CHAPTER XXI.

THEBES.

We had so long been the sport of destiny that we hardly knew what to

make of our good fortune when two days of sweet south wind carried us

from Edfu to Luxor. We came back to find the old mooring-place alive

with dahabeeyahs and gay with English and American colors. These two

flags well-nigh divide the river. In every twenty-five boats one may

fairly calculate upon an average of twelve English, nine American, two

German, one Belgian and one French. Of all these, our American cousins,

ever helpful, ever cordial, are pleasantest to meet. Their flag stands

to me for a host of brave and generous and kindly associations. It

brings back memories of many lands and many faces. It calls up echoes of

friendly voices, some far distant; some, alas! silent. Wherefore--be it

on the Nile, or the Thames, or the high seas, or among Syrian

camping-grounds, or drooping listlessly from the balconies of gloomy

diplomatic haunts in continental cities--my heart warms to the stars and

stripes whenever I see them.

Our arrival brought all the dealers in Luxor to the surface. They

waylaid and followed us wherever we went; while some of the better

sort--grave men in long black robes and ample turbans--installed

themselves on our lower deck and lived there for a fortnight. Go

up-stairs when one would, whether before breakfast in the morning, or

after dinner in the evening, there we always found them, patient,

imperturbable, ready to rise up and salaam, and produce from some hidden

pocket a purseful of scarabs or a bundle of funerary statuettes. Some of

these gentlemen were Arabs, some Copts--all polite, plausible and

mendacious.

Where Copt and Arab drive the same doubtful trade it is not easy to

define the shades of difference in their dealings. As workmen the Copts

are perhaps the most artistic. As salesmen the Arabs are perhaps the

less dishonest. Both sell more forgeries than genuine antiquities. Be

the demand what it may, they are prepared to meet it. Thothmes is not

too heavy, nor Cleopatra too light, for them. Their carvings in old

sycamore wood, their porcelain statuettes, their hieroglyphed limestone

tablets, are executed with a skill that almost defies detection. As for

genuine scarabs of the highest antiquity, they are turned out by the

gross every season. Engraved, glazed and administered to the turkeys in

the form of boluses, they acquire, by the simple process of digestion, a

degree of venerableness that is really charming.

Side by side with the work of production goes on the work of excavation.

The professed diggers colonize the western bank. They live rent free

among the tombs; drive donkeys or work shâdûfs by day and spend their

nights searching for treasure. Some hundreds of families live in this

grim way, spoiling the dead-and-gone Egyptians for a livelihood.

Forgers, diggers and dealers play, meanwhile, into one another’s hands

and drive a roaring trade. Your dahabeeyah, as I have just shown, is

beset from the moment you moor till the moment you pole off again from

shore. The boy who drives your donkey, the guide who pilots you among

the tombs, the half-naked fellah who flings down his hoe as you pass and

runs beside you for half a mile across the plain, have one and all an

“anteekah” to dispose of. The turbaned official who comes, attended by

his secretary and pipe-bearer, to pay you a visit of ceremony, warns you

against imposition, and hints at genuine treasures to which he alone

possesses the key. The gentlemanly native who sits next to you at dinner

has a wonderful scarab in his pocket. In short, every man, woman and

child about the place is bent on selling a bargain; and the bargain, in

ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, is valuable in so far as it

represents the industry of Luxor--but no farther. A good thing, of

course, is to be had occasionally; but the good thing never comes to the

surface as long as a market can be found for the bad one. It is only

when the dealer finds he has to do with an experienced customer that he

produces the best he has.

Flourishing as it is, the trade of Luxor labors, however, under some

uncomfortable restrictions. Private excavation being prohibited, the

digger lives in dread of being found out by the governor. The forger,

who has nothing to fear from the governor, lives in dread of being found

out by the tourist. As for the dealer, whether he sells an antique or an

imitation, he is equally liable to punishment. In the one case he

commits an offense against the state; and in the other, he obtains money

under false pretenses. Meanwhile, the governor deals out such

even-handed justice as he can, and does his best to enforce the law on

both sides of the river.

By a curious accident, L---- and the writer once actually penetrated

into a forger’s workshop. Not knowing that it had been abolished, we

went to a certain house in which a certain consulate had once upon a

time been located and there knocked for admission. An old deaf fellâha

opened the door and after some hesitation showed us into a large

unfurnished room with three windows. In each window there stood a

workman’s bench strewn with scarabs, amulets and funerary statuettes in

every stage of progress. We examined these specimens with no little

curiosity. Some were of wood; some were of limestone; some were partly

colored. The colors and brushes were there; to say nothing of files,

gravers and little pointed tools like gimlets. A magnifying glass of the

kind used by engravers lay in one of the window recesses. We also

observed a small grindstone screwed to one of the benches and worked by

a treadle; while a massive fragment of mummy-case in a corner behind the

door showed whence came the old sycamore wood for the wooden specimens.

That three skilled workmen furnished with European tools had been busy

in this room shortly before we were shown into it was perfectly clear.

We concluded that they had just gone away to breakfast.

Meanwhile we waited, expecting to be ushered into the presence of the

consul. In about ten minutes, however, breathless with hurrying, arrived

a well-dressed Arab whom we had never seen before. Distracted between

his oriental politeness and his desire to get rid of us, he bowed us out

precipitately, explaining that the house had changed owners and that the

power in question had ceased to be represented at Luxor. We heard him

rating the old woman savagely, as soon as the door had closed behind us.

I met that well-dressed Arab a day or two after, near the governor’s

house, and he immediately vanished round the nearest corner.

The Boulak authorities keep a small gang of trained excavators always at

work in the Necropolis of Thebes. These men are superintended by the

governor and every mummy-case discovered is forwarded to Boulak

unopened. Thanks to the courtesy of the governor, we had the good

fortune to be present one morning at the opening of a tomb. He sent to

summon us, just as we were going to breakfast. With what alacrity we

manned the felucca and how we ate our bread and butter half in the boat

and half on donkey-back, may easily be imagined. How well I remember

that early-morning ride across the western plain of Thebes--the young

barley rippling for miles in the sun; the little water-channel running

beside the path; the white butterflies circling in couples; the wayside

grave with its tiny dome and prayer-mat, its well and broken kulleh,

inviting the passer-by to drink and pray; the wild vine that trailed

along the wall; the vivid violet of the vetches that blossomed unbidden

in the barley. We had the mounds and pylons of Medinet Habu to the

left--the ruins of the Ramesseum to the right--the colossi of the plain

and the rosy western mountains before us all the way. How the great

statues glistened in the morning light! How they towered up against the

soft blue sky! Battered and featureless, they sat in the old patient

attitude, looking as if they mourned the vanished springs.

We found the new tomb a few hundred yards in the rear of the Ramesseum.

The diggers were in the pit; the governor and a few Arabs were looking

on. The vault was lined with brick-work above and cut square in the

living rock below. We were just in time; for already, through the sand

and rubble with which the grave had been filled in, there appeared an

outline of something buried. The men, throwing spades and picks aside,

now began scraping up the dust with their hands, and a mummy-case came

gradually to light. It was shaped to represent a body lying at length

with the hands crossed upon the breast. Both hands and face were carved

in high relief. The ground-color of the sarcophagus was white;[191] the

surface covered with hieroglyphed legends and somewhat coarsely painted

figures of four lesser gods of the dead. The face, like the hands, was

colored a brownish-yellow and highly varnished. But for a little dimness

of the gaudy hues, and a little flaking off of the surface here and

there, the thing was as perfect as when it was placed in the ground. A

small wooden box roughly put together lay at the feet of the mummy. This

was taken out first, and handed to the governor, who put it aside

without opening it. The mummy-case was then raised upright, hoisted to

the brink of the pit, and laid upon the ground.

It gave one a kind of shock to see it first of all lying just as it had

been left by the mourners; then hauled out by rude hands, to be

searched, unrolled, perhaps broken up as unworthy to occupy a corner of

the Boulak collection. Once they are lodged and catalogued in a museum,

one comes to look upon these things as “specimens,” and forgets that

they once were living beings like ourselves. But this poor mummy looked

startlingly human and pathetic lying at the bottom of its grave in the

morning sunlight.

After the sarcophagus had been lifted out, a small blue porcelain cup, a

ball of the same material, and another little object shaped like a

cherry, were found in the débris. The last was hollow, and contained

something that rattled when shaken. The mummy, the wooden box, and these

porcelain toys, were then removed to a stable close by; and the

excavators, having laid bare what looked like the mouth of a bricked-up

tunnel in the side of the tomb, fell to work again immediately. A second

vault--perhaps a chain of vaults--it was thought would now be

discovered.

* * * * *

We went away, meanwhile, for a few hours, and saw some of the famous

painted tombs in that part of the mountain side just above, which goes

by the name of Sheik Abd-el-Koorneh.

It was a hot climb; the sun blazing overhead; the cliffs reflecting

light and heat; the white débris glaring under foot. Some of the tombs

up here are excavated in terraces, and look from a distance like rows of

pigeon-holes; others are pierced in solitary ledges of rock; many are

difficult of access; all are intolerably hot and oppressive. They were

numbered half a century ago by the late Sir Gardner Wilkinson, and the

numbers are there still. We went that morning into fourteen, sixteen,

seventeen, and thirty-five.

As a child “The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians” had shared

my affections with “The Arabian Nights.” I had read every line of the

old six-volume edition over and over again. I knew every one of the six

hundred illustrations by heart. Now I suddenly found myself in the midst

of old and half-forgotten friends. Every subject on these wonderful

walls was already familiar to me. Only the framework, only the coloring,

only the sand under foot, only the mountain slope outside, were new and

strange. It seemed to me that I had met all these kindly brown people

years and years ago--perhaps in some previous stage of existence; that I

had walked with them in their gardens; listened to the music of their

lutes and tambourines; pledged them at their feasts. Here is the funeral

procession that I know so well; and the trial scene after death, where

the mummy stands upright in the presence of Osiris, and sees his heart

weighed in the balance. Here is that well-remembered old fowler

crouching in the rushes with his basket of decoys. One withered hand is

lifted to his mouth; his lips frame the call; his thin hair blows in the

breeze. I see now that he has placed himself to the leeward of the game;

but that subtlety escaped me in the reading days of my youth. Yonder I

recognize a sculptor’s studio into which I frequently peeped at that

time. His men are at work as actively as ever; but I marvel that they

have not yet finished polishing the surface of that red-granite

colossus. This patient angler, still waiting for a bite, is another old

acquaintance; and yonder, I declare, is that evening party at which I

was so often an imaginary guest! Is the feast not yet over? Has that

late-comer whom we saw hurrying along just now in a neighboring corridor

not yet arrived? Will the musicians never play to the end of their

concerto? Are those ladies still so deeply interested in the patterns

of one another’s ear-rings? It seems to me that the world has been

standing still in here for these last five-and-thirty years.

Did I say five-and-thirty? Ah, me! I think we must multiply it by ten,

and then by ten again, ere we come to the right figure. These people

lived in the time of the Thothmes and the Amenhoteps--a time upon which

Rameses the Great looked back as we look back to the days of the Tudors

and the Stuarts.

From the tombs above we went back to the excavations below. The

bricked-up opening had led, as the diggers expected, into a second

vault; and another mummy-case, half-crushed by a fall of débris, had

just been taken out. A third was found later in the afternoon. Curiously

enough, they were all three mummies of women.

The governor was taking his luncheon with the first mummy in the

recesses of the stable, which had been a fine tomb once, but reeked now

with manure. He sat on a rug, cross-legged, with a bowl of sour milk

before him and a tray of most uninviting little cakes. He invited me to

a seat on his rug, handed me his own spoon, and did the honors of the

stable as pleasantly as if it had been a palace.

I asked him why the excavators, instead of working among these

second-class graves, were not set to search for the tombs of the kings

of the eighteenth dynasty, supposed to be waiting discovery in a certain

valley called the Valley of the West. He shook his head. The way to the

Valley of the West, he said, was long and difficult. Men working there

must encamp upon the spot; and merely to supply them with water would be

no easy matter. He was allowed, in fact, only a sum sufficient for the

wages of fifty excavators; and to attack the Valley of the West with

less than two hundred would be useless.

We had luncheon that morning, I remember, with the M. B.’s in the second

hall of the Ramesseum. It was but one occasion among many; for the

writer was constantly at work on that side of the river, and we had

luncheon in one or other of the western temples every day. Yet that

particular meeting stands out in my memory apart from the rest. I see

the joyous party gathered together in the shade of the great

columns--the Persian rugs spread on the uneven ground--the dragoman in

his picturesque dress going to and fro--the brown and tattered Arabs,

squatting a little way off, silent and hungry-eyed, each with his string

of forged scarabs, his imitation gods, or his bits of mummy-case and

painted cartonnage for sale--the glowing peeps of landscape framed in

here and there through vistas of columns--the emblazoned architraves

laid along from capital to capital overhead, each block sculptured with

enormous cartouches yet brilliant with vermilion and ultramarine--the

patient donkeys munching all together at a little heap of vetches in one

corner--the intense depths of cloudless blue above. Of all Theban ruins,

the Ramesseum is the most cheerful. Drenched in sunshine, the warm

limestone of which it is built seems to have mellowed and turned golden

with time. No walls inclose it. No towering pylons overshadow it. It

stands high, and the air circulates freely among those simple and

beautiful columns. There are not many Egyptian ruins in which one can

talk and be merry; but in the Ramesseum one may thoroughly enjoy the

passing hour.

Whether Rameses the Great was ever actually buried in this place is a

problem which future discoveries may possibly solve; but that the

Ramesseum and the tomb of Osymandias were one and the same building is a

point upon which I never entertained a moment’s doubt. Spending day

after day among these ruins; sketching now here, now there; going over

the ground bit by bit, and comparing every detail, I came at last to

wonder how an identity so obvious could ever have been doubted. Diodorus

was of course inaccurate; but then one as little looks for accuracy in

Diodorus as in Homer. Compared with some of his topographical

descriptions, the account he gives of the Ramesseum is a marvel of

exactness. He describes[192] a building approached by two vast

court-yards; a hall of pillars opening by way of three entrances from

the second court-yard; a succession of chambers, including a sacred

library; ceilings of azure “bespangled with stars;” walls covered with

sculptures representing the deeds and triumphs of the king whom he calls

Osymandias,[193] among which are particularly noticed the assault of a

fortress “environed by a river,” a procession of captives without hands,

and a series of all the gods of Egypt, to whom the king was represented

in the act of making offerings; finally, against the entrance to the

second court-yard, three statues of the king, one of which, being of

Syenite granite and made “in a sitting posture,” is stated to be not

only “the greatest in all Egypt,” but admirable above all others “for

its workmanship and the excellence of the stone.”

Bearing in mind that what is left of the Ramesseum is, as it were, only

the backbone of the entire structure, one can still walk from end to end

of the building, and still recognize every feature of this description.

We turn our backs on the wrecked towers of the first propylon; crossing

what was once the first court-yard, we leave to the left the fallen

colossus; we enter the second court-yard, and see before us the three

entrances to the hall of pillars and the remains of two other statues;

we walk up the central avenue of the great hall, and see above our heads

architraves studded with yellow stars upon a ground color so luminously

blue that it almost matches the sky; thence, passing through a chamber

lined with sculptures, we come to the library, upon the door-jambs of

which Champollion found the figures of Thoth and Saf, the lord of

letters and the lady of the sacred books;[194] finally, among such

fragments of sculptured decoration as yet remain, we find the king

making offerings to a hieroglyphed list of gods as well as to his

deified ancestors; we see the train of captives, and the piles of

severed hands;[195] and we discover an immense battle-piece, which is in

fact a replica of the famous battle-piece at Abou Simbel. This subject,

like its Nubian prototype, yet preserves some of its color. The enemy

are shown to be fair-skinned and light-haired, and wear the same Syrian

robes; and the river, more green than that at Abou Simbel, is painted in

zigzags in the same manner. The king, alone in his chariot, sends arrow

after arrow against the flying foe. They leap into the river and swim

for their lives. Some are drowned; some cross in safety, and are helped

out by their friends on the opposite bank. A red-haired chief, thus

rescued, is suspended head downward by his soldiers, in order to let the

water that he has swallowed run out of his mouth. The river is once more

the Orontes; the city is once more Kadesh; the king is once more Rameses

II; and the incidents are again the incidents of the poem of Pentaur.

The one wholly unmistakable point in the narrative is, however, the

colossal statue of Syenite, the largest in Egypt.”[196] The siege and

the river, the troops of captives are to be found elsewhere; but

nowhere, save here, a colossus which answers to that description. This

statue was larger than even the twin colossi of the plain. They measure

eighteen feet three inches across the shoulders; this measures

twenty-two feet four inches. They sit about fifty feet high, without

their pedestals; this one must have lifted his head some ten feet higher

still. “The measure of his foot,” says Diodorus, “exceeded seven

cubits;” the Greek cubit being a little over eighteen inches in length.

The foot of the fallen Rameses measures nearly eleven feet in length by

four feet ten inches in breadth. This, also, is the only very large

Theban colossus sculptured in the red syenite of Assûan.[197]

Ruined almost beyond recognition as it is, one never doubts for a moment

that this statue was one of the wonders of Egyptian workmanship. It most

probably repeated in every detail the colossi of Abou Simbel; but it

surpassed them as much in finish of carving as in perfection of

material. The stone is even more beautiful in color than that of the

famous obelisks of Karnak; and is so close and hard in grain that the

scarab-cutters of Luxor are said to use splinters of it, as our

engravers use diamonds, for the points of their graving, tools. The

solid contents of the whole, when entire, are calculated at eight

hundred and eighty-seven tons. How this astounding mass was transported

from Assûan, how it was raised, how it was overthrown, are problems upon

which a great deal of ingenious conjecture has been wasted. One traveler

affirms that the wedge-marks of the destroyer are distinctly visible.

Another, having carefully examined the fractured edges, declares that

the keenest eye can detect neither wedge-marks nor any other evidences

of violence. We looked for none of these signs and tokens. We never

asked ourselves how or when the ruin had been done. It was enough that

the mighty had fallen.

Inasmuch as one can clamber upon and measure these stupendous fragments,

the fallen colossus is more astonishing, perhaps, as a wreck than it

would have been as a whole. Here, snapped across at the waist and flung

helplessly back, lie a huge head and shoulders, to climb which is like

climbing a rock. Yonder, amid piles of unintelligible débris, we see a

great foot, and, nearer the head, part of an enormous trunk, together

with the upper halves of two huge thighs clothed in the usual shenti or

striped tunic. The klaft or head-dress is also striped, and these

stripes, in both instances, retain the delicate yellow color with which

they were originally filled in. To judge from the way in which this

color was applied, one would say that the statue was tinted rather than

painted. The surface-work, wherever it remains, is as smooth and highly

finished as the cutting of the finest gem. Even the ground of the superb

cartouche, on the upper half of the arm, is elaborately polished.

Finally, in the pit which it plowed out in falling, lies the great

pedestal, hieroglyphed with the usual pompous titles of Rameses

Mer-Amen. Diodorus, knowing nothing of Rameses or his style, interprets

the inscription after his own fanciful fashion: “I am Osymandias, king

of kings. If any would know how great I am and where I lie let him excel

me in any of my works.”

The fragments of wall and shattered pylon that yet remain standing at

the Ramesseum face northwest and southwest. Hence, it follows that some

of the most interesting of the surface sculpture (being cut in very low

relief) is so placed with regard to the light as to be actually

invisible after midday. It was not till the occasion of my last visit,

when I came early in the morning to make a certain sketch by a certain

light, that I succeeded in distinguishing a single figure of that

celebrated tableau,[198] on the south wall of the great hall, in which

the Egyptians are seen to be making use of the testudo and

scaling-ladder to assault a Syrian fortress. The wall sculptures of the

second hall are on a bolder scale and can be seen at any hour. Here

Thoth writes the name of Rameses on the egg-shaped fruit of the persea

tree and processions of shaven priests carry on their shoulders the

sacred boats of various gods. In the center of each boat is a shrine

supported by winged genii, or cherubim. The veils over these shrines,

the rings through which the bearing-poles were passed and all the

appointments and ornaments of the _bari_ are distinctly shown. One seems

here, indeed, to be admitted to a glimpse of those original shrines upon

which Moses--learned in the sacred lore of the Egyptians--modeled, with

but little alteration, his ark of the covenant.

Next in importance to Karnak, and second in interest to none of the

Theban ruins, is the vast group of buildings known by the collective

name of Medinet Habu. To attempt to describe these would be to undertake

a task as hopeless as the description of Karnak. Such an attempt lies,

at all events, beyond the compass of these pages, so many of which have

already been given to similar subjects. For it is of the temples as of

the mountains--no two are alike, yet all sound so much alike when

described that it is scarcely possible to write about them without

becoming monotonous. In the present instance, therefore, I will note

only a few points of special interest, referring those who wish for

fuller particulars to the elaborate account of Medinet Habu in Murray’s

“Hand-book of Egypt.”

In the second name of Medinet Habu--Medinet being the common Arabic for

city, and Habu, Aboo, or Taboo being variously spelled--there survives

almost beyond doubt the ancient name of that famous city which the

Greeks called Thebes. It is the name for which many derivations[199]

have been suggested, but upon which the learned are not yet agreed.

The ruins of Medinet Habu consist of a smaller temple founded by Queen

Hatohepsu of the eighteenth dynasty, a large and magnificent temple

entirely built by Rameses III of the twentieth dynasty, and an extremely

curious and interesting building, part palace, part fortress, which is

popularly known as the pavilion.

The walls of this pavilion, the walls of the great forecourt leading to

the smaller temple, and a corner of the original wall of circuit, are

crowned in the Egyptian style with shield-shaped battlements, precisely

as the Khetan and Amorite fortresses are battlemented in the sculptured

tableaux at Abou Simbel and elsewhere. From whichever side one

approaches Medinet Habu these stone shields strike the eye as a new and

interesting feature. They are, moreover, so far as I know, the only

specimens of Egyptian battlementing which have survived destruction.

Those of the wall of circuit are of the time of Rameses V; those of the

pavilion, of the time of Rameses III; and the latest, which are those of

the forecourt, are of the period of Roman occupation.

As biographical material, the temple and pavilion at Medinet Habu and

the great Harris papyrus,[200] are to the life of Rameses III precisely

what Abou Simbel, the Ramesseum, and the poem of Pentaur are to the life

of Rameses II. Great wars, great victories, magnificent praises of the

prowess of the king, pompous lists of enemies slain and captured,

inventories of booty and of precious gifts offered by the victor to the

gods of Egypt, in both instances cover the sculptured walls and fill the

written pages. A comparison of the two masses of evidence--due allowance

being made both ways for oriental fervor of diction--shows that in

Rameses III we have to do with a king as brilliant, as valorous, and as

successful as Rameses II.[201]

It may be that before the time of this Pharaoh certain temples were used

also as royal residences. It is possible to believe this of temples such

as Gournah and Abydus, the plan of which includes, besides the usual

halls, side-chambers and sanctuary, a number of other apartments, the

uses of which are unknown. It may also be that former kings dwelt in

houses of brick and carved woodwork, such as we see represented in the

wall-paintings of various tombs.

It is, at all events, a fact that the only building which we can assume

to have been a royal palace and of which any vestiges have come down to

the present day, was erected by Rameses III, namely, this little

pavilion at Medinet Habu.

It may not have been a palace. It may have been only a fortified gate;

but, though the chambers are small, they are well lighted and the plan

of the whole is certainly domestic in character. It consists, as we now

see it, of two lodges connected by zigzag wings with a central tower.

The lodges and tower stand to each other as the three points of an acute

angle. These structures inclose an oblong court-yard leading by a

passage under the central tower to the inclosure beyond. So far as its

present condition enables us to judge, this building contained only

eight rooms; namely, three--one above the other in each of the lodges

and two above the gateway.[202] These three towers communicate by means

of devious passages in the connecting wings. Two of the windows in the

wings are adorned with balconies supported on brackets; each bracket

representing the head and shoulders of a crouching captive in

the attitude of a gargoyle. The heads and dresses of these

captives--conceived as they are in a vein of gothic barbarism--are still

bright with color.

[Illustration]

The central or gateway tower is substantially perfect. The writer, with

help, got as high as the first chamber; the ceiling of which is painted

in a rich and intricate pattern, as in imitation of mosaic. The top room

is difficult of access, but can be reached by a good climber. Our

friend F. W. S., who made his way up there a year or two before, found

upon the walls some interesting sculptures of cups and vases, apparently

part of an illustrated inventory of domestic utensils. Three of these

(unlike any engraved in the works of Wilkinson or Rosellini) are here

reproduced from his sketch made upon the spot. The lid of the smaller

vase, it will be observed, opens by means of a lever spooned out for the

thumb to rest in, just like the lid of a German beer-mug of the present

day.

The external decorations of the two lodges are of especial interest. The

lower subjects are historical. Those upon the upper stories are domestic

or symbolical, and are among the most celebrated of Egyptian

bas-reliefs. They have long been supposed to represent Rameses III in

his hareem, entertained and waited upon by female slaves. In one group

the king, distinguished always by his cartouches, sits at ease in a kind

of folding-chair, his helmet on his head, his sandaled feet upon a

footstool, as one returned and resting after battle. In his left hand he

holds a round object like a fruit. With the right he chucks under the

chin an ear-ringed and necklaced damsel, who presents a lotus-blossom at

his nose. In another much mutilated subject they are represented playing

a game at draughts. This famous subject--which can only be seen when the

light strikes sidewise--would scarcely be intelligible save for the help

one derives from the cuts in Wilkinson and the plates in Rosellini. It

is not that the sculptures are effaced, but that the great blocks which

bore them are gone from their places, having probably been hurled down

bodily upon the heads of the enemy during a certain siege of which the

ruins bear evident traces.[203] Of the lady there remains little besides

the arm and the hand that holds the pawn. The table has disappeared.

The king has lost his legs. It happens, however, though the table is

missing, that the block next above it contained the pawns, which can

still be discerned from below by the help of a glass. Rosellini mentions

three or four more subjects of a similar character, including a second

group of draught-players, all visible in his time. The writer, however,

looked for them in vain.

These tableaux are supposed to illustrate the home-life of Rameses III,

and to confirm the domestic character of the pavilion. Even the

scarab-selling Arabs that haunt the ruins, even the donkey boys of

Luxor, call it the hareem of the sultan. Modern science, however,

threatens to dispel one at least of these pleasant fancies.

The king, it seems, under the name of Rhampsinitus, is the hero of a

very ancient legend related by Herodotus. While he yet lived, runs the

story, he descended into hades, and there played a game at draughts with

the Goddess Demeter, from whom he won a golden napkin; in memory of

which adventure, and of his return to earth, “the Egyptians,” says

Herodotus, “instituted a festival which they certainly celebrated in my

day.”[204] In another version as told by Plutarch, Isis is substituted

for Demeter. Viewing these tales by the light of a certain passage of

the ritual, in which the happy dead is promised “power to transform

himself at will, to play at draughts, to repose in a pavilion,” Dr.

Birch has suggested that the whole of this scene may be of a memorial

character, and represent an incident in the land of shades.[205]

Below these “hareem” groups come colossal bas-reliefs of a religious

and military character. The king, as usual, smites his prisoners in

presence of the gods. A slender and spirited figure in act to slay, the

fiery hero strides across the wall “like Baal[206] descended from the

heights of heaven. His limbs are indued with the force of victory. With

his right hand he seizes the multitudes; his left reaches like an arrow

after those who fly before him. His sword is sharp as that of his father

Mentu.”[207]

Below these great groups run friezes sculptured with kneeling figures of

vanquished chiefs, among whom are Libyan, Sicilian, Sardinian, and

Etruscan leaders. Every head in these friezes is a portrait. The Libyan

is beardless; his lips are thin; his nose is hooked; his forehead

retreats; he wears a close-fitting cap with a pendant hanging in front

of the ear. The features of the Sardinian chief[208] are no less

Asiatic. He wears the usual Sardinian helmet surmounted by a ball and

two spikes. The profile of the Sicilian closely resembles that of the

Sardinian. He wears a head-dress like the modern Persian cap. As

ethnological types, these heads are extremely valuable. Colonists not

long since departed from the western coasts of Asia Minor, these early

European settlers are seen with the Asiatic stamp of features; a stamp

which has now entirely disappeared.

Other European nations are depicted elsewhere in these Medinet Habu

sculptures. Pelasgians from the Greek isles; Oscans perhaps from

Pompeii; Daunians from the districts between Tarentum and Brundusium,

figure here, each in their national costume. Of these, the Pelasgian

alone resembles the modern European. On the left wall of the pavilion

gateway, going up toward the temple, there is a large bas-relief of

Rameses III leading a string of captives into the presence of Amen-Ra.

Among these, the sculptures being in a high state of preservation, there

are a number of Pelasgians, some of whom have features of the classical

Greek type, and are strikingly handsome. The Pelasgic head-dress

resembles our old infantry shako; and some of the men wear disk-shaped

amulets pierced with a hole in the center through which is passed the

chain that suspends it round the neck.

Leaving to the left a fine sitting statue of Khons in green basalt and

to the right his prostrate fellow, we pass under the gateway, cross a

space of desolate crude-brick mounds, and see before us the ruins of the

first pylon of the great Temple of Khem. Once past the threshold of this

pylon we enter upon a succession of magnificent court-yards. The

hieroglyphs here are on a colossal scale, and are cut deeper than any

others in Egypt. They are also colored with a more subtle eye to effect.

Struck by the unusual splendor of some of the blues and by a peculiar

look of scintillation which they assumed in certain lights, I examined

them particularly and found that the effect had been produced by very

subtle shades of gradation in what appeared at first sight to be simple

flat tints. In some of the reeds, for instance, the ground-color begins

at the top of the leaf in pure cobalt, and passes imperceptibly down to

a tint that is almost emerald green at the bottom.[209]

The inner walls of this great court-yard and the outer face of the

northeast wall, are covered with sculptures outlined, so to say, in

intaglio, and relieved in the hollow, so that the forms, though rounded,

remain level with the general surface. In these tableaux the old world

lives again. Rameses III, his sons and nobles, his armies, his foes,

play once more the brief drama of life and death. Great battles are

fought; great victories are won; the slain are counted; the captured

drag their chains behind the victor’s chariot; the king triumphs, is

crowned and sacrifices to the gods. Elsewhere more wars, more slaughter.

There is revolt in Libya; there are raids on the Asiatic border; there

are invaders coming in ships from the islands of the Great Sea. The

royal standard is raised; troops assemble; arms are distributed. Again

the king goes forth in his might, followed by the flower of Egyptian

chivalry. “His horsemen are heroes; his foot-soldiers are as lions that

roar in the mountains.” The king himself flames “like Mentu in his hour

of wrath.” He falls upon the foe “with the swiftness of a meteor.” Here,

crowded in rude bullock-trucks, they seek safety in flight. Yonder,

their galleys are sunk; their warriors are slain, drowned, captured,

scathed, as it were, in a devouring fire. “Never again will they sow

seed or reap harvest on the fair face of the earth.”

“Behold!” says the Pharaoh, “Behold! I have taken their frontiers for my

frontiers! I have devastated their towns, burned their crops, trampled

their people under foot. Rejoice, O Egypt! Exalt thy voice to the

heavens; for behold! I reign over all the lands of the barbarians! I,

king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Rameses III!”[210]

Such, linked each to each, by a running commentary of text, are the

illustrations. The story is written elsewhere. Elaborately hieroglyphed

in upward of seventy closely packed columns, it covers the whole eastern

face of the great north tower of the second propylon. This propylon

divides the Osiride and Hypæthral courts, so that the inscription faces

those entering the temple and precedes the tableaux. Not even the poem

of Pentaur is more picturesque, not even the psalms of David are more

fervid, than the style of this great chronicle.[211]

The writer pitched her tent in the doorway of the first propylon, and

thence sketched the northwest corner of the court-yard, including the

tower with the inscription and the Osiride colossi. The roof of the

colonnade to the right is cumbered with crude-brick ruins of mediæval

date. The hieroglyphs, sculptured along the architrave and down the

sides of the pillars, are still bright with color. The colossi are all

the worse for three thousand years of ill-usage. Through the sculptured

doorway opposite, one looks across the hypæthral court, and catches a

glimpse of the ruined hall of pillars beyond.

While the writer was at work in the shade of the first pylon, an Arab

story-teller took possession of the opposite doorway, and entertained

the donkey boys and sailors. Well paid with a little tobacco and a few

copper piasters, he went on for hours, his shrill chant rising every now

and then to a quavering scream. He was a wizened, grizzled old fellow,

miserably poor and tattered; but he had the “Arabian Nights” and

hundreds of other tales by heart.

Mariette was of opinion that the temple of Medinet Habu, erected as it

is on the side of the great Theban necropolis, is like the Ramesseum, a

funerary monument erected by Rameses III in his own lifetime to his own

memory. These battered colossi represent the king in the character of

Osiris, and are in fact on a huge scale precisely what the ordinary

funerary statuettes are upon a small scale. They would be out of place

in any but a monumental edifice; and they alone suffice to determine the

character of the building.

And such, no doubt, was the character of the Amenophium; of the little

temple called Dayr el Medinet; of the temple of Queen Hatshepsu, known

as Dayr el Bahari; of the temple of Gournah; of almost every important

structure erected upon this side of the river. Of the Amenophium there

remain only a few sculptured blocks, a few confused foundations,

and--last representatives of an avenue of statues of various sizes--the

famous colossi of the plain.[212] The temple of Dayr el Bahari--built

in terraces up the mountain side, and approached once upon a time by a

magnificent avenue of sphinxes, the course of which is yet

visible--would probably be, if less ruined, the most interesting temple

on the western side of the river. The monumental intention of this

building is shown by its dedication to Hathor, the Lady of Amenti; and

by the fact that the tomb of Queen Hatshepsu was identified by Rhind

some twenty-five years ago as one of the excavated sepulchers in the

cliff-side, close to where the temple ends by abutting against the rock.

As for the Temple of Gournah, it is, at least in part, as distinctly a

memorial edifice as the Medici Chapel at Florence or the Superga at

Turin. It was begun by Seti I in memory of his father Rameses I, the

founder of the nineteenth dynasty. Seti, however, died before the work

was completed. Hereupon Rameses II, his son and successor, extended the

general plan, finished the part dedicated to his grandfather, and added

sculptures to the memory of Seti I. Later still, Menepthah, the son and

successor of Rameses II, left his cartouches upon one of the doorways.

The whole building, in short, is a family monument, and contains a

family portrait gallery. Here all the personages whose names figure in

the shrines of the Ramessides at Silsilis are depicted in their proper

persons. In one tableau, Rameses I, defunct, deified,[213] swathed,

enshrined, and crowned like Osiris, is worshiped by Seti I. Behind Seti

stands his Queen Tuaa, the mother of Rameses II. Elsewhere Seti I, being

now dead, is deified and worshiped by Rameses II, who pours a libation

to his father’s statue. Through all these handsome heads there runs a

striking family likeness. All more or less partake of that Dantesque

type which characterizes the portraits of Rameses II in his youth. The

features of Rameses I and Seti I are somewhat pinched and stern, like

the Dante of elder days. The delicate profile of Queen Tuaa, which is

curiously like some portraits of Queen Elizabeth, is perhaps too angular

to be altogether pleasing. But in the well-known face of Rameses II

these harsher details vanish, and the beauty of the race culminates. The

artists of Egyptian renaissance, always great in profile-portraiture,

are nowhere seen to better advantage than in this interesting series.

Adjoining what may be called the monumental part of the building, we

find a number of halls and chambers, the uses of which are unknown. Most

writers assume that they were the private apartments of the king. Some

go so far as to give the name of temple-palaces to all these great

funerary structures. It is, however, far more probable that these

western temples were erected in connection, though not in direct

communication, with the royal tombs in the adjacent valley of

Bab-el-Molûk.

Now every Egyptian tomb of importance has its outer chamber or votive

oratory, the walls of which are covered with paintings descriptive, in

some instances, of the occupations of the deceased upon earth, and in

others of the adventures of his soul after death. Here at stated

seasons the survivors repaired with offerings. No priest, it would seem,

of necessity officiated at these little services. A whole family would

come, bringing the first fruits of their garden, the best of their

poultry, cakes of home-made bread, bouquets of lotus blossoms. With

their own hands they piled the altar; and the eldest son, as

representative of the rest, burned the incense and poured the libations.

It is a scene constantly reproduced upon monuments[214] of every epoch.

These votive oratories, however, are wholly absent in the valley of

Bab-el-Molûk. The royal tombs consist of only tunneled passages and

sepulchral vaults, the entrances to which were closed forever as soon as

the sarcophagus was occupied; hence, it may be concluded that each

memorial temple played to the tomb of its tutelary saint and sovereign

that part which is played by the external oratory attached to the tomb

of a private individual. Nor must it be forgotten that as early as the

time of the pyramid kings, there was a votive chapel attached to every

pyramid, the remains of which are traceable in almost every instance, on

the east side. There were also priests of the pyramids, as we learn from

innumerable funerary inscriptions.

An oratory on so grand a scale would imply an elaborate ceremonial. A

dead and deified king would doubtless have his train of priests, his

daily liturgies, processions, and sacrifices. All this again implies

additional accommodation, and accounts, I venture to think, for any

number of extra halls and chambers. Such sculptures as yet remain on the

walls of these ruined apartments are, in fact, wholly funereal and

sacrificial in character. It is also to be remembered that we have here

a temple dedicated to two kings, and served most likely by a twofold

college of priests.[215]

The wall-sculptures at Gournah are extremely beautiful, especially those

erected by Seti I. Where it has been accidentally preserved, the surface

is as smooth, the execution as brilliant, as the finest mediæval ivory

carving. Behind a broken column, for instance, that leans against the

southwest wall of the sanctuary,[216] one may see, by peeping this way

and that, the ram’s-head prow of a sacred boat, quite unharmed, and of

surpassing delicacy. The modeling of the ram’s head is simply faultless.

It would indeed be scarcely too much to say that this one fragment, if

all the rest had perished, would alone place the decorative sculpture of

ancient Egypt in a rank second only to that of Greece.

The Temple of Gournah--northernmost of the Theban group--stands at the

mouth of that famous valley called by the Arabs Bab-el-Molûk,[217] and

by travelers, the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. This valley may be

described as a bifurcated ravine, ending in two _culs de sac_, and

hemmed in on all sides by limestone precipices. It winds round behind

the cliffs which face Luxor and Karnak, and runs almost parallel with

the Nile. This range of cliffs is perforated on both sides with tombs.

The priests and nobles of many dynasties were buried terrace above

terrace on the side next the river. Back to back with them, in the

silent and secret valley beyond, slept the kings in their everlasting

sepulchers.

Most travelers moor for a day or two at Karnak, and thence make their

excursion to Bab-el-Molûk. By so doing they lose one of the most

interesting rides in the neighborhood of Thebes. L---- and the writer

started from Luxor one morning about an hour after daybreak, crossing

the river at the usual point and thence riding northward along the

bank, with the Nile on the one hand, and the corn-lands on the other. In

the course of such rides one discovers the almost incredible fertility

of the Thebaid. Every inch of arable ground is turned to account. All

that grows, grows lustily. The barley ripples in one uninterrupted sweep

from Medinet Habu to a point half-way between the Ramesseum and Gournah.

Next come plantations of tobacco, cotton, hemp, linseed, maize and

lentils, so closely set, so rich in promise, that the country looks as

if it were laid out in allotment grounds for miles together. Where the

rice crop has been gathered, clusters of temporary huts have sprung up

in the clearings; for the fellahîn come out from their crowded villages

in “the sweet o’ the year,” and live in the midst of the crops which now

they guard, and which presently they will reap. The walls of these

summer huts are mere wattled fences of Indian corn straw, with bundles

of the same laid lightly across the top by way of roofing. This pastoral

world is everywhere up and doing. Here are men plying the shâdûf by the

river’s brink; women spinning in the sun; children playing; dogs

barking; larks soaring and singing overhead. Against the foot of the

cliffs yonder, where the vegetation ends and the tombs begin, there

flows a calm river edged with palms. A few months ago, we should have

been deceived by that fairy water. We know now that it is the mirage.

Striking off by and by toward the left, we make for a point where the

mountains recede and run low, and a wedge-like “spit” of sandy desert

encroaches upon the plain. On the verge of this spit stands a clump of

sycamores and palms. A row of old yellow columns supporting a sculptured

architrave gleams through the boughs; a little village nestles close by;

and on the desert slope beyond, in the midst of the desolate Arab

burial-ground, we see a tiny mosque with one small cupola, dazzling

white in the sunshine. This is Gournah. There is a spring here, and some

girls are drawing water from the well near the temple. Our donkeys slake

their thirst from the cattle-trough--a broken sarcophagus that may once

have held the mummy of a king. A creaking sakkieh is at work yonder,

turned by a couple of red cows with mild Hathor-like faces. The old man

who drives them sits in the middle of the cog-wheel, and goes slowly

round as if he was being roasted.

We now leave behind us the well, and the trees, and the old

Greek-looking temple, and turn our faces westward, bound for an opening

yonder among cliffs pitted with the mouths of empty tombs. It is plain

to see that we are now entering upon what was once a torrent-bed.

Rushing down from the hills, the pent-up waters have here spread

fan-like over the slope of the desert, strewing the ground with

bowlders, and plowing it into hundreds of tortuous channels. Up that

torrent-bed lies our road to-day.

The weird rocks stand like sentinels to right and left as one enters the

mouth of the valley, and take strange shapes as of obelisks and

sphinxes. Some, worn at the base, and towering like ruined pyramids

above, remind us of tombs on the Appian Way. As the ravine narrows, the

limestone walls rise higher. The chalky track glares under foot. Piles

of shivered chips sparkle and scintillate at the foot of the rocks. The

cliffs burn at a white heat. The atmosphere palpitates like gaseous

vapor. The sun blazes overhead. Not a breath stirs; neither is there a

finger’s breadth of shade on either side. It is like riding into the

mouth of a furnace. Meanwhile, one looks in vain for any sign of life.

No blade of green has grown here since the world began. No breathing

creature makes these rocks its home. All is desolation--such desolation

as one dreams of in a world scathed by fire from heaven.

When we have gone a long way, always tracking up the bed of the torrent,

we come to a place where our donkeys turn off from the main course and

make for what is evidently a forced passage cut clean through a wall of

solid limestone. The place was once a mere recess in the cliffs; but on

the farther side, masked by a natural barrier of rocks, there lay

another valley leading to a secluded amphitheater among the mountains.

The first Pharaoh who chose his place of burial among those hidden ways,

must have been he who cut the pass and leveled the road by which we now

travel. This cutting is Bab-el-Molûk--the gate of the king; a name which

doubtless perpetuates that by which the place was known to the old

Egyptians. Once through the gate, a grand mountain rises into view.

Egypt is the land of strange mountains; and here is one which reproduces

on a giant scale every feature of the pyramid of Ouenephes at Sakkarah.

It is square; it rises stage above stage in ranges of columnar cliffs

with slopes of débris between; and it terminates in a blunt four-sided

peak nearly eighteen hundred feet above the level of the plain.

Keeping this mountain always before us, we now follow the windings of

the second valley, which is even more narrow, parched and glaring than

the first. Perhaps the intense heat makes the road appear longer than it

really is, but it seems to us like several miles. At length the

uniformity of the way is broken. Two small ravines branch off, one to

the right, one to the left, and in both, at the foot of the rocks, there

are here and there to be seen square openings like cellar-doors,

half-sunk below the surface, and seeming to shoot downward into the

bowels of the earth. In another moment or so, our road ends suddenly in

a wild, tumbled waste like tin exhausted quarry, shut in all round by

impending precipices, at the base of which more rock-cut portals peep

out at different points.

From the moment when it first came into sight I had made certain that in

that pyramidal mountain we should find the tombs of the kings--so

certain, that I can scarcely believe our guide when he assures us that

these cellars are the places we have come to see, and that the mountain

contains not a single tomb. We alight, however, climb a steep slope, and

find ourselves on the threshold of number seventeen.

“Belzoni-tomb,” says our guide; and Belzoni’s tomb, as we know, is the

tomb of Seti I.

I am almost ashamed to remember now that we took our lunches in the

shade of that solemn vestibule, and rested and made merry before going

down into the great gloomy sepulcher, whose staircases and corridors

plunged away into the darkness below as if they led straight to the land

of Amenti.

The tombs in the Valley of Bab-el-Molûk are as unlike tombs in the

cliffs opposite Luxor as if the Theban kings and the Theban nobles were

of different races and creeds. Those sacred scribes and dignitaries,

with their wives and families and their numerous friends and dependents,

were a joyous set. They loved the things of this life, and would fain

have carried their pursuits and pleasures with them into the land beyond

the grave. So they decorated the walls of their tombs with pictures of

the way in which their lives were spent, and hoped perhaps that the

mummy, dreaming away its long term of solitary waiting, might take

comfort in those shadowy reminiscences. The kings, on the contrary,

covered every foot of their last palaces with scenes from the life to

come. The wanderings of the soul after its separation from the body, the

terrors and dangers that beset it during its journey through hades, the

demons it must fight, the accusers to whom it must answer, the

transformations it must undergo, afforded subjects for endless

illustration. Of the fishing and fowling and feasting and junketing that

we saw the other day in those terraces behind the Ramesseum, we discover

no trace in the tombs of Bab-el-Molûk. In place of singing and

lute-playing we find here prayers and invocations; for the pleasant Nile

boat and the water parties and the chase of the gazelle and the ibex, we

now have the bark of Charon and the basin of purgatorial fire and the

strife with the infernal deities. The contrast is sharp and strange. It

is as if an epicurean aristocracy had been ruled by a line of Puritan

kings. The tombs of the subjects are Anacreontics. The tombs of their

sovereigns are penitential psalms.

To go down into one of those great sepulchers is to descend one’s self

into the lower world and to tread the path of the shades. Crossing the

threshold we look up--half expecting to read those terrible words in

which all who enter are warned to leave hope behind them. The passage

slopes before our feet; the daylight fades behind us. At the end of the

passage comes a flight of steps, and from the bottom of that flight of

steps we see another corridor slanting down into depths of utter

darkness. The walls on both sides are covered with close-cut columns of

hieroglyphic text, interspersed with ominous shapes, half-deity,

half-demon. Huge serpents writhe beside us along the walls. Guardian

spirits of threatening aspect advance, brandishing swords of flame. A

strange heaven opens overhead--a heaven where the stars travel in boats

across the seas of space; and the sun, escorted by the hours, the months

and the signs of the zodiac, issues from the east, sets in the west and

traverses the hemisphere of everlasting night. We go on and the last

gleam of daylight vanishes in the distance. Another flight of steps

leads now to a succession of passages and halls, some smaller, some

larger, some vaulted, some supported on pillars. Here yawns a great pit

half-full of débris. Yonder opens a suite of unfinished chambers

abandoned by the workmen. The farther we go the more weird become our

surroundings. The walls swarm with ugly and evil things. Serpents, bats

and crocodiles, some with human heads and legs, some vomiting fire, some

armed with spears and darts, pursue and torture the wicked. These

unfortunates have their hearts torn out; are boiled in caldrons; are

suspended, head downward, over seas of flame; are speared, decapitated

and driven in headless gangs to scenes of further torment. Beheld by the

dim and shifting light of a few candles, these painted horrors assume an

aspect of ghastly reality. They start into life as we pass, then drop

behind us into darkness. That darkness alone is awful. The atmosphere is

suffocating. The place is ghostly and peopled with nightmares.

Elsewhere we come upon scenes less painful. The sun emerges from the

lower hemisphere. The justified dead sow and reap in the Elysian fields,

gather celestial fruits, and bathe in the waters of truth. The royal

mummy reposes in its shrine. Funerary statues of the king are worshiped

with incense and offerings of meat and libations of wine.[218] Finally

the king arrives, purified and justified, at the last stage of his

spiritual journey. He is welcomed by the gods, ushered into the presence

of Osiris, and received into the abode of the blest.[219]

Coming out for a moment into blinding daylight, we drink a long draught

of pure air, cross a few yards of uneven ground, arrive at the month of

another excavation, and plunge again into underground darkness. A third

and a fourth time we repeat this strange experience. It is like a

feverish sleep, troubled by gruesome dreams and broken by momentary

wakings. These tombs in a general way are very much alike. Some are

longer than others;[220] some loftier. In some the descent is gradual;

in others it is steep and sudden. Certain leading features are common to

all. The great serpent,[221] the scarab,[222] the bat,[223] the

crocodile,[224] are always conspicuous on the walls. The judgment-scene,

and the well-known typical picture of the four races of mankind, are

continually reproduced. Some tombs,[225] however, vary both in plan and

decoration. That of Rameses III, though not nearly so beautiful as the

tomb of Seti I, is perhaps the most curious of all. The paintings here

are for the most part designed on an unsculptured surface coated with

white stucco. The drawing is often indifferent, and the coloring is

uniformly coarse and gaudy. Yellow abounds; and crude reds and blues

remind us of the colored picture-books of our childhood. It is difficult

to understand, indeed, how the builder of Medinet Habu, with the best

Egyptian art of the day at his command, should have been content with

such wall-paintings as these.

Still Rameses III seems to have had a grand idea of going in state to

the next world, with his retainers around him. In a series of small

ante-chambers opening off from the first corridor we see depicted all

the household furniture, all the plate, the weapons, the wealth and

treasure of the king. Upon the walls of one the cooks and bakers are

seen preparing the royal dinner. In the others are depicted magnificent

thrones; gilded galleys with party-colored sails; gold and silver vases;

rich stores of arms and armor; piles of precious woods, of panther

skins, of fruits and birds and curious baskets, and all such articles of

personal luxury as a palace-building Pharaoh might delight in. Here,

also, are the two famous harpers; cruelly defaced, but still sweeping

the strings with the old powerful touch that erewhile soothed the king

in his hours of melancholy. These two spirited figures--which are

undoubtedly portraits[226]--almost redeem the poverty of the rest of the

paintings.

In many tombs the empty sarcophagus yet occupies its ancient place.[227]

We saw one in No. 2 (Rameses IV), and another in No. 9 (Rameses VI);

the first, a grand monolith of dark granite, overturned and but little

injured; the second, shattered by early treasure-seekers.

Most of the tombs at Bab-el-Molûk were open in Ptolemaic times. Being

then, as now, among the stock sights and wonders of Thebes, they were

visited by crowds of early travelers, who have, as usual, left their

neatly scribbled graffiti on the walls. When and by whom the sepulchers

were originally violated is of course unknown. Some, doubtless, were

sacked by the Persians; others were plundered by the Egyptians

themselves, long enough before Cambyses. Not even in the days of the

Ramessides, though a special service of guards was told off for duty in

“the great valley,” were the kings safe in their tombs. During the reign

of Rameses IX--whose own tomb is here and known as No. 6--there seems to

have been an organized band, not only of robbers, but of receivers, who

lived by depredations of the kind. A contemporary papyrus[228] tells

how, in one instance, the royal mummies were found lying in the dust,

their gold and silver ornaments and the treasures of their tombs all

stolen. In another instance, a king and his queen were carried away

bodily, to be unrolled and rifled at leisure. This curious information

is all recorded in the form of a report, drawn up by the commandant of

Western Thebes, who, with certain other officers and magistrates,

officially inspected the tombs of the “royal ancestor,” during the reign

of Rameses IX.

No royal tomb has been found absolutely intact in the valley of

Bab-el-Molûk. Even that of Seti I had been secretly entered ages before

ever Belzoni discovered it. He found in it statues of wood and

porcelain, and the mummy of a bull; but nothing of value save the

sarcophagus, which was empty. There can be no doubt that the priesthood

were largely implicated in these contemporary sacrileges. Of thirty-nine

persons accused by name in the papyrus just quoted, seven are priests

and eight are sacred scribes.

To rob the dead was always a lucrative trade at Thebes; and we may be

certain that the splendid Pharaohs who slept in the valley of the tombs

of the kings,[229] went to their dark palaces magnificently equipped

for the life to come.[230] When, indeed, one thinks of the jewels,

furniture, vases, ointments, clothing, arms, and precious documents

which were as certainly buried in those tombs as the royal mummies for

whom they were excavated, it seems far more wonderful that the parure of

one queen should have escaped, rather than that all the rest of these

dead and gone royalties should have fallen among thieves.

Of all tombs in the valley of Bab-el-Molûk, one would rather, I think,

have discovered that of Rameses III. As he was one of the richest of the

Pharaohs[231] and an undoubted virtuoso in his tastes, so we may be sure

that his tomb was furnished with all kinds of beautiful and precious

things. What would we not give now to find some of those elaborate gold

and silver vases, those cushioned thrones and sofas, those bows and

quivers and shirts of mail so carefully catalogued on the walls of the

side-chambers in the first corridor! I do not doubt that specimens of

all these things were buried with the king and left ready for his use.

He died, believing that his Ka would enjoy and make use of these

treasures, and that his soul would come back after long cycles of

probation, and make its home once more in the mummied body. He thought

he should rise as from sleep; cast off his bandages; eat and be

refreshed, and put on sandals and scented vestments, and take his staff

in his hand, and go forth again into the light of everlasting day. Poor

ghost, wandering bodiless through space! where now are thy funeral-baked

meats, thy changes of raiment, thy perfumes and precious ointments?

Where is that body for which thou wert once so solicitous, and without

which resurrection[232] is impossible? One fancies thee sighing forlorn

through these desolate halls when all is silent and the moon shines down

the valley. Life at Thebes is made up of incongruities. A morning among

temples is followed by an afternoon of antiquity-hunting; and a day of

meditation among tombs winds up with a dinner-party on board some

friend’s dahabeeyah, or a fantasia at the British consulate. L---- and

the writer did their fair share of antiquity-hunting both at Luxor and

elsewhere; but chiefly at Luxor. I may say, indeed, that our life here

was one long pursuit of the pleasures of the chase. The game it is true

was prohibited; but we enjoyed it none the less because it was illegal.

Perhaps we enjoyed it the more.

There were whispers about this time of a tomb that had been discovered

on the western side--a wonderful tomb, rich in all kinds of treasures.

No one, of course, had seen these things. No one knew who had found

them. No one knew where they were hidden. But there was a solemn

secrecy about certain of the Arabs, and a conscious look about some of

the visitors, and an air of awakened vigilance about the government

officials, which savored of mystery. These rumors by and by assumed more

definite proportions. Dark hints were dropped of a possible papyrus; the

M. B.’s babbled of mummies; and an American dahabeeyah, lying innocently

off Karnak, was reported to have a mummy on board. Now, neither L----

nor the writer desired to become the happy proprietor of an ancient

Egyptian; but the papyrus was a thing to be thought of. In a fatal hour

we expressed a wish to see it. From that moment every mummy-snatcher in

the place regarded us as his lawful prey. Beguiled into one den after

another, we were shown all the stolen goods in Thebes. Some of the

things were very curious and interesting. In one house we were offered

two bronze vases, each with a band of delicately engraved hieroglyphs

running round the lip; also a square stand of basket-work in two colors,

precisely like that engraved in Sir G. Wilkinson’s first volume,[233]

after the original in the Berlin museum. Pieces of mummy-case and

wall-sculpture and sepulchral tablets abounded; and on one occasion we

were introduced into the presence of--a mummy!

All these houses were tombs, and in this one the mummy was stowed away

in a kind of recess at the end of a long rock-cut passage; probably the

very place once occupied by the original tenant. It was a mummy of the

same period as that which we saw disentombed under the auspices of the

governor, and was inclosed in the same kind of cartonnage, patterned in

many colors on a white ground. I shall never forget that curious

scene--the dark and dusty vault; the Arabs with their lanterns; the

mummy in its gaudy cerements lying on an old mat at our feet.

Meanwhile we tried in vain to get sight of the coveted papyrus. A grave

Arab dropped in once or twice after nightfall and talked it over vaguely

with the dragoman; but never came to the point. He offered it first,

with a mummy, for £100. Finding, however, that we would neither buy his

papyrus unseen, nor his mummy at any price, he haggled and hesitated for

a day or two, evidently trying to play us off against some rival or

rivals unknown, and then finally disappeared. These rivals, we afterward

found, were the M. B.’s. They bought both mummy and papyrus at an

enormous price; and then, unable to endure the perfume of their ancient

Egyptian, drowned the dear departed at the end of a week.

Other purchasers are possibly less sensitive. We heard, at all events,

of fifteen mummies successfully insinuated through the Alexandrian

custom-house by a single agent that winter. There is, in fact, a growing

passion for mummies among Nile travelers. Unfortunately, the prices rise

with the demand; and although the mine is practically inexhaustible, a

mummy nowadays becomes not only a prohibited but a costly luxury.

At Luxor the British, American and French consuls are Arabs. The

Prussian consul is a Copt. The Austrian consul is, or was, an American.

The French consul showed us over the old tumble-down building called

“The French House,”[234] which, though but a rude structure of

palm-timbers and sun-dried clay, built partly against and partly over

the temple of Luxor, has its place in history. For there, in 1829,

Champollion and Rosellini lived and worked together during part of their

long sojourn at Thebes. Rosellini tells how they used to sit up at

night, dividing the fruits of the day’s labor; Champollion copying

whatever might be useful for his Egyptian grammar, and Rosellini, the

new words that furnished material for his dictionary. There, too, lodged

the naval officers sent out by the French in 1831 to remove the obelisk

which now stands in the Place de la Concorde. And there, writing those

charming letters that delight the world, Lady Duff Gordon lingered

through the last few winters of her life. The rooms in which she lived

first, and the balcony in which she took such pleasure, were no longer

accessible, owing to the ruinous state of one of the staircases; but we

saw the rooms she last inhabited. Her couch, her rug, her folding chair

were there still. The walls were furnished with a few cheap prints and a

pair of tin sconces. All was very bare and comfortless.

We asked if it was just like this when the sittèh lived here. The Arab

consul replied that she had “a table and some books.” He looked himself

in the last stage of consumption, and spoke and moved like one that had

done with life.

We were shocked at the dreariness of the place--till we went to the

window. That window, which commanded the Nile and the western plain of

Thebes, furnished the room and made its poverty splendid.

The sun was near setting. We could distinguish the mounds and pylons of

Medinet Habu and the side of the Ramesseum. The terraced cliffs,

overtopped by the pyramidal mountain of Bab-el-Molûk, burned crimson

against a sky of stainless blue. The foot-path leading to the valley of

the tombs of the kings showed like a hot white scar winding along the

face of the rocks. The river gave back the sapphire tones of the sky. I

thought I could be well content to spend many a winter in no matter how

comfortless a lodging, if only I had that wonderful view, with its

infinite beauty of light and color and space, and its history and its

mystery always before my windows.[235]

Another historical house is that built by Sir G. Wilkinson, among the

tombs of Sheik Abd-el-Koorneh. Here he lived while amassing the

materials for his “Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians;” and

here Lepsius and his company of artists put up while at work on the

western bank. Science makes little impression on the native mind. No one

now remembers Champollion, or Rosellini, or Sir G. Wilkinson; but every

Arab in Luxor cherishes the memory of Lady Duff Gordon in his heart of

hearts, and speaks of her with blessings.

The French house was built over the roof of the sanctuary, at the

southern end of the temple. At the northern end, built up between the

enormous sandstone columns of the great colonnade, was the house of

Mustapha Aga, most hospitable and kindly of British consuls. Mustapha

Aga had traveled in Europe, and spoke fluent Italian, English, and

French. His eldest son was Governor of Luxor; his younger--the “little

Ahmed” whom Lady Duff Gordon delighted to educate--having spent two

years in England as the guest of Lord D----, had become an accomplished

Englishman.

In the round of gayety that goes on at Luxor the British consulate

played the leading part. Mustapha Aga entertained all the English

dahabeeyahs, and all the English dahabeeyahs entertained Mustapha Aga.

We were invited to several fantasias at the consulate, and dined with

Mustapha Aga at his suburban house the evening before we left Luxor.

The appointed hour was 8.30 P.M. We arrived amid much barking of dogs,

and were received by our host in a large empty hall surrounded by a

divan. Here we remained till dinner was announced. We were next ushered

through an ante-room where two turbaned and barefooted servants were in

waiting; the one with a brass basin and ewer, the other with an armful

of Turkish towels. We then, each in turn, held our hands over the basin;

had water poured on them; and received a towel apiece. These towels we

were told to keep; and they served for dinner-napkins. The ante-room

opened into a brilliantly lighted dining-room of moderate size, having

in the center a round brass table with an upright fluted rim, like a big

tray. For each person were placed a chair, a huge block of bread, a

wooden spoon, two tumblers, and a bouquet. Plates, knives, forks, there

were none.

The party consisted of the happy couple, the director of the Luxor

telegraph office, L----, the writer, Ahmed, and our host.

“To-night we are all Arabs,” said Mustapha Aga, as he showed us where to

sit. “We drink Nile water and we eat with our fingers.”

So we drank Nile water; and for the first time in our lives we ate with

our fingers. In fact, we found them exceedingly useful.

The dinner was excellent. Without disrespect to our own accomplished

chef, or to the accomplished chefs of our various friends upon the

river, I am bound to say that it was the very best dinner I ever eat out

of Europe. Everything was hot, quickly served, admirably dressed, and

the best of its kind. Here is the _menu_:

MENU. MARCH 31, 1874.

White soup:--(Turkey).

FISH.

Fried Samak.[236]

ENTRÉES.

Stewed pigeons. Spinach and rice.

ROAST.

Dall.[237]

ENTRÉES.

Kebobs[238] of mutton.

Tomatoes with rice.

Kebobs of lambs’ kidneys.

Kuftah.[239]

ROAST.

Turkey, with cucumber sauce.

ENTRÉE.

Pilaff[240] of rice.

SECOND COURSE.

Mish-mish.[241]

Kunáfah.[242]

Rus Blebban.[243]

Totleh.[244]

These dishes were placed one at a time in the middle of the table and

rapidly changed. Each dipped his own spoon into the soup, dived into the

stew and pulled off pieces of fish or lamb with his fingers. Having no

plates, we made plates of our bread. Meanwhile, Mustapha Aga, like an

attentive host, tore off an especially choice morsel now and then and

handed it to one or other of his guests.

To eat gracefully with one’s fingers is a fine art; to carve with them

skillfully is a science. None of us, I think, will soon forget the

wonderful way in which our host attacked and vanquished the turkey--a

solid colossus weighing twenty pounds, and roasted to perfection. Half

rising, he turned back his cuff, poised his wrist, and driving his

forefinger and thumb deep into the breast, brought out a long, stringy

smoking fragment, which he deposited on the plate of the writer. Thus

begun, the turkey went round the table amid peals of laughter and was

punished by each in turn. The pilaff which followed is always the last

dish served at an Egyptian or Turkish dinner. After this our spoons were

changed and the sweets were put upon the table. The drinks throughout

were plain water, rice-water and lemonade. Some native musicians played

in the ante-room during dinner; and when we rose from the table we

washed our hands as before.

We now returned to the large hall, and, not being accomplished in the

art and mystery of sitting crossed-legged, curled ourselves up on the

divans as best we could. The writer was conducted by Mustapha Aga to the

corner seat at the upper end of the room, where he said the Princess of

Wales had sat when their royal highnesses dined with him the year

before. We were then served with pipes and coffee. The gentlemen smoked

chibouques and cigarettes, while for us there were gorgeous rose-water

narghilehs with long flexible tubes and amber mouthpieces. L---- had the

princess’ pipe and smoked it very cleverly all the evening.

By and by came the governor, the Kadî of Luxor, the Prussian consul and

his son and some three or four grave-looking merchants in rich silk

robes and ample turbans. Meanwhile the band--two fiddles, a tambourine

and a darabukkeh--played at intervals at the lower end of the hall;

pipes, coffee and lemonade went continually round; and the entertainment

wound up, as native entertainments always do wind up at Luxor, with a

performance of Ghawâzi.

We had already seen these dancers at two previous fantasias and we

admired them no more the third time than the first. They wore baggy

Turkish trousers, loose gowns of gaudy pattern and a profusion of

jewelry. The _première danseuse_ was a fine woman and rather handsome;

but in the “belle” of the company, a thick-lipped Nubian, we could

discover no charm whatever. The performances of the Ghawâzi--which are

very ungraceful and almost wholly pantomimic--have been too often

described to need description here. Only once, indeed, did we see them

perform an actual dance; and then they swam lightly to and fro,

clattering their castanets, crossing and re-crossing and bounding every

now and then down the whole length of the room. This dance, we were

told, was of unknown antiquity. They sang occasionally; but their voices

were harsh and their melodies inharmonious.

There was present, however, one native performer whom we had already

heard many times and of whose skill we never tired. This was the leader

of the little band--an old man who played the kemengeh,[245] or cocoanut

fiddle. A more unpromising instrument than the kemengeh it would be

difficult to conceive; yet our old Arab contrived to make it discourse

most eloquent music. His solos consisted of plaintive airs and

extemporized variations, embroidered with difficult and sometimes

extravagant cadenzas. He always began sedately, but warmed to his work

as he went on; seeming at last to forget everything but his own delight

in his own music. At such times one could see that he was weaving some

romance in his thoughts and translating it into sounds. As the strings

throbbed under his fingers, the whole man became inspired; and more than

once when, in shower after shower of keen, despairing notes, he had

described the wildest anguish of passion, I have observed his color

change and his hand tremble.

Although we heard him repeatedly, and engaged him more than once when we

had friends to dinner, I am sorry to say that I forget the name of this

really great artist. He is, however, celebrated throughout the Thebaid,

and is constantly summoned to Erment, Esneh, Keneh, Girgeh, and other

large towns, to perform at private entertainments.

While at Luxor, we went one Sunday morning to the Coptic church--a large

building at the northern extremity of the village. Church, schools, and

bishop’s house, are here grouped under one roof and inclosed in a

court-yard; for Luxor is the center of one of the twelve sees into which

Coptic Egypt is divided.

The church, which has been rebuilt of late years, is constructed of

sun-dried brick, having a small apse toward the east, and at the lower

or western end a screened atrium for the women. The center aisle is

perhaps thirty feet in width; the side-aisles, if aisles they can be

called, being thickly planted with stone pillars supporting round

arches. These pillars came from Karnak, and were the gift of the

khedive. They have lotus-bud capitals, and measure about fifteen feet

high in the shaft. At the upper end of the nave, some eighteen or twenty

feet in advance of the apse, there stands a very beautiful screen inlaid

in the old Coptic style with cedar, ebony, rosewood, ivory and

mother-of-pearl. This screen is the pride of the church. Through the

opening in the center one looks straight into the little wagon-roofed

apse, which contains a small table and a suspended lamp, and is as dark

as the sanctuary of an Egyptian temple. The reading-desk, like a rickety

office stool, faces the congregation; and just inside the screen stands

the bishop’s chair. Upon this plan, which closely resembles the plan of

the first cathedral of St. Peter at Rome, most Coptic churches are

built. They vary chiefly in the number of apses, some having as many as

five. The atrium generally contains a large tank, called the Epiphany

tank, into which, in memory of the baptism of our Lord, the men plunge

at their festivals of El Ghitâs.

Young Todroos, the son of the Prussian consul, conducted us to the

church. We went in at about eleven o’clock and witnessed the end of the

service, which had then been going on since daybreak. The atrium was

crowded with women and children, and the side-aisles with men of the

poorer sort. A few groups of better dressed Copts were gathered near the

screen listening to a black-robed deacon, who stood reading at the

reading desk with a lighted taper in his left hand. A priest in a white

vestment embroidered on the breast and hood with a red Maltese cross,

was squatting on his heels at the entrance to the adytum. The bishop,

all in black, with a black turban, sat with his back to the

congregation.

Every face was turned upon us when we came in. The reader paused. The

white-robed priest got up. Even the bishop looked round. Presently a

couple of acolytes, each carrying two cane-bottomed chairs, came

bustling down the nave; and, unceremoniously driving away all who were

standing near, placed us in a row across the middle of the church. This

interruption over, the reading was resumed.

We now observed with some surprise that every word of the lessons as

they were read in Coptic was translated, _viva voce_, into Arabic by a

youth in a surplice, who stood against the screen facing the

congregation. He had no book, but went on fluently enough, following

close upon the voice of the reader. This, we were told, was done only

during the reading of the lessons, the Gospel, and the Lord’s prayer.

The rest of the service is performed without translation; and, the

Coptic being a dead language, is consequently unintelligible to the

people.

When the reading of the Gospel was over, the deacon retired. The priest

then came forward and made a sign to the school-children, who ran up

noisily from all parts of the church, and joined with the choristers in

a wild kind of chant. It seemed to us that this chant concluded the

first part of the service.

The second part closely resembled the celebration of mass. The priest

came to the door of the screen; looked at the congregation; folded his

hands palm to palm; went up to the threshold of the apse, and began

reciting what sounded like a litany. He then uncovered the sacred

vessels, which till now had been concealed under two blue cotton

handkerchiefs, and, turning, shook the handkerchief toward the people.

He then consecrated the wine and wafer; elevated the host; and himself

partook of the Eucharist in both elements. A little bell was rung during

the consecration and again at the elevation. The people, meanwhile,

stood very reverently, with their heads bent; but no one knelt during

any part of the service. After this, the officiating priest washed his

hands in a brass basin; and the deacon--who was also the

schoolmaster--came round the church holding up his scarf, which was

heaped full of little cakes of unleavened bread. These he distributed to

all present. An acolyte followed with a plate, and collected the

offerings of the congregation.

We now thought the service was over; but there remained four wee,

crumpled, brown mites of babies to be christened. These small Copts were

carried up the church by four acolytes, followed by four anxious

fathers. The priest then muttered a short prayer; crossed the babies

with water from the basin in which he had washed his hands; drank the

water; wiped the basin out with a piece of bread; ate the bread; and

dismissed the little newly made Christians with a hasty blessing.

Finally, the bishop--who had taken no part in the service, nor even

partaken of the Eucharist--came down from his chair, and stood before

the altar to bless the congregation. Hereupon all the men and boys

ranged themselves in single file and trooped through between the screen

and the apse, crowding in at one side and out at the other; each being

touched by the bishop on his cheek, as he went by. If they lagged, the

bishop clapped his hands impatiently, and the schoolmaster drove them

through faster. When there were no more to come (the women and little

girls, be it observed, coming in for no share of this benediction), the

priest took off his vestments and laid them in a heap on the altar; the

deacon distributed a basketful of blessed cakes among the poor of the

congregation; and the bishop walked down the nave, eating a cake and

giving a bit here and there to the best dressed Copts as he went along.

So ended this interesting and curious service, which I have described

thus minutely for the reason that it represents, with probably but

little change, the earliest ceremonial of Christian worship in

Egypt.[246]

Before leaving, we asked permission to look at the books from which the

service had been read. They were all very old and dilapidated. The new

testament, however, was in better condition than the rest, and was

beautifully written upon vellum, in red and black ink. The Coptic, of

course, looks like Greek to the eyes of the uninitiated; but some of the

illuminated capitals struck us as bearing a marked resemblance to

certain of the more familiar hieroglyphic characters.

While we were examining the books, the bishop sent his servant to invite

us to pay him a visit. We accordingly followed the man up an outer

flight of wooden steps at one corner of the court-yard, and were shown

into a large room built partly over the church. Here we found the

bishop--handsome, plump, dignified, with soft brown eyes, and a slightly

grizzled beard--seated cross-legged on a divan, and smoking his

chibouque. On a table in the middle of the room stood two or three blue

and white bottles of oriental porcelain. The windows, which were

sashless and very large, looked over to Karnak. The sparrows flew in and

out as they listed.

The bishop received us very amiably, and the proceedings opened as usual

with pipes and coffee. The conversation which followed consisted chiefly

of questions on our part, and of answers on his. We asked the extent of

his diocese, and learned that it reached from Assûan on the south to

Keneh on the north. The revenue of the see, he said, was wholly derived

from endowments in land. He estimated the number of Copts in Luxor at

two thousand, being two-thirds of the entire population. The church was

built and decorated in the time of his predecessor. He had himself been

bishop here for rather more than four years. We then spoke of the

service we had just witnessed, and of the books we had seen. I showed

him my prayer-book, which he examined with much curiosity. I explained

the differences indicated by the black and the rubricated matter, and

pointed out the parts that were sung. He was, however, more interested

in the outside than in the contents, and tapped the binding once or

twice, to see if it were leather or wood. As for the gilt corners and

clasp, he undoubtedly took them for solid gold.

The conversation next turned upon Coptic; the idle man asking him if he

believed it to be the tongue actually spoken by the ancient Egyptians.

To this he replied:

“Yes, undoubtedly. What else should it be?”

The idle man hereupon suggested that it seemed to him, from what he had

just seen of the church books, as if it might be a corrupt form of

Byzantine Greek.

The bishop shook his head.

“The Coptic is a distinct language,” he said. “Eight Greek letters were

added to the Coptic alphabet upon the introduction of Christianity into

Egypt; and since that time many Greek words have been imported into the

Coptic vocabulary; but the main body of the tongue is Coptic, purely;

and it has no radical affinity whatever with the Greek.”[247]

This was the longest speech we heard him make, and he delivered it with

some emphasis.

I then asked him if the Coptic was in all respects a dead language; to

which he replied that many Coptic words, such as the names of the months

and of certain festivals, were still in daily use. This, however, was

not quite what I meant; so I put the question in another form, and asked

if he thought any fragments of the tongue yet survived among the

peasantry.

He pondered a moment before replying.

“That,” he said, “is a question to which it is difficult to give a

precise answer, but I think you might yet find in some of the remoter

villages an old man, here and there, who would understand it a little.”

I thought this a very interesting reply to a very interesting question.

After sitting about half an hour we rose and took leave. The bishop

shook hands with us all round, and, but that we protested against it,

would have accompanied us to the head of the stairs.

This interview was altogether very pleasant. The Copts are said to be

sullen in manner and so bigoted that even a Moslem is less an object of

dislike to them than a Christian of any other denomination. However this

may be, we saw nothing of it. We experienced, on the contrary, many acts

of civility from the Copts with whom we were brought into communication.

No traveler in Egypt should, I think, omit being present at a service in

a Coptic church. For a Coptic church is now the only place in which one

may hear the last utterances of that far-off race with whose pursuits

and pleasures the tomb paintings make us so familiar. We know that great

changes have come over the language since it was spoken by Rameses the

Great and written by Pentaur. We know that the Coptic of to-day bears to

the Egyptian of the Pharaohs some such resemblance, perhaps, as the

English of Macaulay bears to the English of Chaucer. Yet it is at bottom

the tongue of old Egypt, and it is something to hear the last lingering

echoes of that ancient speech read by the undoubted descendants of the

Egyptian people. In another fifty years or so, the Coptic will, in all

probability, be superseded by the Arabic in the services of this church;

and then the very tradition of its pronunciation will be lost. The Copts

themselves, it is said, are fast going over to the dominant faith.

Perhaps by the time our own descendants are counting the two thousandth

anniversary of the Christian era, both Copts and Coptic will be extinct

in Egypt.

* * * * *

A day or two after this we dropped down to Karnak, where we remained

till the end of the week, and on the following Sunday we resumed our

downward voyage.

If the universe of literature was unconditioned and the present book was

independent of time and space, I would write another chapter here about

Karnak. But Karnak, to be fairly dealt by, would ask, not a chapter, but

a volume. So, having already told something of the impression first made

upon us by that wilderness of wonders, I will say no more.