Another of what may be considered as the wonders of Egypt, is the
temple of Jupiter Ammon in the midst of the Great Desert. This temple
was situated at a distance of no less than twelve days' journey from
Memphis, the capital of the Lower Egypt. The principal part of this
space consisted of one immense tract of moving sand, so hot as to be
intolerable to the sole of the foot, while the air was pregnant with
fire, so that it was almost impossible to breathe in it. Not a drop of
water, not a tree, not a blade of grass, was to be found through this
vast surface. It was here that Cambyses, engaged in an impious
expedition to demolish the temple, is said to have lost an army of
fifty thousand men, buried in the sands. When you arrived however,
you were presented with a wood of great circumference, the foliage of
which was so thick that the beams of the sun could not pierce it. The
atmosphere of the place was of a delicious temperature; the scene was
every where interspersed with fountains; and all the fruits of the
earth were found in the highest perfection. In the midst was the
temple and oracle of the God, who was worshipped in the likeness of a
ram. The Egyptian priests chose this site as furnishing a test of the
zeal of their votaries; the journey being like the pilgrimage to
Jerusalem or Mecca, if not from so great a distance, yet attended in
many respects with perils more formidable. It was not safe to attempt
the passage but with moderate numbers, and those expressly equipped
for expedition.
Bacchus is said to have visited this spot in his great expedition to
the East, when Jupiter appeared to him in the form of a ram, having
struck his foot upon the soil, and for the first time occasioned that
supply of water, with which the place was ever after plentifully
supplied. Alexander the Great in a subsequent age undertook the same
journey with his army, that he might cause himself to be acknowledged
for the son of the God, under which character he was in all due form
recognised. The priests no doubt had heard of the successful battles
of the Granicus and of Issus, of the capture of Tyre after a seven
months' siege, and of the march of the great conqueror in Egypt, where
he carried every thing before him.
Here we are presented with a striking specimen of the mode and spirit
in which the oracles of old were accustomed to be conducted. It may be
said that the priests were corrupted by the rich presents which
Alexander bestowed on them with a liberal hand. But this was not the
prime impulse in the business. They were astonished at the daring with
which Alexander with a comparative handful of men set out from Greece,
having meditated the overthrow of the great Persian empire. They were
astonished with his perpetual success, and his victorious progress
from the Hellespont to mount Taurus, from mount Taurus to Pelusium,
and from Pelusium quite across the ancient kingdom of Egypt to the
Palus Mareotis. Accustomed to the practice of adulation, and to the
belief that mortal power and true intellectual greatness were the
same, they with a genuine enthusiastic fervour regarded Alexander as
the son of their God, and acknowledged him as such.--Nothing can be
more memorable than the way in which belief and unbelief hold a
divided empire over the human mind, our passions hurrying us into
belief, at the same time that our intervals of sobriety suggest to
us that it is all pure imposition.