A stop is made at the old house of Mariette, the famous French Egyptologist, who uncovered many of the finest remains in Memphis. Near by is the Step pyramid, the tomb of a king of the fifth dynasty and one of the oldest monuments in Egypt.

Near by are several pyramids and tombs that will repay a visit, as each gives some new idea of the extraordinary care taken by the ancient Egyptians to preserve their dead and to assure them proper guidance in the land beyond the tomb.

In one chapel are exquisitely carved mural reliefs, many of which still retain their original colors. In these chambers the hot, dry air is like that of the desert. A hundred years seem like a day in this atmosphere, where nothing changes with the changing seasons. Under one's feet is the soft, dry dust stirred up by the feet of many tourists, but rain and sunshine never penetrate this home of the dead, and a century passes without leaving a mark on these inscriptions which were chiseled long before the children of Israel made their escape from bondage in Egypt. It seems incredible that so many momentous things should have occurred while in these still, warm tombs day followed day without change.

APPENDIX

Hints for Travelers
Some Suggestions That May Save the Tourist Time and Money

For a round-the-world trip the best plan is to buy a Cook's ticket for six hundred and thirty-nine dollars and ten cents. This provides transportation from any place in the United States around the world to the starting point. The advantage of a Cook's ticket over the tickets of other companies is that this firm has the best organized force, with large offices in the big cities and with banks as agencies in hundreds of places where you may cash its money orders. This is a great convenience as it saves the risk of carrying considerable sums of money in lands where thievery is a fine art. Cook's agents may be found on arrival by boat or train in all the principal cities of a world-tour. These men invariably speak English well, and thus they are a god-send when the tourist knows nothing of the language or the customs of a strange country. At the offices of Cook and Son in all the large Oriental cities one may get accurate information about boats and trains and may purchase tickets for side excursions. Some of the Oriental offices I found careless in the handling of mail because of the employment of native clerks, but this was not general. Cook will furnish guides for the leading Oriental tours and in India and Egypt these are absolutely necessary, as without them life is made a burden by the demands of carriage drivers, hotel servants and beggars. Cook will furnish good guides for Japan, but it is unsafe to select natives unless you have a guarantee that they know the places usually visited and that they speak intelligible English. The pronunciation of Japanese differs so vitally from that of English that many Japanese who understand and write English well make a hopeless jumble of words when they attempt to speak it. Their failure to open their mouths or to give emphasis to words renders it extremely difficult to understand them. Good foreign hotels may be found in all the Japanese cities and even those managed by Japanese are conducted in European style. It is a pity that the hotels are not modeled on the Japanese style, like the Kanaya Hotel at Nikko, where the furniture and the decorations of the rooms are essentially Japanese and very artistic. The average charge for room and board in Japanese hotels of the first class is four dollars, but some of the more pretentious places demand from five to six dollars a day.

The cost of travel in India is not heavy because of the moderate scale of prices. Hotels usually charge ten rupees a day for board and lodging or about three dollars a day. Carriage hire is cheap, especially if you have a party of four to fill one carriage. A Victoria, holding four people, may be had morning and afternoon for twenty rupees, or an average of about one dollar and seventy-five cents a day each. Railway travel is absurdly cheap. Our party traveled second-class from Calcutta to Delhi, thence to Bombay, Madras and Tuticorin, a distance of about thirty-five hundred miles—farther than from New York to San Francisco—for one hundred and forty rupees or about forty-five dollars in American money. The first-class fare was nearly twice this amount, but no additional comfort would have been secured. We made the trip at low cost because a bargain was always made with hotelkeepers and carriage drivers. Always make a definite bargain or you will be overcharged. A native guide is necessary not only to show you the places of interest but to arrange for carriages and to pay tips to servants. Secure a Mohammedan guide and you may rest content that you will not be cheated. His antipathy to the Hindoo will prevent any collusion with servants. A good guide may be had for two rupees a day or about sixty-five cents, and he will board himself.

Murray's Guide books for Japan, China, the Straits Settlements and India are the most useful. These give the best routes and describe all the principal objects of interest. Without such a guide-book, one is helpless, as the professional guides frequently omit important things which should be seen. It is needless to look for conscientiousness or honesty in the Orient. You will not find them.

To avoid trouble when hiring carriage or jinrikisha, make a definite bargain by the hour or by the trip. This you may do through the hotel porter. Then, on your return, if the driver or the rickshaw-man demands more, refer the matter to the porter, and refuse to pay more than your bargain. If you do not take these precautions you will be involved in constant trouble and will be persistently charged twice what you should pay. Even with these precautions, you cannot escape trouble in Singapore, which is cursed with the greediest carriage drivers in the world.

Many travelers purchase Cook's hotel coupons which provide for lodging and meals at certain hotels in every large city of the Orient. My experience is that it is a mistake to buy these coupons, as all the hotel managers speak English or have hall porters who understand the language. You gain little by the arrangement, and you lose the choice of good rooms, as hotel managers are not partial to tourists who carry coupons, since the profit on these is small.

In Egypt, Cook's tours, which are arranged to suit all tastes, are the most convenient. The best plan is to go up the Nile by train and to come down by boat. Do not neglect the ride down the river. It consumes more time but it is the only way in which you can get an idea of the charm of the scenery, the primitive life of the people, and the beauty of sunrise and sunset over the desert.

Above all things, arrange your itinerary carefully before you start. Here is where Cook's agent can help you materially, but you must not rely upon his advice in regard to steamship lines. He will recommend the P. & O. boats, as they are British, but practically every tourist who has made the trip will say that the North German Lloyd steamers give the best service. Engage your state-room several months in advance and pay a deposit, so as to get a receipt for the best berth in a certain room. Unless you do this, you will have trouble and will probably be forced to sleep in an inside room on hot tropical nights. Get a room on star-board or port-side, according to the prevailing wind. To be on the windward side means comfort and coolness at night. As soon as possible after boarding a vessel see the bath steward and select an hour for your morning bath. Should you neglect this, you will be forced to rise very early or to bathe at night. If you wish certain table companions see the head steward promptly. If you travel on a P. & O. boat, engage an electric fan at the Company's office, as there is a rule that you can't hire a fan after you are on board. The North German Lloyd furnishes fans, which are a necessity in the tropics.

There is a regular tariff for tips on most of the Oriental steamship lines, graded according to the length of the voyage. You can always ascertain what to give to your waiter, room steward, bath steward, boot black and deck steward. These tips are always given on the last day of the voyage. American tourists are criminally lavish in giving tips, with the result that one who adheres to the rules of old travelers, is apt to be regarded as niggardly. It is to be noted that the richest travelers always conform to the regular schedule of tips.

In all parts of the Orient it is unsafe to drink the water of the country. If you do not relish bottled waters, demand tea; at any rate make sure that the water you drink has been boiled. I found hot tea an excellent drink even in the tropics and I was never troubled with the complaints that follow drinking unboiled water. It is well to make liberal use of the curries and rice which are excellent everywhere. These, with fish, eggs and fruit, formed the staple of my diet. Never eat melons nor salads made of green vegetables; the native methods of fertilizing the soil are fatal to the wholesomeness of such things.

Bibliography
Books Which Help One to Understand the Orient and Its People

In this bibliography no attempt has been made to cover the field of books about the leading countries of the Orient. The aim has been to mention the books which the tourist will find most helpful. Guide books are indispensable, but they give the imagination no stimulus. It is a positive help to read one or two good descriptive accounts of any country before visiting it; in this way one gets an idea of comparative values. In these notes I have mentioned only the books that are familiar to me and which I have found suggestive.

JAPAN

Of all foreigners who have written about Japan, Lafcadio Hearn gives one the best idea of the Japanese character and of the literature that is its expression. Hearn married a Japanese lady, became Professor of English Literature at the Imperial University of Tokio, renounced his American citizenship, and professed belief in Buddhism. He never mastered the Japanese language but he surpassed every other foreign student in his ability to make real the singular faith of the Japanese in the presence of good and evil spirits and the national worship of beauty in nature and art. Hearn's father was Greek and his mother Irish. In mind he was a strange mixture of a Florentine of the Renaissance and a pagan of the age of Pericles. In The West Indies he has given the best estimate of the influence of the tropics on the white man, and in Japan: An Interpretation, In Ghostly Japan, Exotics and Retrospections, and others, he has recorded in exquisite literary style his conception of Japanese character, myths and folk-legends. His work in this department is so fine that no one else ranks with him. He seems to have been able to put himself in the place of the cultivated Japanese and to interpret the curious national beliefs in good and evil spirits and ghosts. He has also made more real than any other foreign writer the peculiar position of the Japanese wife. Hearn was a conservative, despite his lawless life, and he looked with regret upon the transformation of old Japan, wrought by the new desire to Europeanize the country. He paints with great art the idyllic life of the old Samauri and the loyalty of the retainers to their chief.

Sir Edwin Arnold, who in his old age married a Japanese lady, has given excellent pictures of life in Japan in Seas and Lands and Japonica. Religions of Japan by W. E. Griffis gives a good idea of the various creeds. Mr. Griffis in The Mikado's Empire also furnishes a good description of Japan and the Japanese.

In Fifty Tears of New Japan, Count Okuma has compiled a work that gives a complete survey of Japanese progress during the last half century. Among the contributors are many of the leading statesmen and publicists of Japan.

Of fiction, the scene of which is laid in Japan, one of the most famous stories is Madame Chrysantheme by Pierre Loti, a cynical sketch of the Japanese geisha, or professional entertainer. Another good story which lays bare the ugly fate that often befalls the geisha, is The Lady and Sada San by Frances Little, the author of that popular book, The Lady of the Decoration.

Other books that will be found valuable are Norman, The New Japan; Chamberlain, Things Japanese; Treves, The Other Side of the Lantern; Murray, Handbook of Japan; Clement, Handbook of Modern Japan; D'Autremer, The Japanese Empire; Hartshorne, Japan and Her People; Fraser, A Diplomatist's Wife In Japan; Lloyd, Everyday Japan; Scidmore, Jinrikisha Days In Japan; Knox, Japanese Life In Town and Country; Singleton, Japan, As Described By Great Writers; Inouye, Home Life In Tokio.

MANILA

The acqusition of the Philippine Islands by the United States has led to a great increase of the literature on the islands, especially in regard to educational and industrial progress. Among the old books that have good sketches of Manila are A Visit to the Philippine Islands by Sir John Browning.

For sketches of the city since the American occupation see Worcester, The Philippine Islands and Their People; Landor, The Gems of the East; Dennis, An Observer in the Philippines; Potter, The East To-day and Tomorrow; Moses, Unofficial Letters of An Official's Wife; Hamm, Manila and the Philippines; Younghusband, The Philippines and Round About; Stevens, Yesterdays in the Philippines; Arnold, The Philippines, the Land of Palm and Pine; and LeRoy, Philippine Life in Town and Country.

HONGKONG

Good descriptive sketches of Hongkong may be found in Norman, The Peoples and Politics of the Far East; Des Veux, A Handbook of Hongkong; Colquhoun, China in Transformation; Penfield, East of Suez; Treves, The Other Side of the Lantern; Ball, Things Chinese; Thomson, The Changing Chinese; Singleton, China As Described by Great Writers; and Liddell, China, Its Marvel and Mystery.

SINGAPORE

Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore, was one of the British Empire builders who was very shabbily treated by the English government. Unaided, he prevented the Dutch from obtaining exclusive control over all the waters about Singapore and he was also instrumental in retaining Malacca, after the East India Company had decided to abandon it. He was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Java after the English wrested the island from the Dutch in 1810. His ambition was to make Java "the center of an Eastern Insular Empire," but this project was thwarted by the restoration of Java to Holland. The Raffles Museum in Singapore, one of the most interesting in the Orient, was his gift.

Sketches of Singapore may be found in Sir Frank Swettenham's British Malaya, Malay Sketches and The Real Malay; Wright and Reed, The Malay Peninsula; Belfield, Handbook of the Federated Malay States; Harrison, Illustrated Guide to the Federated Malay States; Ireland, The Far Eastern Tropics; Boulger, Life of Sir Stamford Raffles; Buckley, Records of Singapore.

RANGOON

There is a large literature on Burma, which seems to have appealed to British travelers. Among the books that have chapters devoted to Rangoon are Cuming, In the Shadow of the Pagoda; Bird, Wanderings in Burma; Hart, Picturesque Burma; Kelly, The Silken East; MacMahon, Far Cathay and Farther India; Vincent, The Land of the White Elephant; Nisbet, Burma Under British Rule and Before; Hall, The Soul of a People and A People at School.

INDIA

The literature about India is very extensive, so that only a few of the best books may be mentioned here. To the tourist the one indispensable book is Murray's Handbook for Travelers in India, Ceylon and Burma, which is well provided with maps and plans of cities. For general description, among the best works are Malcolm, Indian Pictures and Problems; Scidmore, Winter India; Forrest, Cities of India; Kipling, From Sea to Sea; Stevens, In India; Arnold, India Revisited; Low, A Vision of India (describing the journey of the Prince of Wales in 1905-6); Caine, Picturesque India; Things Seen in India.

For the history of India, some of the best books are Lane-Poole, Mediæval India and The Mogul Emperors; Fanshawe, Delhi, Past and Present; McCrindle, Ancient India; Rhys-Davids, British India; Roberts, Forty-one Tears in India; Holmes, History of the Indian Mutiny; Innes, The Sepoy Revolt; Curzon, Russia in Central Asia; Colquhoun, Russia Against India.

On the religions of India: Rhys-Davids, Buddhism; Warren, Buddhism in Translations; Clarke, Ten Great Religions; Hopkins, Religions of India; Arnold, The Light of Asia.

EGYPT

Egypt has changed so much during the last twenty years that books written before that time are practically obsolete. The dahabiyeh is no longer used for Nile travel, except by tourists of means and large leisure, since the tourist steamers make the trip up and down the Nile in one quarter the time consumed by the old sailing vessels. Cairo has been transformed into a European city and even Luxor is modernized, with its immense hotels and its big foreign winter colony.

Bædeker's Egypt is the best guide book, but be sure that you get the latest edition, as the work is revised every two or three years. The introductory essays in this volume on Egyptian history, religion, art and Egyptology are well worth careful reading. The descriptions of the ruins and the significance of many of the hieroglyphs are helpful. Of general descriptive works on Egypt, some of the best are Penfield, Present Day Egypt (1899); Jeremiah Lynch, Egyptian Sketches, a book by a San Franciscan which gives a series of readable pictures of Cairo and the voyage up the Nile; Holland, Things Seen in Egypt.

Of Egypt, before it was transformed by the British, standard works are Lane, Cairo Fifty Tears Ago; Lady Duff-Gordon, Letters From Egypt (covering the period from 1862 to 1869). Good historical works are Lane-Poole, Egypt, and the Story of Cairo; Ebers, Egypt, Descriptive, Historical, and Picturesque.

Of the administration of England in Egypt, the best book is Lord Cromer's Modern Egypt. Other works are Milner, England in Egypt; Colvin, The Making of Modern Egypt. The story of Gordon's death at Khartoum is well told in Stevens, With Kitchener to Khartoum and Churchill, The River War.

Several valuable works on Egyptian archeology have been written by Maspero and Flinders-Petrie. Maspero's Art in Egypt, which is lavishly illustrated, will be valuable as a guide book. Flinders-Petrie's Egyptian Decorative Art is worth reading.

Index

Agra, East Indian city of interesting features, [111];

the Taj Mahal, [112-116]

Arjmand, favorite wife of Shah Jehan, for whom the Taj was built, [112]

Benares, sacred city of the Hindoos, [100-105];

bathing ghats along the Ganges, [100-102];

toll levied by priests on all bathers, [103];

burning the dead by the river banks, [104-105];

funeral ceremonies, [105]

Bombay, gateway of India, [123-134];

beauty of public buildings, [123-124];

the Apollo Bunder, [124];

importance of the Parsees in city life, [124-1126];

reception to King George V, [127];

holiday street scenes, [128];

religion and customs of the Parsees, [129-130];

wedding ceremonies, [132];

"Towers of Silence" where dead are exposed to vultures, [133-134]

Buddhism, temples at Nikko, [17];

greatest temple, the Shwe Dagon Pagoda at Rangoon, [90];

first residence of Buddha at Sarnath, near Benares, [100]

Cairo, the capital of Egypt, [137-142];

much Europeanized since Ismail's time, [138-139];

the Street of the Camel, [138-140];

Esbekiyeh Gardens, [140];

shopping in the great Muski bazar, [141];

Island of Roda, where Moses was found, [142];

scenes in the old native city, [142]

Calcutta, greatest commercial port of India, [95-99];

former capital, [95];

the Maidan or Esplanade, [95-96];

Eden Gardens, [95];

scene of the Black Hole, [96];

caste marks, [97];

scenes in bathing ghats on the Hoogly, [98];

native quarter, [98-99];

botanical gardens with great banyan tree, [99];

Imperial Museum, [99]

Canton, the great business center of China, [72-79];

exodus of people during revolution, [73];

boat city on the Pearl river, [73-74];

"hot-foot" boats, [75];

inside the ancient walls, [76-77];

deserted stores on main street, [76];

Buddhist Temple of Horrors, [77];

great rush of refugees, [77-78];

scene of the assassination of Tartar general, [78];

old Buddhist water clock, [78]

Cawnpore, scene of the worst massacre in the Sepoy mutiny, [109-110];

fatal mistake of General Wheeler, [109];

treachery of Nana Sahib, [110];

butchery of women and children, [110]

Chator, Sir Paul, who made Hongkong a great city, [81]

Delhi, ancient Mogul capital of India, [117-122];

tombs of Moslem emperors, [117-118];

squalor of common people, [119];

Mogul palaces and mosques, [119-120];

the Kutab Minar, [120-121];

memorials of the mutiny, [121-122];

fighting at Kabul gate, [122]

Egypt, the land of tombs, pyramids and mummies, [137-164];

railroad ride from Port Said, [138];

features of the country, [138-139];

Cairo and its picturesque life, [138-142];

Luxor and Karnak ruins of finest temples of ancient Egypt, [143-149];

Thebes, tomb city of the Egyptian Kings, [150-155];

sailing down the Nile, [156-160];

Pyramids and the Sphinx, [161-164]

Havelock, English General who fought his way into Lucknow and helped defend the city against hordes of mutineers, [108]

Hideyoshi, Napoleon of Japan, his memory revered, [19];

his castle, [29]