* * * * *
Facing the sea of life, upon its shores
There stood a temple proud.
* * * * *
THE TEMPLE OF SEMNEH.
Visitors to temples. — The German. — The Frenchman. — The Englishman. —
The American. — Description of the temple.
ON the banks of the Nile, forty miles from Wady Halfa, stands the small
temple of Semneh.
A visit to a temple has always afforded me instruction and matter for
reflection, not less, perhaps, on account of the temple itself than on
account of the tourists from different parts of the world, whom, at the
right season and in frequented parts, one is likely to find there. Each
nationality has its unmistakable peculiarities; each is a study in
itself.
The proceedings of the German are, perhaps, most calculated to excite
attention. He is a little fat man with a huge red moustache adorning an
energetic and determined-looking face. He wears a helmet which he
evidently thinks has a national and military appearance; it is, however,
always either much too small or much too large, generally the latter,
when it hides all his face from view, excepting only the end of his nose
and the huge red moustache. The rest of his costume consists of a pair
of low shoes, the laces often untied, a pair of very baggy trousers,
much too short, made of white duck or brown holland; his coat is of the
same material and equally ample; beneath it is his waistcoat with many
pockets and of as many hues as the famous coat that Joseph wore and
which formed the envy of his brothers. He generally goes to a temple on
a donkey, and the pace at which he trots away, and the ease and elegance
with which he sits his saddle, are strong evidence that he is not
unfamiliar with the control of a nobler quadruped. He despises all
guides, the donkey-boy is his only attendant; he takes with him, tied to
the back of the donkey, a camp-stool on which he intends to climb to get
a better view of the hieroglyphics on the walls of the temple. His white
umbrella is under his arm, and the boy trots behind and now and then
prods or wallops the donkey. Arrived at his destination he places his
stool close to the wall and sits down, while the boy holds the umbrella
over his head to keep off the sun. Having carefully blown over the
surface of the stone, to dislodge any loose sand that may be there, he
takes from his pocket a note-book, a measure, a pair of spectacles, and
a lead-pencil; he then measures, with great care and accuracy, the
height and breadth of a hieroglyphic, and gets the depth by inserting
the end of the pencil; this he does two or three times to be quite sure
that there is no mistake. After making notes of all these measurements
he moves the camp-stool two or three yards back and mounts to the top,
steadied by the boy; an opera-glass is produced from his pocket, and he
scans, from end to end, the whole wall of the temple. His observations
are now concluded; the glass, note-book, spectacles, measure, and pencil
are replaced, and, after a draught of refreshment from a bottle of beer,
which has evidently been opened and partly emptied before, he rides back
as he came. When he gets home to Germany he writes an exhaustive
pamphlet on the temples of Egypt and their hieroglyphics.
The Frenchman goes to see a temple in a different way and for an
entirely different purpose; he is generally accompanied by two or three
friends. When he gets there he says, “Mon Dieu!” and if he makes any
further remark it will be to compare the temple with the “Madeleine,”
the “Arc de Triomphe,” or with some other building for which he has
special and patriotic admiration. He and his friends then repair to
breakfast, champagne and cigars, into the shadiest corner of the ruin;
the conversation will be lively and on various subjects, not one of
which, however, will have anything to do with the object of the visit.
When breakfast is finished he will go home amused and delighted with his
excursion, and will talk graphically about the temple for the rest of
his life, but will only know as much as our friend the German who wrote
the pamphlet.
Before an Englishman visits a temple he reads up _Murray’s Guide_ for
the previous six months, and, when he goes, he takes a copy under his
arm, and a hammer and chisel in his pocket. He always travels in a large
party of fellow-countrymen and women. In the party there are sure to be
at least two wise men and, perhaps, as many wise ladies, who make it
their business to impart knowledge concerning every particular of the
temple, historical and archæological, to their listening companions.
When the information of one of the authorities differs from that of the
other, there is always much warm argument, until the party is divided
into two parties, in a parliamentary sense, who continue the debate
until their arrival at the temple, when each party finding itself
absurdly wrong, a general silence is the result. The silence, however,
does not last long, and our tourist remarks that the temple is
“wonderful.” Conversation becomes general and enthusiastic; he feels
bound to admire the manner in which the masonry is put together, and to
express his approval of the exquisite carving of the hieroglyphics;
then, quite forgetting his _Murray_, he speculates on the age of the
temple and on the effect that the arts and sciences of the ancient
Egyptians may have had upon the civilisation of modern nations, of which
England is the greatest. He then seeks a prominent place in the wall and
carves his name on what may, perhaps, be the most interesting cartouche
on the temple, and which, if properly interpreted, may be capable of
furnishing all the information which he professes himself so anxious to
acquire. After the achievement of this, the principal object of his
visit, he will, like the Frenchman, sit down to lunch; his conversation
will not, like his, be lively, but it will certainly have reference to
the temple and to nothing else. On the ride home he will converse much,
soon become argumentative, and ultimately quarrelsome, and will go to
bed determined never to see another temple. There is one thing, however,
which is quite certain, that the English tourist knows much more about a
temple before he has seen it than ever he does after, and this is,
perhaps, a somewhat singular circumstance.
The American is again different, as a tourist he is unique; he goes to a
temple not with the object of going there and of seeing it, but with the
object of having been there and of having seen it. He is very erratic in
his movements, sometimes he makes his journey alone, sometimes with
other Americans, but more frequently he joins a party of Englishmen; he
converses fluently about the temple, but it is evident to all that he
knows nothing whatever on the subject; perhaps he has not even heard of
its name until the day before; his object is to obtain all the
information he can from the conversation of the _Murray’s-Guide_-filled
Englishmen; he always succeeds, and on his return journey is often in a
position to satisfactorily decide any question about which there may be
a difference. He is amiable and generous and well supplied with
excellent cigars, which he freely distributes. On arrival at the temple,
he invariably knocks a piece of stone off a corner, and tells his
attendant to carry it to his hotel; when he gets there himself, he
labels it and puts it with many others in a large box marked “Geological
Specimens.” On arrival in America he calls them his “rocks,” and gives
them to his friends, who value them much. An American tourist is
peculiar in other ways: he will sometimes, if hot and tired, only go
part of the way to the temple, where he will sit down and wait till the
return of his friends, one of whom will certainly have been commissioned
to bring his “rock.” When he starts alone to see a temple, he very
seldom goes all the way, but picks up a “rock” in the desert, and makes
that answer every purpose. He has always plenty of money, and buys
nearly all things that are offered to him, paying six times as much as
an Englishman, twenty times as much as a Frenchman, and forty times as
much as a German. He has at his hotel a trunk full of relics of all
shapes, and amongst them several hundred scarabæi, one or two of which
may, perhaps, be genuine; in the States he lectures on the collection,
and makes the money he has spent on their purchase, and, very often, a
great deal more besides.
It has never been my happiness to meet an Italian on a visit to a
temple; but I have reason to believe that his proceedings are like those
of the gentlemen mentioned above, characterized by dignity, propriety,
and fitting veneration for the monuments of an extinct race.
Individuals of different peoples differ, of course, considerably among
themselves; but those I have described may, I think, be regarded as fair
and often-met-with types.
My visit to Semneh was only short and hurried, and offered me no
prospect of meeting with any chance tourist. The temple is much too far
removed from the beaten track; its walls are not rich in carvings,
ancient Egyptian or modern English, and no “rocks” have been knocked
from the corners.
It is about twelve feet in height, and contains but one chamber, thirty
feet by eleven. Thothmes III. is said to be the monarch by whom it was
erected; he was one of the most famous kings of the eighteenth dynasty,
which lasted, according to Sir Gardner Wilkinson, from 1520 B.C. to 1340
B.C., according to Bunsen from 1625 B.C. to 1409 B.C., and according to
Mariette from 1703 B.C. to 1462 B.C. It will thus be seen that, at the
lowest computation, the temple of Semneh must be more than three
thousand years old.
During the reign of Thothmes III., Egypt, in the language of the
hieroglyphics, “placed its frontiers where it pleased.” He carried his
victorious arms far into Western Asia. Had there been Parliamentary
government in those early times, there is no doubt that, by the leaders
of His Majesty’s Opposition, he would have been characterised as a
regular old Egyptian “jingo.” On the pillars of the temple, Thothmes
III. is represented in company with Totouôn and other deities. Osirtasen
III., an ancestor, is represented as a god; he was one of the few known
kings of the twelfth dynasty, lasting, according to Sir G. Wilkinson,
from 2080 B.C. to 1900 B.C., according to Bunsen from 2781 B.C. to 2634
B.C., and according to Mariette from 3064 B.C. to 2851 B.C.; to his
reign belong the obelisk at On, or Heliopolis, the tombs of Beni Hassan,
the famous Labyrinth, and Lake Mœris, excavated to collect the waters of
the Nile for irrigation purposes.
For the above particulars I am indebted to _Murray’s Guide_, which, on
the occasion of my visit to the temple of Semneh, I, as a matter of
course, faithfully took with me under my arm.
[Decoration]