The wonders of the world

Thus far the description of Denon. But Taylor, who says of this monument that “there is nothing like it in the world,” adds, that “those travelers who pronounce its features to be negro in their character, are certainly very hasty in their conclusions. That it is an Egyptian head, is plainly evident, notwithstanding its mutilation. The type, however, is rather fuller and broader than is usual in Egyptian statues.” Who reared it, and for what purpose, and by what mighty enginery, is utterly unknown. But there it stands, “on the verge of the desert whose sands are heaped around it, and in advance of the three vast pyramids that form an immovable phalanx as if to guard it from destruction, looking out in unfathomable silence over the empty plain where once stood Memphis in the pride of the earlier Pharaohs, and where Cambyses battered down that pride with the recklessness of a barbarian invader. Once an altar stood before it, and a dromos of crouching lions and other figures formed a fit approach to the gigantic symbol of Egypt deified. But now the sands drift in perpetually to hide all but the head, whose sublime repose neither the war-club of the Persian, nor tho fury of the sirocco has ever disturbed.”

RUINS AND PYRAMIDS OF MEROËMEROË.

Passing up the Nile to its great fork in about latitude seventeen degrees, we come to the wonderful ruins and pyramids of Meroë, in Ethiopia. “The discovery of these ruins,” says the well known traveler last quoted, “is of comparatively recent date; and it is only within a very short time that their true place and character in Ethiopian history have been satisfactorily established. Hoskins, Cailliaud and Ferlini were the first to direct the attention of antiquarians to this quarter, and the later and more complete researches of Lepsius leave room for little more to be discovered concerning them. It is remarkable that both Bruce and Burckhardt, who traveled by land from Berber to Shendy, failed to see the ruins, which must have been visible from the road they followed. The former, in fact, speaks of the broken pedestals, carved stones and pottery which are scattered over the plain, and sagely says, ‘It is impossible to avoid risking a guess that this is the ancient city of Meroë;’ but he does not mention the groups of pyramids which are so conspicuous a feature in the landscape. Our path led over a plain covered with thorny shrubs at first, but afterward hard black gravel, and we had not gone more than a mile before the raïs pointed out the pyramids of the ancient Ethiopian city. I knew it only from its mention in history, and had never read any description of its remains; consequently I was surprised to see before me, in the vapory morning air, what appeared to be the ruins of pylæ and porticos, as grand and lofty as those of Karnak. Rising between us and the mountains, they had an imposing effect, and I approached them with excited anticipations. As advanced, however, and the morning vapors melted away, I found that they derived much of their apparent hight from the hill upon which they are built, and that, instead of being the shattered parts of one immense temple, they were a group of separate pyramids, standing amid the ruins of others which have been completely destroyed.

“We reached them after a walk of about four miles. They stand upon a narrow, crescent-shaped hill, which rises forty or fifty feet from the plain, presenting its convex front to the Nile, while toward the east its hollow curve embraces a small valley lying between it and the mountain range. Its ridge is crowned with a long line of pyramids, standing so close to each other that their bases almost meet, but presenting no regular plan or association, except in the direction of their faces. None of them retains its apex, and they are all more or less ruined, though two are perfect to within a few courses of the top. I climbed one of the highest, from which I could overlook the whole group, as well as another cluster, which crowned the summit of a low ridge at the foot of the mountains opposite. Of those among which I stood, there were sixteen, in different degrees of ruin, besides the shapeless stone-heaps of many more. They are all built of fine red sandstone, in regular courses of masonry, the spaces of which are not filled, or cased, as in the Egyptian pyramids, except at the corners, which are covered with a narrow hem or molding, in order to give a smooth outline. The stones are about eighteen inches high, and the recession of each course varies from two to four inches, so that the hight of the structure is always much greater than the breadth of the base. A peculiarity of these pyramids is, that the sides are not straight but curved lines, of different degrees of convexity, and the breadth of the courses of stone is adjusted with the utmost nicety, so as to produce this form. They are small, compared with the enormous piles of Gizeh and Dashoor, but singularly graceful and elegant in appearance. Not one of the group is more than seventy feet in hight, nor when complete could have exceeded one hundred. All, or nearly all, have a small chamber attached to the exterior, exactly against the center of their eastern sides, but no passage leading into the interior; and from the traces of Dr. Lepsius’s labors, by which I plainly saw that he had attempted in vain to find an entrance, it is evident that they are merely solid piles of masonry, and that, if they were intended tombs, the bodies were deposited in the outer chambers. Some of these chambers are entire, except the roof, and their walls are profusely sculptured with hieroglyphics, somewhat blurred and worn down, from the effect of the summer rains. Their entrances resembled the doorways of temples, on a miniature scale, and the central stones of two of them were sculptured with the sacred winged globe. I saw on the jamb of another, a figure of the god Horus. The chambers were quite small, and not high enough to allow me to stand upright. The sculptures have a very different character from those in the tombs of Thebes, and their resemblance to those of the Ptolemaic period was evident at the first glance. The only cartouches of monarchs which I found were so obliterated that I could not identify them; but the figure of one of the kings, grasping in one hand the hair of a group of captives, while with the other he lifts a sword to slay them, bears a striking resemblance to that of Ptolemy Euergetes, on the pylon of the temple at Edfou. Many of the stones in the vast heaps which lie scattered over the hills, are covered with sculptures. I found on some the winged globe and scarabeüs, while others retained the scroll or fillet which usually covers the sloping corners of a pylon. On the northern part of the hill I found several blocks of limestone, which exhibited a procession of sculptured figures brilliantly colored.

“The last structure on the southern extremity of the hill, is rather a tower than a pyramid, consisting of a high base or foundation, upon which is raised a square building, the corners presenting a very slight slope toward the top, which is covered with ruins, indicating that there was originally another and narrower story upon it. When complete, it must have borne considerable resemblance to the Assyrian towers, the remains of which are found at Nineveh. On this part of the hill there are many small detached chambers, all facing the east, and the remains of a large building. Here Lepsius appears to have expended most of his labors; and the heaps of stone and rubbish he has left behind him, prevent one from getting a very clear idea of the original disposition of the buildings. He has quarried one of the pyramids down to its base, without finding any chamber within or pit beneath it. My raïs, who was at a loss to comprehend the object of my visit, spoke of Lepsius as a great Frank astrologer, who had kept hundreds of the people at work for many days, and at last found in the earth a multitude of chickens and pigeons, all of solid gold. He then gave the people a great deal of backsheesh and went away, taking the golden fowls with him. The most interesting object he has revealed is a vaulted room, about twenty feet long, which the raïs pointed out as the place where the treasures were found. It is possible that he here referred to the discoveries made about twenty years ago by Ferlini, who excavated a great quantity of rings and other ornaments, Greek and Roman, as well as Ethiopian, which are now in the museum at Berlin. The ceiling of this vault is on the true principle of the arch, with a keystone in the center, which circumstance, as well as the character of the sculptures, would seem to fix the age of the pyramids at a little more than two thousand years. I took a sketch of this remarkable cluster of ruins from their northern end, and afterward another from the valley below, whence each pyramid appears distinct and separate, no one covering the other. The raïs and sailors were puzzled what to make of my inspection of the place, but finally concluded that I hoped to find a few golden pigeons, which the Frank astrologer had not carried away. I next visited the eastern group, which consists of ten pyramids, more or less dilapidated, and the ruined foundations of six or eight more. The largest, which I ascended, consists of thirty-five courses of stone, and is about fifty-three feet in hight, eight or ten feet of the apex having been hurled down. Each side of the apex is seventeen paces, or about forty-two feet long, and the angle of ascent is consequently much greater than in the pyramids of Egypt. On the slope of the hill are the substructions of two or three large buildings, of which sufficient remains to show the disposition of the chambers and the location of the doorways. Toward the south, near where the valley inclosed between the two groups opens upon the plain, are the remains of other pyramids and buildings, and some large, fortress-like ruins are seen on the summits of the mountains to the east. I would willingly have visited them, but the wind was blowing fresh, and the raïs was impatient to get back to his vessel. Many of the stones of the pyramids are covered with rude attempts at sculpturing camels and horses; no doubt by the Arabs, for they resemble a school-boy’s first drawings on a slate; straight sticks for legs, squares for bodies, and triangles for humps.

“Leaving the ruins to the company of the black goats that were browsing on the dry grass, growing in bunches at their eastern base, I walked to another group of pyramids, which lay a mile and a half to the south-west, toward the Nile. As we approached them, a herd of beautiful gray gazelles started from among the stones and bounded away into the desert. ‘These were the tents of the poor people,’ said the raïs, pointing to the pyramids; ‘the Frank found no golden pigeons here.’ They were, in fact, smaller and more dilapidated than the others. Some had plain burial chambers attached to their eastern sides, but the sculptures were few and insignificant. There were sixteen in all, more or less ruined. Scattering mounds, abounding with fragments of bricks and building stones, extended from these ruins nearly to the river’s bank, a distance of more than two miles; and the foundations of many other pyramids might be seen among them. The total number of pyramids in a partial state of preservation, (some being nearly perfect, while a few retained only two or three of the lower courses,) which I counted on the site of Meroë, was forty-two. Besides these, I noticed the traces of forty or fifty others, which had been wholly demolished. The entire number, however, of which Meroë could boast, in its prime, was one hundred and ninety-six. The mounds near the river, which cover an extent of between one and two miles, point out the site of the city, the capital of the old hierarchy of Meroë, and the pyramids are no doubt the tombs of its kings and priests. It is rather singular that the city has been so completely destroyed, as the principal spoilers of Egypt, the Persians, never penetrated into Ethiopia, and there is no evidence of the stones having been used to any extent by the Arabs, as building materials.

“The examination of Meroë has solved the doubtful question of an Ethiopian civilization anterior to that of Egypt. Hoskins and Cailliaud, who attributed a great antiquity to the ruins, were misled by the fact, discovered by Lepsius, that the Ethiopian monarchs adopted as their own, and placed upon their tombs the nomens of the earlier Pharaohs. It is now established beyond a doubt, that, so far from being the oldest, these are the latest remains of Egyptian art; their inferiority displays its decadence, and not the rude, original type, whence it sprang. Starting from Memphis, where not only the oldest Egyptian, but the oldest human records yet discovered, are found, the era of civilization becomes later, as you ascend the Nile. In Nubia, there are traces of Thothmes and Amunoph III., or about fifteen centuries before the Christian era; at Napata, the ancient capital of Ethiopia, we can not get beyond King Tirhaka, eight centuries later; while at Meroë, there is no evidence which can fix the date of the pyramids earlier than the first, or at furthest, the second century before Christ. Egypt, therefore, was not civilized from Ethiopia, but Ethiopia from Egypt. The sculptures at Meroë also establish the important fact that the ancient Ethiopians, though of a darker complexion than the Egyptians, (as they are in fact represented, in Egyptian sculpture,) were, like them, an offshoot of the great Caucasian race. Whether they were originally emigrants from northern India and the regions about Cashmere, as the Egyptians are supposed to have been, or, like the Beni Koreish at a later period, crossed over from the Arabian peninsula, is not so easily determined. The theory of Pococke and other scholars, based on the presumed antiquity of Meroë, that here was the first dawning on African soil of that earliest Indian civilization, which afterward culminated at Memphis and Thebes, is overthrown but we have what is of still greater significance, the knowledge that the highest civilization, in every age of the world, has been developed by the race to which we belong.

“I walked slowly back to the boat, over the desolate plain, striving to create from those shapeless piles of ruin the splendor of which they were once a part. The sun, and the wind, and the mountains, and the Nile, were what they had ever been; but where the kings and priests of Meroë walked in the pomp of their triumphal processions, a poor, submissive peasant knelt before me with a gourd full of goat’s milk; and if I had asked him when that plain had been inhabited, he would have answered me, like Chidhar, the prophet: ‘As thou seest it now, so has it been forever!’”forever!’”

PYRAMIDS AND RUINS OF MERAWE.

There are other pyramids and ruins in Ethiopia that would be worthy of extended notice, but that they are so far surpassed in number and magnificence by those already described. The principal of these are found at Merawe, the former capital of Darshygeea, to the north-west of Meroë, where the Nile, flowing south-west, reaches the frontier of Dongola. This Merawe must not be confounded with Meroë, the ruins of which have just been described. The identity of the sounds of the names, did, indeed, at first deceive antiquarians, who supposed the temples and pyramids in this neighborhood to have belonged to the capital of the old hierarchy of Meroë; but it is now satisfactorily established that they mark the site of Napata, the capital of Ethiopia up to the time of the Cæsars. It was the limit of the celebrated expedition of the Roman soldiers, under Petronius. Djebel Berkel, at whose base the principal remains are found, is in latitude eighteen degrees, thirty-five minutes, or thereabouts.

As the traveler already quoted, rose in the morning, to go over to the mountain and the ruins at its base, “I was,” says he, “enchanted with the picture which the shores presented. The air was filled with a light, silvery vapor, (a characteristic of sultry weather in Africa,) softening the deep, rich color of the landscape. The eastern bank was one bower of palms, standing motionless, in perfect groups, above the long, sloping banks of beans in blossom. Such grace and glory, such silence and repose, I thought I had never before seen in the vegetable world. Opposite, the ruined palaces of the old Shygheean kings, and the mud and stone hovels of modern Merawe, rose in picturesque piles above the river bank and below the red sandstone bluffs of the Nubian desert, which overhung them and poured the sand through deep rents and fissures upon their very roofs. The mosque, with a tall, circular minaret, stood embowered in a garden of date-palms, under one of the highest bluffs. Up the river, which stretched glittering into the distance, the forest of trees shut out the view of the desert, except Djebel Berkel, which stood high and grand above them; the morning painting its surface with red lights and purple shadows. Over the misty horizon of the river rose a single conical peak, far away. The sky was a pale, sleepy blue, and all that I saw seemed beautiful dream-pictures, everywhere grace, beauty, splendor of coloring, steeped in elysian repose. It is impossible to describe the glory of that passage across the river. It paid me for all the hardships of the desert.

“When we touched the other shore and mounted the little donkeys we had taken across with us, the ideal character of the scene disappeared, but left a reality picturesque and poetic enough. We rode under a cluster of ruined stone buildings, one of which occupied considerable space, rising pylon-like, to the hight of thirty feet. The shekh informed me that it had been the palace of a Shygheean king, before the Turks got possession of the country. It was wholly dilapidated, but a few Arab families were living in the stone dwellings which surround it. These clusters of shattered buildings extend for more than a mile along the river, and are all now known as Merawe. Our road led between fields of ripening wheat, rolling in green billows before the breeze, on one side, and on the other, not more than three yards distant, the naked sandstone walls of the desert, where a blade of grass never grew. Over the wheat, along the bank of the Nile, rose a long forest of palms, so thickly ranged that the eye could scarcely penetrate their dense, cool shade; while on the other hand the glaring sand-hills showed their burning shoulders above the bluffs. It was a most violent contrast, and yet, withal, there was a certain harmony in these opposite features. We now approached the mountain, which is between three and four miles from the town. It rises from out the sands of the Nubian desert, to the hight of five hundred feet, presenting a front completely perpendicular toward the river. It is inaccessible on all sides except the north, which in one place has an inclination of forty-five degrees. Its scarred and shattered walls of naked sandstone stand up stern and sublime in the midst of the hot and languid landscape. As we approached, a group of pyramids appeared on the brow of a sand-hill to the left, and I discerned at the base of the mountain several isolated pillars, the stone-piles of ruined pylons, and other remains of temples. The first we reached was at the south-eastern corner of the mountain. Amid heaps of sandstone blocks and disjointed segments of pillars, five columns of an exceedingly old form still point out the court of a temple, whose adyta are hewn within the mountain. They are not more than ten feet high and three in diameter, circular, and without capital or abacus, unless a larger block, rudely sculptured with the outlines of a Typhon-head, may be considered as such. The doorway is hurled down and defaced, but the cartouches of kings may still be traced on the fragments. There are three chambers in the rock, the walls of which are covered with sculptures, for the most part representing the Egyptian divinities. The temple was probably dedicated to Typhon, or the Evil Principle, as one of the columns is still faced with a caryatid of the short, plump, big-mouthed and bat-eared figure, which elsewhere represents him. Over the entrance is the sacred winged globe, and the ceiling shows the marks of brilliant coloring. The temple is not remarkable for its architecture, and can only be interesting in an antiquarian point of view. It bears some resemblance in its general style to the temple-palace of Goorneh, at Thebes.

“The eastern base of the mountain, which fronts the Nile, is strewn with hewn blocks, fragments of capitals, immense masses of dark bluish-gray granite, and other remains, which prove that a large and magnificent temple once stood there. The excavations made by Lepsius and others have uncovered the substructions sufficiently to show the general plan of two buildings. The main temple was at the north-eastern corner of the mountain, under the highest point of its perpendicular crags. The remains of its small propylons stand in advance, about two hundred yards from the rock, going toward which, you climb the mound formed by the ruins of a large pylon, at the foot of which are two colossal ram-headed sphinxes of blue granite, buried to their necks in the sand. Beyond this is a portico and pillared court, followed by other courts and labyrinths of chambers. Several large blocks of granite, all more or less broken and defaced, lie on the surface or half quarried from the rubbish. They are very finely polished and contain figures of kings, evidently arranged in genealogical order, each accompanied with his name. The shekh had a great deal to tell me of the Franks, who dug up all the place, and set the people to work at hauling away the lions and rams, which they carried off in ships. I looked in vain for the celebrated pedestal; it has probably become the spoil of Lepsius.

“It was now noon, and only the pyramids remained to be seen on that side of the river. The main group is about a third of a mile from the mountain, on the ridge of a sand-hill. There are six pyramids, nearly entire, and the foundations of others. They are almost precisely similar to those of the real Meroë, each having a small exterior chamber on the eastern side. Like the latter, they are built of sandstone blocks, only filled at the corners, which are covered with a hem or molding; the sides of two of them are convex. On all of them the last eight or ten courses next the top have been smoothed to follow the slope of the side. It was no doubt intended to finish them all in this manner. One of them has also the corner molding rounded, so as to form a scroll, like that on the cornice of many of the Egyptian temples. They are not more than fifty feet in hight, with very narrow bases. One of them, indeed, seems to be the connecting link between the pyramid and the obelisk. Nearer the river is an older pyramid, though no regular courses of stone are to be seen any longer. These sepulchral remains, however, are much inferior to those of Meroë. The oldest names found at Napata are those of Amenoph III. and Remeses II. (1630 B. C. and 1400 B. C.) both of whom subjected Nubia to their rule. The remains of Ethiopian art, however, go no further than King Tirkaka, 730 B. C.—the Ethiopian monarch, who, in the time of Hezekiah, marched into Palestine to meet Sennacherib, king of Assyria. Napata, therefore, occupies an intermediate place in history, between Thebes and Meroë, showing the gradual southward progress of Egyptian art and civilization. It is a curious fact that the old religion of Egypt should have been here met face to face, and overthrown, by Christianity, which, starting in the mountains of Abyssinia, followed the course of the Nile northward. In the sixth century of our era, Ethiopia and Nubia were converted to Christianity and remained thus until the fourteenth century, when they fell beneath the sword of Islam.

“The next morning, the shekh proposed going with me to the remains of a temple, half an hour distant, on the eastern bank of the river. After walking a mile and a half over the sands, which have here crowded the vegetation to the very water’s edge, we came to a broad mound of stones, broken bricks and pottery, with a foundation wall of heavy limestone blocks, along the western side. There were traces of doors and niches, and on the summit of the mound the pedestals of columns similar to those of El Berkel. From this place commenced a waste of ruins, extending for nearly two miles toward the north-west, while the breadth, from east to west, was about equal. For the most part, the buildings were entirely concealed by the sand, which was filled with fragments of pottery and glass, and with shining pebbles of jasper, agate and chalcedony. Half a mile further, we struck on another mound, of greater extent, though the buildings were entirely level with the earth. The foundations of pillars were abundant, and fragments of circular limestone blocks lay crumbling to pieces in the rubbish. The most interesting object was a mutilated figure of blue granite, of which only a huge pair of wings could be recognized. The shekh said that all the Frank travelers who came there broke off a piece and carried it away with them. I did not follow their example. Toward the river were many remains of crude brick walls, and the ground was strewn with pieces of excellent hard-burnt bricks. The sand evidently conceals many interesting objects. I saw in one place, where it had fallen in, the entrance to a chamber, wholly below the surface. The Arabs were at work in various parts of the plain, digging up the sand, which they filled in baskets and carried away on donkeys. The shekh said it contained salt, and was very good to make wheat grow, whence I inferred that the earth is nitrous. We walked for an hour or two over the ruins, finding everywhere the evidence that a large capital had once stood on the spot. The bits of water-jars which we picked up were frequently painted and glazed with much skill. The soil was in many places wholly composed of the debris of the former dwellings. This was, without doubt, the ancient Napata, of which Djebel Berkel was only the necropolis. Napata must have been one of the greatest cities of ancient Africa, after Thebes, Memphis and Carthage. I felt a peculiar interest in wandering over the site of that half-forgotten capital, whereof the ancient historians knew little more than we. That so little is said by them in relation to it is somewhat surprising, notwithstanding its distance from the Roman frontier.”

EGYPTIAN TEMPLES AND MONUMENTS.

Returning from Ethiopia to Egypt, we find not a few of its monuments and temples worthy of our notice as wonderful testimonies to the art and wealth of their ancient builders.

POMPEY’S PILLAR AND CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE.

Passing out, toward the south, from modern Alexandria, one of the first objects that greets the eye of the traveler, is Pompey’s pillar, which rears its stupendous mass of polished granite in solitary grandeur, a monument of buried empires and of nations that have passed away. Though it now stands alone, it is supposed to have been but one of the four hundred stately columns of the Serapeum as it once stood in all its grandeur. “This pillar,” says Thompson, “is the one solitary monument of the old city upon its southern front, and answers to the one standing obelisk that is its solitary monument on the north. Of its origin, history is as silent as the mummy of Belzoni’s tomb; but there is no doubt that ‘Pompey’s pillar is really a misnomer;’ for the inscription ‘shows it to have been erected by Publius, the prefect of Egypt, in honor of Diocletian,’ who subdued a revolt at Alexandria by capturing the city, A. D. 296. But whether it was then first hewn from the quarry, or was transported from some decaying temple up the Nile, the Greek lettering does not inform us. If the latter, (which, considering the decline of art and the pilfering propensities of the Romans, is probable,) then this now lonely sentinel, an Egyptian column with a Greek inscription to a Roman emperor, has witnessed in turn the decay of Egypt, of Greece, and of Rome, upon the soil where it still disputes with Time the empire of the past. To the reader of Gibbon, it may seem strange that a monument should have been reared at Alexandria in honor of a conqueror, who, during a siege of eight months, wasted the city by the sword and by fire, and who, when it finally capitulated and implored his clemency, caused it to feel ‘the full extent of his severity,’ and destroyed ‘thousands of its citizens in a promiscuous slaughter.’ The fact may serve to show the worthlessness of such monuments as testimonials to character, or as expressions of public esteem. But whatever may be its history or its associations, one can not look upon this column without a feeling of astonishment and awe. Outside of the modern city walls and some six hundred yards to the south of them, away from the present homes of men, but on an eminence that overlooks the entire city, and in striking contrast with the meager, attenuated style of its present architecture, stands this stupendous column of red granite, ninety-nine feet in hight by thirty in circumference, its shaft an elegant monolith measuring seventy-three feet between the pedestal and the capital. It marks the site of an ancient stadium, and as some conjecture, of the gymnasium, which was surrounded with majestic porticos of granite.”

From Pompey’s pillar, to Cleopatra’s needles, is a distance of about a mile through the city in a north-easterly direction. “These obelisks,” says Thompson, “have no more relation to Cleopatra, than the pillar has to Pompey. Their hieroglyphics, according to Wilkinson and Lepsius, date back as far as the exodus from Egypt; and they were brought to Alexandria from the city of Heliopolis, or On, about a hundred miles to the south. Each ‘needle’ is a solid block of red granite, about seventy feet high, and nearly eight feet in diameter at the base. How such huge blocks were cut from the quarry, transported hundreds of miles, and erected upon their pedestals, is a mystery not solved by anything yet discovered of ancient mechanic arts. Only one of the obelisks is standing. The other was taken down to be transported to England, but now lies half buried in the mud and sand. On one side of the standing obelisk the hieroglyphics are distinctly legible, but on the northern or seaward side they are much defaced by the action of the weather. It stands upon the edge of the great harbor, in a line with the rock of Pharos that forms the extreme northern point of the horseshoe port.

“Besides the pillar and the needles nothing remains to testify the former splendor of Alexandria; a capital that once vied with Rome, containing a population equal to that of New York, (three hundred thousand freemen and as many slaves,) and that so late as the seventh century, according to the testimony of Amrou, its Saracenic conqueror, contained ‘four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, four hundred theaters, twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetables, and forty thousand tributary Jews.’ A few ruins are pointed out, but these are fast disappearing with the ravages of time. Its name is the only memorial of its founder; and the long range of catacombs along the shore to the west of the city, the sole vestige of its ancient population. So rapid was the growth of the city, that at the commencement of the Christian era, it was ‘second only to Rome itself,’ and ‘comprehended a circumference of fifteen miles’ within its walls. It was a great seat of commerce. ‘Idleness was unknown. Either sex, and every age, was engaged in the pursuits of industry;’ the blowing of glass, the weaving of linen, manufacturing the papyrus, or conducting the lucrative trade of the port. Alexander, fresh from the conquest of Tyre, boasted that he would here build an emporium of commerce surpassing that which he had ruined, and thus would recreate in his own image the world he had destroyed. The site of Alexandria, more felicitous than that of Tyre, promised to realize his ambitious dream. Its gates ‘looked out on the gilded barges of the Nile, on fleets at sea under full sail, on a harbor that sheltered navies, and a light-house that was the mariner’s star, and the wonder of the world.’ But neither the felicity of its location, nor the enterprise of its Ptolemaic rulers, nor the wealth of its commerce, nor the learning that gathered to its schools the students of art, of philosophy, of medicine, of science, and of religion, could withstand the march of empire from Asia to Europe, nor the laws of trade that followed in its track.”

The present population of Alexandria is less than a hundred thousand; a mixture of all the oriental races, with many Europeans and Jews. In passing through its narrow and dirty streets, now occupied with a motley and poverty-stricken populace; in traversing the villages of hovels within its walls, where the Arab lies down with his sheep, his goat, his dog, and his donkey, all in the mud inclosure of a few feet square, which must be entered by stooping; and in climbing the huge mounds that are said to cover the ancient capital, it is difficult to realize that here once dwelt the hundred thousand Jews, for whom the seventy made their celebrated Greek version of the Old Testament; that here the eloquent Apollos was born, and the learned Athanasius conducted his theological controversies; that here Theodosius, by imperial edict, destroyed the temple of Serapis, and publicly established Christianity in place of the outcast divinities of the Egyptian Greeks; that here was a school to which the sages of Greece resorted for instruction in philosophy, science and letters, and where Jewish rabbins and Christian apologists vied with Greek dialecticians in the various pursuits of learning; and that here was a library of seven hundred thousand manuscript volumes, a British museum or a Smithsonian institute, boasting the originals or the duplicates of many of the most valuable works of the then current literature, and which, after the accidental destruction of a part of it in the insurrection against Julius Cæsar, and the willful destruction of another portion in the sanguinary religious wars under Theodosius, yet contained enough of written papyrus to heat for six months the four thousand baths of the city, under the summary decree of Omar: “If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed.” It is difficult amid such surroundings, to realize that here Cæsar and Antony dallied with the charms of Cleopatra. It is difficult to realize that where now bigotry, fanaticism and superstition hold sway over an ignorant and degraded people, were schools of theology, and learned fathers, and astute controversialists of the early Christian church; that here Christianity triumphed over paganism in popular tumults backed by imperial decrees; that here Mark preached the gospel of the kingdom where the Ethiopian eunuch had preceded him with the tidings of the great salvation. And yet that old Alexandria, which began to be in the fourth century before Christ, and of all whose palaces and temples and monuments only two columns are now standing, was the youngest of Egyptian cities, and was built by the conqueror of Egypt when Thebes, and Memphis, and the university city of Heliopolis, were already in their decline. Such is the antiquity that meets us at the threshold of the land of the Nile.

THE CATACOMBS OF ALEXANDRIA.

In connection with Alexandria, it is in place to speak of its cryptæ or catacombs, a range of primeval sepulchers, on which a prodigious amount of labor must have been bestowed. They are situated about half a league along the shore, to the westward of the modern city; and their intricacy is such, that formerly the guides would not enter them without a clew of thread, which they unwound as they went in, so that by following it on their return, they might secure their safe retreat. Dr. Clarke is very particular in his description of these subterranean abodes of the dead; and from his interesting narrative the following particulars have been gathered.

The original entrance to them is now closed, and is externally concealed from observation. The only place by which admittance to the interior is practicable, is a small aperture made through the soft and sandy rock, barely large enough to admit a person upon his hands and knees. Here, sometimes, the traveler has encountered jackals, escaping from the interior when alarmed by any person approaching; on which account, a gun or pistol used often to be discharged before entering, to prevent any sally of this kind. “Having passed this aperture,” says Dr. Clarke, “with lighted tapers, we arrived, by gradual descent, in a square chamber, almost filled with earth: to the right and left of this are smaller apartments, chiseled in the rock; each of these contains on either side of it, except that of the entrance, a soros for the reception of a mummy; but, owing to the accumulation of sand in all of them, this part of the catacombs can not be examined without great difficulty. Leaving the first chamber, we found a second of still larger dimensions, having four cryptæ with soroi, two on either side, and a fifth at its extremity toward the south-east. From hence, penetrating toward the west, we passed through another forced aperture, which conducted us into a square chamber, without any receptacles for dead bodies; thence, pursuing a south-western course, we persevered in effecting a passage, over heaps of sand, from one chamber to another, admiring everywhere the same extraordinary effects of labor and ingenuity, until we found ourselves bewildered with so many passages, that our clew of thread became of more importance than we at first believed it would prove to be. At last we reached the stately antechamber of the principal sepulcher, which had every appearance of being intended for a regal repository. It was of a circular form, surmounted by a beautiful dome, hewn out of the rock, with exquisite perfection, and the purest simplicity of workmanship. In a few of the chambers we observed pilasters, resembling, in their style of architecture, the Doric, with architraves, as in some of the most ancient sepulchers near Jerusalem; but they were all integral parts of the solid rock. The dome covering the circular chamber was without ornament; the entrance to it being from the north-west. Opposite to this entrance was a handsome square crypt with three soroi; and to the right and left were other cryptæ, similarly surrounded with places for the dead. Hereabouts we observed the remarkable symbol, sculptured in relief, of an orb with extending wings, evidently intended to represent the subterraneous sun, or sol inferus, as mentioned by Macrobius. We endeavored to penetrate further toward the south-west and south, and found that another complete wing of the vast fabric extended in those directions, but the labor of the research was excessive.

“The cryptæ upon the south-west side corresponded with those which we have described toward the north-east. In the middle, between the two, a long range of chambers extended from the central and circular shrine toward the north-west; and in this direction appears to have been the principal and original entrance. Proceeding toward it we came to a large room in the middle of the fabric, between the supposed Serapeum and the main outlet, or portal, toward the sea. Here the workmanship was very elaborate; and to the right and left were chambers, with receptacles ranged parallel to each other. Further on, in the same direction, is a passage with galleries and spacious apartments on either side; probably the chambers for embalming the dead, or those belonging to the priests, who constantly officiated in the Serapeum. In the front is a kind of vestibulum, or porch; but it is exceedingly difficult to ascertain precisely the nature of the excavation toward the main entrance, from the manner in which it is now choked with earth and rubbish. If this part were laid open, it is possible that something further would be known as to the design of the undertaking; and, at all events, one of the most curious of the antiquities of Egypt would then be exposed to the investigation it merits. Having passed about six hours in exploring, to the best of our ability, these gloomy mansions, we regained, by means of our clew, the aperture by which we had entered, and quitted them forever.”forever.”

Before leaving Alexandria, it may be interesting to glance at the process and luxury of oriental bathing, so often described by travelers in Turkey and Egypt. The narrative is from Taylor, who, though deceived by his dragoman as to the excellence of the bath compared with others which he might have visited, gives us a vivid picture of the process the bather undergoes, and the full comfort that follows it. He says, “The bath to which he conducted us, he declared was the finest in Alexandria, the most superb in all the orient, but it did not at all accord with our ideas of eastern luxury. Moreover, the bath-keeper was his intimate friend, and would bathe us as no Christians were ever bathed before. One fact Ibrahim kept to himself, which was, that his intimate friend and he shared the spoils of our inexperience. We were conducted to a one-story building, of very unprepossessing exterior. As we entered the low, vaulted entrance, my ears were saluted with a dolorous, groaning sound, which I at first conjectured to proceed from the persons undergoing the operation, but which I afterward ascertained was made by a wheel turned by a buffalo, employed in raising water from the well. In a sort of basement hall, smelling of soap-suds, and with a large tank of dirty water in the center, we were received by the bath-keeper, who showed us into a room containing three low divans with pillows. Here we disrobed, and Ibrahim, who had procured a quantity of napkins, enveloped our heads in turbans and swathed our loins in a simple Adamite garment. Heavy wooden clogs were attached to our feet, and an animated bronze statue led the way through gloomy passages, sometimes hot and steamy, sometimes cold and soapy, and redolent of anything but the spicy odors of Araby the blest, to a small vaulted chamber, lighted by a few apertures in the ceiling. The moist heat was almost suffocating; hot water flowed over the stone floor, and the stone benches we sat upon were somewhat cooler than kitchen stoves. The bronze individual left us, and very soon, sweating at every pore, we began to think of the three Hebrews in the furnace. Our comfort was not increased by the groaning sound which we still heard, and by seeing, through a hole in the door, five or six naked figures lying motionless along the edge of a steaming vat, in the outer room. Presently our statue returned with a pair of coarse hair-gloves on his hands. He snatched off our turbans, and then, seizing one of my friends by the shoulder as if he had been a sheep, began a sort of rasping operation upon his back. This process, varied occasionally by a dash of scalding water, was extended to each of our three bodies, and we were then suffered to rest awhile. A course of soap-suds followed, which was softer and more pleasant in its effect, except when he took us by the hair, and holding back our heads, scrubbed our faces most lustily, as if there were no such things as eyes, noses and mouths. By this time we had reached such a salamandrine temperature that the final operation of a dozen pailfuls of hot water poured over the head, was really delightful. After a plunge in a seething tank, we were led back to our chamber and enveloped in loose muslin robes. Turbans were bound on our heads and we lay on the divans to recover from the languor of the bath. The change produced by our new costume was astonishing. The stout German became a Turkish mollah, the young Smyrniote a picturesque Persian, and I—I scarcely know what, but, as my friends assured me, a much better Moslem than Frank. Cups of black coffee and pipes of inferior tobacco completed the process, and in spite of the lack of cleanliness and superabundance of fleas, we went forth lighter in body, and filled with a calm content which nothing seemed able to disturb.”

EGYPTIAN TEMPLES, MONUMENTS, &C.

The ruins of the temple of Hermopolis, or the great city of Mercury, which were thought wonderful till the later discoveries in Egypt threw them comparatively in the shade, give some idea of the great range and high perfection the arts had attained in that country. Many parts of these ruins have preserved their original position, without having been altered or deformed by the works of modern times, and have remained untouched for well nigh four thousand years. They are of freestone, of the fineness of marble, and have neither cement, nor any other means of union, except the perfect fitting of the respective parts. The colossal proportions of the edifice, evince the power the Egyptians possessed to raise such enormous masses. The portico is one hundred and twenty feet long, and its hight sixty feet. Not a spring of an arch remains, to throw light on the dimensions of the whole extent of the temple, or of the nave. The architecture is still richer than the Doric order of the Greeks. The shafts of the pillars represent fasciæ, or bundles; and the pedestal, the stem of the lotus. Under the roof between the two middle columns, are winged globes; and all the roofs are ornamented with a wreath of painted stars, of an aurora color on a blue ground.

The temple of Apollinopolis Magna is described by Denon as surpassing in extent, majesty, magnificence, and high preservation, whatever he had seen in Egypt, or elsewhere. This building is a long suite of pyramidal gates, of courts decorated with galleries, of porticos, and of covered naves, constructed, not with common stones, but with entire rocks. This superb edifice is situated on a rising ground, so as to overlook, not only its immediate vicinity, but the whole valley. On the right is the principal gate, placed between two huge mounds of buildings, on the walls of which are three orders of hieroglyphic figures, increasing in their gigantic dimensions, insomuch that the last have a length of twenty-five feet. The inner court is decorated with a gallery of columns, bearing two terraces, which come out at two gates, through which is the passage to the stairs, leading to the platform of the mounds. Behind the inner portico are several apartments, and the sanctuary of the temple. A wall of circumvallation is decorated both within and without with innumerable hieroglyphics, executed in a very finished and laborious style. This magnificent temple appears to have been dedicated to the evil genius, the figure of Typhon being represented in relief on the four sides of the plinth which surmounts each of the capitals. The entire frieze, and all the paintings within, are descriptive of Isis, defending herself against the attacks of that monster.

THE RUINS OF THEBES.

The ruins of the ancient city of Thebes, which Homer has characterized by the single expression of the city with a hundred gates, are of so immense an extent as to convince the spectator that fame has not exaggerated its size. For, as if the diameter of old Egypt was not sufficient to contain it, its monuments rest on two chains of contiguous mountains, while its tombs occupy the valleys toward the west, stretching off into the desert. The large temple on the eastern side is between two and three leagues distant from Medeenet Abou, where the most western temple is situated; and the modern village of Karnak is built on a small part of the site of a single temple, which is half a mile in circumference. Of the remains of this temple, Denon tells us, that “of the hundred columns of the portico alone, the smallest are seven feet and a half in diameter, and the largest twelve. The space occupied by the circumvallation of the temple contains lakes and mountains. In short, to be enabled to form a competent idea of so much magnificence, the reader ought to fancy what is before him to be a dream, as he who views the objects themselves rubs his eyes to know whether he is awake. The avenue leading from Karnak to Luxor, a space nearly half a league in extent, contains a constant succession of sphinxes and other chimerical figures to the right and left, together with fragments of stone walls, of small columns, and of statues.”

The village of Luxor, Denon describes “as also built on the side of the ruins of a temple, not so large as that of Karnak, but in a better state of preservation, the masses not having as yet fallen through time, and by the pressure of their own weight. The most colossal parts consist of fourteen columns of nearly eleven feet in diameter, and of two statues in granite, at the outer gate, buried up to the middle of the arms, and having in front of them the two largest and best preserved obelisks known. The French, when in Egypt, deemed their means insufficient, not to hew out, but merely to transport these two monuments, which are not more than a fragment of one of the numerous edifices of the astonishing city of Thebes. They are of rose-color granite, are still seventy feet above the ground, and to judge by the depth to which they are supposed to be covered with sand, are believed to be at least one hundred feet in hight. Their preservation is perfect, and the hieroglyphics with which they are covered being cut deep, and in relief at the bottom, show the bold hand of a master, and a beautiful finish. The chisels which could cut such hard materials must have been of an admirable temper; and the machines to drag such enormous blocks from the quarries, to transport them thither, and to set them upright, together with the time required for the labor, surpass all conception!” In speaking of the gate of the temple, which is now that of the village of Luxor, Denon remarks as follows. “Nothing can be more grand, and at the same time more simple, than the small number of objects of which this entrance is composed. No city whatever makes so proud a display at its approach as this wretched village, the population of which consists of two or three thousand souls, who have taken up their abode on the roofs and beneath the galleries of this temple, which has, nevertheless, the air of being in a manner uninhabited.”

The tombs of the kings of Thebes are grottos consisting of a regular double gallery supported by pillars, behind which is a row of chambers, often double. In proportion as the hight of these grottos increases, they become more richly decorated; and the spectator is soon convinced, by the magnificence both of the paintings and sculptures, and of the subjects they represent, that he is among the tombs of great men or heroes. Those which appear to have belonged to the ancient kings, are only distinguished from the others by the magnificence of the sarcophagi, and the mysterious solitude of their situation; the others immediately overlooking the great buildings in the city. The sculpture in all is incomparably more labored and more highly finished than that of the temples, and displays a high perfection of the art. The lines of the hieroglyphics have been cut with a firmness of touch, and a precision, of which marbles offer but few examples; and the figures have a particular elegance and correctness of contour. Small subjects taken from nature are introduced; and in these the groups of persons are given in perspective; and cut in deep relief, in simple and natural attitudes. Several of these subjects bear but little analogy to the spot in which they are immured; for bass-reliefs are seen representing games, such as rope-dancing, and asses taught to play tricks and rear on their hind legs, sculptured with all the traits of genuine nature and simplicity. The plan of these excavations is singular; and many are so vast and complicated, that they might be mistaken for labyrinths, or subterraneous temples. After passing the elegant apartments described above, long and gloomy galleries present themselves, winding backward and forward in numerous angles, and seeming to occupy a great extent of ground. They are melancholy, repulsive, and without any decoration; but open from time to time into other chambers covered with hieroglyphics, and branch out into narrow paths, leading to deep perpendicular pits. At the bottom of these pits are other adorned chambers; and lower still a new series of perpendicular pits and horizontal chambers, until at length, ascending a long flight of steps, the visitor reaches an open place on a level with the chambers he first entered.entered.

Thus far we have followed the brief outline given by Denon, and the earlier travelers. But our ideas of these wonderful ruins will become much more enlarged, as well as accurate, by perusing the descriptions of more recent tourists and explorers; such for example as Taylor and Thompson. The former, before beginning the recital of his visit, gives an outline of the topography of Thebes. “The course of the Nile,” he says, “is here nearly north, dividing the site of the ancient city into two almost equal parts. On approaching it from Kenneh, the mountain of Goorneh which abuts on the river, marks the commencement of the western division. This mountain, a range of naked limestone crags, terminating in a pyramidal peak, gradually recedes to the distance of three miles from the Nile, which it again approaches further south. Nearly the whole of the curve, which might be called the western wall of the city, is pierced with tombs, among which are those of the queens, and the grand priestly vaults of the Assasseef. The valley of the kings’ tombs lies deep in the heart of the range, seven or eight miles from the river. After passing the corner of the mountain, the first ruin on the western bank is that of the temple-palace of Goorneh. More than a mile further, at the base of the mountain, is the Memnonium, or temple of Remeses the Great, between which and the Nile the two Memnonian colossi are seated on the plain. Nearly two miles to the south of this is the great temple of Medeenet Abou, and the fragments of other edifices are met with, still further beyond. On the eastern bank, nearly opposite Goorneh, stands the temple of Karnak, about half a mile from the river. Eight miles eastward, at the foot of the Arabian mountains, is the small temple of Medamot, which, however, does not appear to have been included in the limits of Thebes. Luxor is directly on the bank of the Nile, a mile and a half south of Karnak, and the plain extends several miles beyond it, before reaching the isolated range, whose three conical peaks are the landmarks of Thebes to voyagers on the river. These distances convey an idea of the extent of the ancient city, but fail to represent the grand proportions of the landscape, so well fitted, in its simple and majestic outlines, to inclose the most wonderful structures the world has ever seen. The green expanse of the plain; the airy coloring of the mountains; the mild, solemn blue of the cloudless Egyptian sky: these are a part of Thebes, and inseparable from the remembrance of its ruins.

“At sunrise we crossed to the western bank and moored our boat opposite Goorneh. It is advisable to commence with the tombs, and close the inspection of that side with Medeenet Abou, reserving Karnak, the grandest of all for the last. The most unimportant objects in Thebes are full of interest when seen first, whereas Karnak, once seen, fills one’s thoughts to the exclusion of everything else. There are Arab guides for each bank, who are quite familiar with all the principal points, and who have a quiet and unobtrusive way of directing the traveler; and with one of them, we set off on a stirring gallop for the temple of Goorneh and the valley of the kings’ tombs, leaving Achmet to follow with our breakfast, and the Arab boys with their water bottles. The temple of Goorneh was built for the worship of Amun, the Theban Jupiter, by Osirei and his son, Remeses the Great, the supposed Sesostris, nearly fourteen hundred years before the Christian era. It is small, compared with the other ruins, but interesting from its rude and massive style, a remnant of the early period of Egyptian architecture. The two pylons in front of it are shattered down, and the dromos of sphinxes has entirely disappeared. The portico is supported by a single row of ten columns, which neither resemble each other, nor are separated by equal spaces. What is most singular, is the fact that notwithstanding this disproportion, which is also observable in the doorways, the general effect is harmonious. We tried to fathom the secret of this, and found no other explanation than in the lowness of the building, and the rough granite blocks of which it is built. One seeks no proportion in a natural temple of rock, or a cirque of Druid stones. All that the eye requires is rude strength, with a certain approach to order. The effect produced by this temple is of a similar character, barring its historical interest. Its dimensions are too small to be imposing, and I found, after passing it several times, that I valued it more as a feature in the landscape, than for its own sake.

“The sand and pebbles clattered under the hoofs of our horses, as we galloped up the gorge of Biban el Molook, the ‘gates of the kings.’ The sides are perpendicular cliffs of yellow rock, which increased in hight, the further we advanced, and at last terminated in a sort of basin, shut in by precipices several hundred feet in hight and broken into fantastic turrets, gables and pinnacles. The bottom is filled with huge heaps of sand and broken stones, left from the excavation of the tombs in the solid rock. There are twenty-one tombs in this valley, more than half of which are of great extent and richly adorned with paintings and sculptures. Some have been filled with sand or otherwise injured by the occasional rains which visit this region, while a few are too small and plain to need visiting. Sir Gardner Wilkinson has numbered them all in red chalk at the entrances, which is very convenient to those who use his work on Egypt as a guide. I visited ten of the principal tombs, to the great delight of the old guide, who complained that travelers are frequently satisfied with four or five. The general arrangement is the same in all, but they differ greatly in extent and in the character of their decoration.

“The first we entered was the celebrated tomb of Remeses I., discovered by Belzoni. From the narrow entrance, a precipitous staircase, the walls of which are covered with columns of hieroglyphics, descends to a depth of forty feet, where it strikes a horizontal passage leading to an oblong chamber, in which was formerly a deep pit, which Belzoni filled. This pit protected the entrance to the royal chamber, which was also carefully walled up. In the grace and freedom of the drawings, and the richness of their coloring, this tomb surpasses all others. The subjects represented are the victories of the monarch, while in the sepulchral chamber he is received into the presence of the gods. The limestone rock is covered with a fine coating of plaster, on which the figures were first drawn with red chalk, and afterward carefully finished in colors. The reds, yellows, greens and blues are very brilliant, but seem to have been employed at random, the gods having faces sometimes of one color, sometimes of another. In the furthest chamber, which was left unfinished, the subjects are only sketched in red chalk. Some of them have the loose and uncertain lines of a pupil’s hand, over which one sees the bold and rapid corrections of the master. Many of the figures are remarkable for their strength and freedom of outline. I was greatly interested in a procession of men, representing the different nations of the earth. The physical peculiarities of the Persian, the Jew and the Ethiopian are therein as distinctly marked as at the present day. The blacks are perfect counterparts of those I saw daily upon the Nile, and the noses of the Jews seem newly painted from originals in New York. The burial-vault, where Belzoni found the alabaster sarcophagus of the monarch, is a noble hall, thirty feet long by nearly twenty in breadth and hight, with four massive pillars forming a corridor on one side. In addition to the light of our torches, the Arabs kindled a large bonfire in the center, which brought out in strong relief the sepulchral figures on the ceiling, painted in white on a ground of dark indigo hue. The pillars and walls of the vault glowed with the vivid variety of their colors, and the general effect was unspeakably rich and gorgeous. This tomb has already fallen a prey to worse plunderers than the Medes and Persians. Belzoni carried off the sarcophagus, Champollion cut away the splendid jambs and architrave of the entrance to the lower chambers, and Lepsius has finished by splitting the pillars and appropriating their beautiful paintings for the museum at Berlin. At one spot, where the latter has totally ruined a fine doorway, some indignant Frenchman has written in red chalk, ‘Meurtre commis par Lepsius.’ In all the tombs of Thebes, wherever you see the most flagrant and shameless spoliations, the guide says, ‘Lepsius.’ Who can blame the Arabs for wantonly defacing these precious monuments, when such an example is set them by the vanity of European antiquarians?

“Bruce’s tomb, which extends for four hundred and twenty feet into the rock, is larger than Belzoni’s, but not so fresh and brilliant. The main entrance slopes with a very gradual descent, and has on each side a number of small chambers and niches, apparently for mummies. The illustrations in these chambers are somewhat defaced, but very curious, on account of the light which they throw upon the domestic life of the ancient Egyptians. They represent the slaughtering of oxen, the preparation of fowls for the table, the kneading and baking of bread and cakes, as well as the implements and utensils of the kitchen. In other places the field laborers are employed in leading the water of the Nile into canals, cutting dourra, threshing and carrying the grain into magazines. One room is filled with furniture, and the row of chairs around the base of the walls would not be out of place in the most elegant modern drawing-room. The illustrated catalogue of the London exhibition contains few richer and more graceful patterns. In a chamber nearer the royal vault, two old, blind minstrels are seen, playing the harp in the presence of the king, whence this is sometimes called the harper’s tomb. The pillars of the grand hall, like those of all the other tombs we visited, represent the monarch, after death, received into the presence of the gods, stately figures, with a calm and serious aspect, and lips, which, like those of the Sphinx, seemed closed upon some awful mystery. The absurdity of the coloring does not destroy this effect, and a blue-faced Isis, whose hard, black eyeball stares from a brilliant white socket, is not less impressive than the same figure, cut in sandstone or granite. The delicacy and precision of the hieroglyphics, sculptured in intaglio, filled me with astonishment. In the tomb of Amunoph III., which I visited the next day, they resembled the ciphers engraved upon seals in their exquisite sharpness and regularity. Only the principal tombs, however, are thus beautified. In others the figures are either simply painted, or apparently sunken in the plaster, while it was yet fresh, by prepared patterns. The latter method accounts for the exact resemblance of long processions of figures, which would otherwise require a most marvelous skill on the part of the artist. In some unfinished chambers I detected plainly the traces of these patterns, where the outlines of the figures were blunt, and the grain of the plaster bent, and not cut. The family likeness in the faces of the monarchs is also too striking, unfortunately, for us to accept them all as faithful portraits. They are all apparently of the same age, and their attributes do not materially differ. This was probably a flattery on the part of the artists, or the effect of a royal vanity, which required to be portrayed in the freshness of youth and the full vigor of body and mind. The first faces I learned to recognize were those of Remeses II., the supposed Sesostris, and Amunoph III.

“The tomb of Memnon, as it was called by the Romans, is the most elegant of all, in its proportions, and is as symmetrical as a Grecian temple. On the walls of the entrance are several inscriptions of Greek tourists, who visited it in the era of the Ptolemies, and spent their time in carving their names, like Americans nowadays. The huge granite sarcophagus in which the monarch’s mummy was deposited, is broken, as are those of the other tombs, with a single exception. This is the tomb of Osirei I., the grandfather of Sesostris, and the oldest in the valley. I visited it by crawling through a hole barely large enough to admit my body, after which I slid on my back down a passage nearly choked with sand, to another hole, opening into the burial chamber. Here no impious hand had defaced the walls, but the figures were as perfect and the coloring as brilliant as when first executed. In the center stood an immense sarcophagus, of a single block of red granite, and the massive lid, which had been thrown off, lay beside it. The dust in the bottom gave out that peculiar mummy odor perceptible in all the tombs, and in fact long after one has left them, for the clothes become saturated with it. The guide, delighted with having dragged me into that chamber, buried deep in the dumb heart of the mountain, said not a word, and from the awful stillness of the place and the phantasmagoric gleam of the wonderful figures on the walls, I could have imagined myself a neophyte, on the threshold of the Osirian mysteries. We then rode to the western valley, a still deeper and wider glen, containing tombs of the kings of the foreign dynasty of Atin-Re. We entered the two principal ones, but found the paintings rude and insignificant. There are many lateral passages and chambers, and in some places deep pits, along the edge of which we were obliged to crawl. In the last tomb a very long and steep staircase descends into the rock. As we were groping after the guide, I called to my friend to take care, as there was but a single step, after making a slip. The words were scarcely out of my mouth before I felt a tremendous thump, followed by a number of smaller ones, and found myself sitting in a heap of sand, at the bottom, some twenty or thirty feet below. Fortunately, I came off with but a few slight bruises.