CHAPTER IX.THEBES—THE WESTERN BANK.Arrival at Thebes—Ground-Plan of the Remains—We Cross to the Western Bank—Guides—The Temple of Goorneh—Valley of the Kings’ Tombs—Belzoni’s Tomb—The Races of Men—Vandalism of Antiquarians—Bruce’s Tomb—Memnon—The Grandfather of Sesostris—The Head of Amunoph—The Colossi of the Plain—Memnonian Music—The Statue of Remeses—The Memnonium—Beauty of Egyptian Art—More Scrambles among the Tombs—The Bats of the Assasseef—Medeenet Abou—Sculptured Histories—The Great Court of the Temple—We return to Luxor.
Arrival at Thebes—Ground-Plan of the Remains—We Cross to the Western Bank—Guides—The Temple of Goorneh—Valley of the Kings’ Tombs—Belzoni’s Tomb—The Races of Men—Vandalism of Antiquarians—Bruce’s Tomb—Memnon—The Grandfather of Sesostris—The Head of Amunoph—The Colossi of the Plain—Memnonian Music—The Statue of Remeses—The Memnonium—Beauty of Egyptian Art—More Scrambles among the Tombs—The Bats of the Assasseef—Medeenet Abou—Sculptured Histories—The Great Court of the Temple—We return to Luxor.
On the following evening, about nine o’clock, as my friend and I were taking our customary evening pipe in the cabin, our vessel suddenly stopped. The wind was still blowing, and I called to Achmet to know what was the matter. “We have reached Luxor,” answered the Theban. We dropped the shebooks, dashed out, up the bank, and saw, facing us in the brilliant moonlight, the grand colonnade of the temple, the solid wedges of the pylon, and the brother-obelisk of that which stands in the Place de la Concorde, in Paris. The wide plain of Thebes stretched away on either hand, and the beautiful outlines of the three mountain ranges which inclose it, rose in the distance against the stars. We looked on the landscape a few moments, in silence. “Come,” said my friend, at length, “this is enough for to-night. Let us not be toohasty to exhaust what is in store for us.” So we returned to our cabin, closed the blinds, and arranged our plans for best seeing, and best enjoying the wonders of the great Diospolis.
Before commencing my recital, let me attempt to give an outline of the typography of Thebes. The course of the Nile is here nearly north, dividing the site of the ancient city into two almost equal parts. On approaching it from Kenneh, the mountain of Goorneh, which abuts on the river, marks the commencement of the western division. This mountain, a range of naked limestone crags, terminating in a pyramidal peak, gradually recedes to the distance of three miles from the Nile, which it again approaches further south. Nearly the whole of the curve, which might be called the western wall of the city, is pierced with tombs, among which are those of the queens, and the grand priestly vaults of the Assasseef. The Valley of the Kings’ Tombs lies deep in the heart of the range seven or eight miles from the river. After passing the corner of the mountain, the first ruin on the western bank is that of the temple-palace of Goorneh. More than a mile further, at the base of the mountain, is the Memnonium, or temple of Remeses the Great, between which and the Nile the two Memnonian colossi are seated on the plain. Nearly two miles to the south of this is the great temple of Medeenet Abou, and the fragments of other edifices are met with, still further beyond. On the eastern bank, nearly opposite Goorneh, stands the temple of Karnak, about half a mile from the river. Eight miles eastward, at the foot of the Arabian Mountains, is the small temple of Medamot, which, however, does not appear to have been included in the limits of Thebes. Luxor is directly on the bank of the Nile, a mile and a half south ofKarnak, and the plain extends several miles beyond it, before Beaching the isolated range, whose three conical peaks are the landmarks of Thebes to voyagers on the river.
These distances convey an idea of the extent of the ancient city, but fail to represent the grand proportions of the landscape, so well fitted, in its simple and majestic outlines, to inclose the most wonderful structures the world has ever seen. The green expanse of the plain; the airy coloring of the mountains; the mild, solemn blue of the cloudless Egyptian sky;—these are a part of Thebes, and inseparable from the remembrance of its ruins.
At sunrise we crossed to the western bank and moored our boat opposite Goorneh. It is advisable to commence with the Tombs, and close the inspection of that side with Medeenet Abou, reserving Karnak, the grandest of all, for the last. The most unimportant objects in Thebes are full of interest when seen first, whereas Karnak, once seen, fills one’s thoughts to the exclusion of every thing else. There are Arab guides for each bank, who are quite familiar with all the principal points, and who have a quiet and unobtrusive way of directing the traveller, which I should be glad to see introduced into England and Italy. Our guide, old Achmet Gourgàr, was a tall, lean gray-beard, who wore a white turban and long brown robe, and was most conscientious in his endeavors to satisfy us; We found several horses on the bank, ready saddled, and choosing two of the most promising, set off on a stirring gallop for the temple of Goorneh and the Valley of the Kings’ Tombs, leaving Achmet to follow with our breakfast, and the Arab boys with their water bottles.
The temple of Goorneh was built for the worship of Amun,the Theban Jupiter, by Osirei and his son, Remeses the Great, the supposed Sesostris, nearly fourteen hundred years before the Christian era. It is small, compared with the other ruins, but interesting from its rude and massive style, a remnant of the early period of Egyptian architecture. The two pylons in front of it are shattered down, and the dromos of sphinxes has entirely disappeared. The portico is supported by a single row of ten columns, which neither resemble each other, nor are separated by equal spaces. What is most singular, is the fact that notwithstanding this disproportion, which is also observable in the doorways, the general effect is harmonious. We tried to fathom the secret of this, and found no other explanation than in the lowness of the building, and the rough granite blocks of which it is built. One seeks no proportion in a natural temple of rock, or a cirque of Druid stones. All that the eye requires is rude strength, with a certain approach to order. The effect produced by this temple is of a similar character, barring its historical interest. Its dimensions are too small to be imposing, and I found, after passing it several times, that I valued it more as a feature in the landscape, than for its own sake.
The sand and pebbles clattered under the hoofs of our horses, as we galloped up the gorge ofBiban el Molook, the “Gates of the Kings.” The sides are perpendicular cliffs of yellow rock, which increased in height, the further we advanced, and at last terminated in a sort of basin, shut in by precipices several hundred feet in height and broken into fantastic turrets, gables and pinnacles. The bottom is filled with huge heaps of sand and broken stones, left from the excavation of the tombs in the solid rock. There are twenty-one tombsin this valley, more than half of which are of great extent and richly adorned with paintings and sculptures. Some have been filled with sand or otherwise injured by the occasional rains which visit this region, while a few are too small and plain to need visiting. Sir Gardner Wilkinson has numbered them all in red chalk at the entrances, which is very convenient to those who use his work on Egypt as a guide. I visited ten of the principal tombs, to the great delight of the old guide, who complained that travellers are frequently satisfied with four or five. The general arrangement is the same in all, but they differ greatly in extent and in the character of their decoration.
The first we entered was the celebrated tomb of Remeses I., discovered by Belzoni. From the narrow entrance, a precipitous staircase, the walls of which are covered with columns of hieroglyphics, descends to a depth of forty feet, where it strikes a horizontal passage leading to an oblong chamber, in which was formerly a deep pit, which Belzoni filled. This pit protected the entrance to the royal chamber, which was also carefully walled up. In the grace and freedom of the drawings, and the richness of their coloring, this tomb surpasses all others. The subjects represented are the victories of the monarch, while in the sepulchral chamber he is received into the presence of the gods. The limestone rock is covered with a fine coating of plaster, on which the figures were first drawn with red chalk, and afterwards carefully finished in colors. The reds, yellows, greens and blues are very brilliant, but seem to have been employed at random, the gods having faces sometimes of one color, sometimes of another. In the furthest chamber, which was left unfinished, the subjects are onlysketched in red chalk. Some of them have the loose and uncertain lines of a pupil’s hand, over which one sees the bold and rapid corrections of the master. Many of the figures are remarkable for their strength and freedom of outline. I was greatly interested in a procession of men, representing the different nations of the earth. The physical peculiarities of the Persian, the Jew and the Ethiopian are therein as distinctly marked as at the present day. The blacks are perfect counterparts of those I saw daily upon the Nile, and the noses of the Jews seem newly painted from originals in New York. So little diversity in the distinguishing features of the race, after the lapse of more than three thousand years, is a strong argument in favor of the new ethnological theory of the separate origin of different races. Whatever objections may be urged against this theory, the fact that the races have not materially changed since the earliest historic times, is established by these Egyptian records, and we must either place the first appearance of Man upon the earth many thousands of years in advance of Bishop Usher’s chronology, or adopt the conclusion of Morton and Agassiz.
The burial-vault, where Belzoni found the alabaster sarcophagus of the monarch, is a noble hall, thirty feet long by nearly twenty in breadth and height, with four massive pillars forming a corridor on one side. In addition to the light of our torches, the Arabs kindled a large bonfire in the centre, which brought out in strong relief the sepulchral figures on the ceiling, painted in white on a ground of dark indigo hue. The pillars and walls of the vault glowed with the vivid variety of their colors, and the general effect was unspeakably rich and gorgeous. This tomb has already fallen a prey to worse plunderersthan the Medes and Persians. Belzoni carried off the sarcophagus, Champollion cut away the splendid jambs and architrave of the entrance to the lower chambers, and Lepsius has finished by splitting the pillars and appropriating their beautiful paintings for the Museum at Berlin. At one spot, where the latter has totally ruined a fine doorway, some indignant Frenchman has written in red chalk: “Meurtre commis par Lepsius.” In all the tombs of Thebes, wherever you see the most flagrant and shameless spoliations, the guide says, “Lepsius.” Who can blame the Arabs for wantonly defacing these precious monuments, when such an example is set them by the vanity of European antiquarians?
Bruce’s Tomb, which extends for four hundred and twenty feet into the rock, is larger than Belzoni’s, but not so fresh and brilliant. The main entrance slopes with a very gradual descent, and has on each side a number of small chambers and niches, apparently for mummies. The illustrations in these chambers are somewhat defaced, but very curious, on account of the light which they throw upon the domestic life of the Ancient Egyptians. They represent the slaughtering of oxen, the preparation of fowls for the table, the kneading and baking of bread and cakes, as well as the implements and utensils of the kitchen. In other places the field laborers are employed in leading the water of the Nile into canals, cutting dourra, threshing and carrying the grain into magazines. One room is filled with furniture, and the row of chairs around the base of the walls would not be out of place in the most elegant modern drawing-room. The Illustrated Catalogue of the London Exhibition contains few richer and more graceful patterns. In a chamber nearer the royal vault, two old, blind minstrelsare seen, playing the harp in the presence of the King, whence this is sometimes called the Harper’s Tomb. The pillars of the grand hall, like those of all the other tombs we visited, represent the monarch, after death, received into the presence of the gods—stately figures, with a calm and serious aspect, and lips, which, like those of the Sphinx, seemed closed upon some awful mystery. The absurdity of the coloring does not destroy this effect, and a blue-faced Isis, whose hard, black eyeball stares from a brilliant white socket, is not less impressive than the same figure, cut in sandstone or granite.
The delicacy and precision of the hieroglyphics, sculptured in intaglio, filled me with astonishment. In the tomb of Amunoph III., which I visited the next day, they resembled the ciphers engraved upon seals in their exquisite sharpness and regularity. Only the principal tombs, however, are thus beautified. In others the figures are either simply painted, or apparently sunken in the plaster, while it was yet fresh, by prepared patterns. The latter method accounts for the exact resemblance of long processions of figures, which would otherwise require a most marvellous skill on the part of the artist. In some unfinished chambers I detected plainly the traces of these patterns, where the outlines of the figures were blunt and the grain of the plaster bent, and not cut. The family likeness in the faces of the monarchs is also too striking, unfortunately, for us to accept them all as faithful portraits. They are all apparently of the same age, and their attributes do not materially differ. This was probably a flattery on the part of the artists, or the effect of a royal vanity, which required to be portrayed in the freshness of youth and the full vigor of body and mind. The first faces I learned to recognize were those of Remeses II., the supposed Sesostris, and Amunoph III.
The tomb of Memnon, as it was called by the Romans, is the most elegant of all, in its proportions, and is as symmetrical as a Grecian temple. On the walls of the entrance are several inscriptions of Greek tourists, who visited it in the era of the Ptolemies, and spent their time in carving their names, like Americans nowadays. The huge granite sarcophagus in which the monarch’s mummy was deposited, is broken, as are those of the other tombs, with a single exception. This is the tomb of Osirei I., the grandfather of Sesostris, and the oldest in the valley. I visited it by crawling through a hole barely large enough to admit my body, after which I slid on my back down a passage nearly choked with sand, to another hole, opening into the burial chamber. Here no impious hand had defaced the walls, but the figures were as perfect and the coloring as brilliant as when first executed. In the centre stood an immense sarcophagus, of a single block of red granite, and the massive lid, which had been thrown off, lay beside it. The dust in the bottom gave out that peculiar mummy odor perceptible in all the tombs, and in fact long after one has left them, for the clothes become saturated with it. The guide, delighted with having dragged me into that chamber, buried deep in the dumb heart of the mountain, said not a word, and from the awful stillness of the place and the phantasmagoric gleam of the wonderful figures on the walls, I could have imagined myself a neophyte, on the threshold of the Osirian mysteries.
We rode to the Western Valley, a still deeper and wider glen, containing tombs of the kings of the foreign dynasty of Atin-Re. We entered the two principal ones, but found the paintings rude and insignificant. There are many lateral passages and chambers and in some places deep pits, along theedge of which we were obliged to crawl. In the last tomb a very long and steep staircase descends into the rock. As we were groping after the guide, I called to my friend to take care, as there was but a single step, after making a slip. The words were scarcely out of my mouth before I felt a tremendous thump, followed by a number of smaller ones, and found myself sitting in a heap of sand, at the bottom, some twenty or thirty feet below. Fortunately, I came off with but a few slight bruises.
Returning to the temple of Goorneh, we took a path over the plain, through fields of wheat, lupins and lentils, to the two colossi, which we had already seen from a distance. These immense sitting figures, fifty-three feet above the plain, which has buried their pedestals, overlook the site of vanished Thebes and assert the grandeur of which they and Karnak are the most striking remains. They were erected by Amunoph III., and though the faces are totally disfigured, the full, round, beautiful proportions of the colossal arms, shoulders and thighs do not belie the marvellous sweetness of the features which we still see in his tomb. Except the head of Antinous, I know of no ancient portrait so beautiful as Amunoph. The long and luxuriant hair, flowing in a hundred ringlets, the soft grace of the forehead, the mild serenity of the eye, the fine thin lines of the nostrils and the feminine tenderness of the full lips, triumph over the cramped rigidity of Egyptian sculpture, and charm you with the lightness and harmony of Greek art. In looking on that head, I cannot help thinking that the subject overpowered the artist, and led him to the threshold of a truer art. Amunoph, or Memnon, was a poet in soul, and it was meet that his statue should salute the rising sun with a sound like that of a harp-string.
Modern research has wholly annihilated this beautiful fable. Memnon now sounds at all hours of the day, and at the command of all travellers who pay an Arab five piastres to climb into his lap. We engaged a vender of modern scarabei, who threw off his garments, hooked his fingers and toes into the cracks of the polished granite, and soon hailed us with “Salaam!” from the knee of the statue. There is a certain stone on Memnon’s lap, which, when sharply struck, gives out a clear metallic ring. Behind it is a small square aperture, invisible from below, where one of the priests no doubt stationed himself to perform the daily miracle. Our Arab rapped on the arms and body of the statue, which had the usual dead sound of stone, and rendered the musical ring of the sun-smitten block more striking. An avenue of sphinxes once led from the colossi to a grand temple, the foundations of which we found about a quarter of a mile distant. On the way are the fragments of two other colossi, one of black granite. The enormous substructions of the temple and the pedestals of its columns have been sufficiently excavated to show what a superb edifice has been lost to the world. A crowd of troublesome Arabs, thrusting upon our attention newly baken cinerary urns, newly roasted antique wheat, and images of all kinds fresh from the maker’s hand, disturbed our quiet examination of the ruins, and in order to escape their importunities, we rode to the Memnonium.
This edifice, the temple-palace of Remeses the Great, is supposed to be the Memnonium, described by Strabo. It is built on a gentle rise of land at the foot of the mountain, and looks eastward to the Nile and Luxor. The grand stone pylon which stands at the entrance of its former avenue ofsphinxes has been half levelled by the fury of the Persian conquerors, and the colossal granite statue of Remeses, in the first court of the temple, now lies in enormous fragments around its pedestal. Mere dimensions give no idea of this immense mass, the weight of which, when entire, was nearly nine hundred tons. How poor and trifling appear the modern statues which we call colossal, when measured with this, one of whose toes is a yard in length; and how futile the appliances of modern art, when directed to its transportation for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles! The architrave at each end of the court was upheld by four caryatides, thirty feet in height. Though much defaced, they are still standing, but are dwarfed by the mighty limbs of Remeses. It is difficult to account for the means by which the colossus was broken. There are no marks of any instruments which could have forced such a mass asunder, and the only plausible conjecture I have heard is, that the stone must have been subjected to an intense heat and afterwards to the action of water. The statue, in its sitting position, must have been nearly sixty feet in height, and is the largest in the world, though not so high as the rock-hewn monoliths of Aboo-Simbel. The Turks and Arabs have cut several mill-stones out of its head, without any apparent diminution of its size.
The Memnonium differs from the other temples of Egypt in being almost faultless in its symmetry, even when measured by the strictest rules of art. I know of nothing so exquisite as the central colonnade of its grand hall—a double row of pillars, forty-five feet in height and twenty-three in circumference, crowned with capitals resembling the bell-shaped blossoms of the lotus. One must see them to comprehend howthis simple form, whose expression is all sweetness and tenderness in the flower, softens and beautifies the solid majesty of the shaft. In spite of their colossal proportions, there is nothing massive or heavy in their aspect. The cup of the capital curves gently outward from the abacus on which the architrave rests, and seems the natural blossom of the columnar stem. On either side of this perfect colonnade are four rows of Osiride pillars, of smaller size, yet the variety of their form and proportions only enhances the harmony of the whole. This is one of those enigmas in architecture which puzzle one on his first acquaintance with Egyptian temples, and which he is often forced blindly to accept as new laws of art, because his feeling tells him they are true, and his reason cannot satisfactorily demonstrate that they are false.
We waited till the yellow rays of sunset fell on the capitals of the Memnonium, and they seemed, like the lotus flowers to exhale a vapory light, before we rode home. All night we wandered in dreams through kingly vaults, with starry ceilings and illuminated walls; but on looking out of our windows at dawn, we saw the red saddle-cloths of our horses against the dark background of the palm grove, as they came down to the boat. No second nap was possible, after such a sight, and many minutes had not elapsed before we were tasting the cool morning air in the delight of a race up and down the shore. Our old guide, however, was on his donkey betimes, and called us off to our duty. We passed Goorneh, and ascended the eastern face of the mountain to the tombs of the priests and private citizens of Thebes. For miles along the mountain side, one sees nothing but heaps of sand and rubbish, with here and there an Arab hut, built against the face of a tomb,whose chambers serve as pigeon-houses, and stalls for asses. The earth is filled with fragments of mummies, and the bandages in which they were wrapped; for even the sanctity of death itself, is here neither respected by the Arabs nor the Europeans whom they imitate. I cannot conceive the passion which some travellers have, of carrying away withered hands and fleshless legs, and disfiguring the abodes of the dead with their insignificant names. I should as soon think of carving my initials on the back of a live Arab, as on these venerable monuments.
The first tomb we entered almost cured us of the desire to visit another. It was that called the Assasseef, built by a wealthy priest, and it is the largest in Thebes. Its outer court measures one hundred and three by seventy-six feet, and its passages extend between eight and nine hundred feet into the mountain. We groped our way between walls as black as ink, through long, labyrinthine suites of chambers, breathing a deathlike and oppressive odor. The stairways seemed to lead into the bowels of the earth, and on either hand yawned pits of uncertain depth. As we advanced, the ghostly vaults rumbled with a sound like thunder, and hundreds of noisome bats, scared by the light, dashed against the walls and dropped at our feet. We endured this for a little while, but on reaching the entrance to some darker and deeper mystery, were so surrounded by the animals, who struck their filthy wings against our faces, that not for ten kings’ tombs would we have gone a step further. My friend was on the point of vowing never to set his foot in another tomb, but I persuaded him to wait until we had seen that of Amunoph. I followed the guide, who enticed me by flattering promises into a great manysnake-like holes, and when he was tired with crawling in the dust, sent one of our water-carriers in advance, who dragged me in and out by the heels.
The temple of Medeenet Abou is almost concealed by the ruins of a Coptic village, among which it stands, and by which it is partially buried. The outer court, pylon and main hall of the smaller temple rise above the mounds and overlook the plain of Thebes, but scarcely satisfy the expectation of the traveller, as he approaches. You first enter an inclosure surrounded by a low stone wall, and standing in advance of the pylon. The rear wall, facing the entrance, contains two single pillars, with bell-shaped capitals, which rise above it and stand like guards before the doorway of the pylon. Here was another enigma for us. Who among modern architects would dare to plant two single pillars before a pyramidal gateway of solid masonry, and then inclose them in a plain wall, rising to half their height? Yet here the symmetry of the shafts is not injured by the wall in which they stand, nor oppressed by the ponderous bulk of the pylon. On the contrary, the light columns and spreading capitals, like a tuft of wild roses hanging from the crevice of a rock, brighten the rude strength of the masses of stone with a gleam of singular loveliness. What would otherwise only impress you by its size, now endears itself to you by its beauty. Is this the effect of chance, or the result of a finer art than that which flourishes in our day? I will not pretend to determine, but I must confess that Egypt, in whose ruins I had expected to find only a sort of barbaric grandeur, has given me a new insight into that vital Beauty which is the soul of true Art.
We devoted little time to the ruined court and sanctuarieswhich follow the pylon, and to the lodges of the main temple standing beside them like watch-towers, three stories in height. The majestic pylon of the great temple of Remeses III. rose behind them, out of heaps of pottery and unburnt bricks, and the colossal figure of the monarch in his car, borne by two horses into the midst of the routed enemy, attracted us from a distance. We followed the exterior wall of the temple, for its whole length of more than six hundred feet, reading the sculptured history of his conquests. The entire outer wall of the temple presents a series of gigantic cartoons, cut in the blocks of sandstone, of which it is built. Remeses is always the central figure, distinguished from subjects and foes no less by his superior stature than by the royal emblems which accompany him. Here we see heralds sounding the trumpet in advance of his car, while his troops pass in review before him; there, with a lion walking by his side, he sets out on his work of conquest. His soldiers storm a town, and we see them climbing the wall with ladders, while a desperate hand-to-hand conflict is going on below. In another place, he has alighted from his chariot and stands with his foot on the neck of a slaughtered king. Again, his vessels attack a hostile navy on the sea. One of the foreign craft becomes entangled and is capsized, yet while his spearmen hurl their weapons among the dismayed enemy, the sailors rescue those who are struggling in the flood. After we have passed through these strange and stirring pictures, we find the monarch reposing on his throne, while his soldiers deposit before him the hands of the slaughtered, and his scribes present to him lists of their numbers, and his generals lead to him long processions of fettered captives. Again, he is represented as offering a group of subject kings to Amun, the ThebanJupiter, who says to him: “Go, my cherished and chosen, make war on foreign nations, besiege their forts and carry off their people to live as captives.” On the front wall, he holds in his grasp the hands of a dozen monarchs, while with the other hand he raises his sword to destroy them. Their faces express the very extreme of grief and misery, but he is cold and calm as Fate itself.
We slid down the piles of sand and entered by a side-door into the grand hall of the temple. Here, as at Dendera, a surprise awaited us. We stood on the pavement of a magnificent court, about one hundred and thirty feet square, around which ran a colonnade of pillars, eight feet square and forty feet high. On the western side is an inner row of circular columns, twenty-four feet in circumference, with capitals representing the papyrus blossom. The entire court, with its walls, pillars and doorways, is covered with splendid sculptures and traces of paint, and the ceiling is blue as the noonday sky, and studded with stars. Against each of the square columns facing the court once stood a colossal caryatid, upholding the architrave of another colonnade of granite shafts, nearly all of which have been thrown from their bases and lie shivered on the pavement. This court opens towards the pylon into another of similar dimensions, but buried almost to the capitals of its columns in heaps of rubbish. The character of the temple is totally different from that of every other in Egypt. Its height is small in proportion to its great extent, and it therefore loses the airy lightness of the Memnonium and the impressive grandeur of Dendera. Its expression is that of a massive magnificence, if I may use such a doubtful compound: no single epithet suffices to describe it.
With Medeenet Abou finished our survey of the western division of Thebes—two long days of such experience as the contemplation of a lifetime cannot exhaust. At sunset we took advantage of the wind, parted from our grooms and water-carriers, who wished to accompany me to Khartoum, and crossed the Nile to Luxor.