The temple of Luxor is imbedded in the modern village, and only the
front of the pylon, facing toward Karnak, and part of the grand central
colonnade, are free from its hovels and their accessories. For this
reason, though of much grander proportions than the Memnonium, its
effect is less agreeable and impressive. “Its plan, however,” says
Taylor, “is easily traced; and having been built by only two monarchs,
Remeses the Great and Amunoph III., or, to use their more familiar
titles, Sesostris and Memnon, it is less bewildering, in a historical
point of view, to the unstudied tourist, than most of the other temples
of Egypt. The sanctuary, which stands nearest the Nile, is still
protected by the ancient stone quay, though the river has made rapid
advances, and threatens finally to undermine Luxor as it has already
undermined the temples of Antæopolis and Antinoë. I rode into what were
once the sacred chambers, but the pillars and sculptures were covered
with filth, and the Arabs had built in, around and upon them, like the
clay nests of the cliff-sparrow. The peristyle of majestic Osiride
pillars, in front of the portico, as well as the portico itself, are
buried to half their depth, and so surrounded by hovels, that to get an
idea of their arrangement you must make the tour of a number of
hen-houses and asses’ stalls. The pillars are now employed as
drying-posts for the buffalo dung which the Arabs use as fuel.
Proceeding toward the entrance, the next court, which is tolerably free
from incumbrances, contains a colonnade of two rows of lotus-crowned
columns, twenty-eight feet in circumference. They still uphold their
architraves of giant blocks of sandstone, and rising high above the
miserable dwellings of the village, are visible from every part of the
plain of Thebes. The English vice-consul occupies a house between two of
these pillars. He gave us the agreeable news that the consul was
endeavoring to persuade the pasha to have Karnak cleared of its rubbish
and preserved from further spoliation. If I possessed despotic power,
(and I then wished it for the first time,) I should certainly make
despotic use of it, in tearing down some dozens of villages and setting
some thousands of Copts and Fellahs at work in exhuming what their
ancestors have mutilated and buried. The world can not spare these
remains. Tear down Roman ruins if you will; level Cyclopean walls; build
bridges with the stones of Gothic abbeys and feudal fortresses; but lay
no hand on the glory and grandeur of Egypt! We ascended the great pylon
of the temple, on the face of the towers of which the victories of
Remeses are sculptured; but his colossi, solid figures of granite, which
sit on either side of the entrance, have been much defaced. The lonely
obelisk, which stands a little in advance, on the left hand, is more
perfect than its Parisian mate. From this stately entrance, an avenue of
colossal sphinxes once extended to the Ptolemaic pylon of Karnak, a
distance of a mile and a half. The sphinxes have disappeared, and the
modern Arab road leads over its site, through fields of waste grass.”