CLEOPATRA.
CLEOPATRA.
CLEOPATRA.
latest ovals the name and style of Nero, the present building was still comparatively new when, inA.D.379, the ancient religion was abolished by the edict of Theodosius. It was then the most gorgeous as well as the most recent of all those larger temples built during the prosperous foreign rule of the last seven hundred years. It stood, surrounded by groves of palm and acacia, within the precincts of a vast inclosure, the walls of which, one thousand feet in length, thirty-five feet in height and fifteen feet thick, are still traceable. A dromos, now buried under twenty feet of débris, led from the pylon to the portico. The pylon is there still, a partial ruin; but the temple, with its roof, its staircases and its secret treasure-crypts, is in all essential respects as perfect as on the day when its splendor was given over to the spoilers. One can easily imagine how these spoilers sackedand ravaged all before them; how they desecrated the sacred places and cast down the statues of the goddess and divided the treasures of the sanctuary. They did not, it is true, commit such wholesale destruction as the Persian invaders of nine hundred years before; but they were merciless iconoclasts and hacked away the face of every figure within easy reach, both inside and outside the building.
Among those which escaped, however, is the famous external bas-relief of Cleopatra on the back of the temple. This curious sculpture is now banked up with rubbish for its better preservation and can no longer be seen by travelers. It was, however, admirably photographed some years ago by Signor Beati; which photograph is faithfully reproduced in the annexed engraving. Cleopatra is here represented with a head-dress combining the attributes of three goddesses; namely, the vulture of Maut (the head of which is modeled in a masterly way), the horned disk of Hathor and the throne of Isis. The falling mass below the head-dress is intended to represent hair dressed according to the Egyptian fashion, in an infinite number of small plaits, each finished off with an ornamental tag. The women of Egypt and Nubia wear their hair so to this day and unplait it, I am sorry to say, not oftener than once in every eight or ten weeks. The Nubian girls fasten each separate tail with a lump of Nile mud daubed over with yellow ocher; but Queen Cleopatra’s silken tresses were probably tipped with gilded wax or gum.
It is difficult to know where decorative sculpture ends and portraiture begins in a work of this epoch. We cannot even be certain that a portrait was intended; though the introduction of the royal oval in which the name of Cleopatra (Klaupatra) is spelled with its vowel sounds in full, would seem to point that way. If it is a portrait, then large allowance must be made for conventional treatment. The fleshiness of the features and the intolerable simper are common to every head of the Ptolemaic period. The ear, too, is pattern work, and the drawing of the figure is ludicrous. Mannerism apart, however, the face wants for neither individuality nor beauty. Cover the mouth, and you have an almost faultless profile. The chin and throat are also quite lovely; while the whole face, suggestive of cruelty, subtlety, and voluptuousness, carries with it an indefinable impression not only of portraiture, but of likeness.
It is not without something like a shock that one first sees the unsightly havoc wrought upon the Hathor-headed columns of the façade at Denderah. The massive folds of the head-gear are there; the ears, erect and pointed like those of a heifer, are there; but of the benignant face of the goddess not a feature remains. Ampère, describing these columns in one of his earliest letters from Egypt, speaks of them as being still “brilliant with colors that time had had no power to efface.” Time, however, must have been unusually busy during the thirty years that have gone by since then; for though we presently found several instances of painted bas-reliefs in the small inner chambers, I do not remember to have observed any remains of color (save here and there a faint trace of yellow ocher) on the external decorations.
Without, all was sunshine and splendor; within, all was silence and mystery. A heavy, death-like smell, as of long-imprisoned gases, met us on the threshold. By the half-light that strayed in through the portico we could see vague outlines of a forest of giant columns rising out of the gloom below and vanishing into the gloom above. Beyond these again appeared shadowy vistas of successive halls leading away into depths of impenetrable darkness. It required no great courage to go down those stairs and explore those depths with a party of fellow-travelers; but it would have been a gruesome place to venture into alone.
Seen from within, the portico shows as a vast hall, fifty feet in height and supported on twenty-four Hathor-headed columns. Six of these, being engaged in the screen, form part of the façade, and are the same upon which we have been looking from without. By degrees, as our eyes become used to the twilight, we see here and there a capital which still preserves the vague likeness of a gigantic female face; while, dimly visible on every wall, pillar, and doorway, a multitude of fantastic forms—hawk-headed, ibis-headed, cow-headed, mitered, plumed, holding aloft strange emblems, seated on thrones, performing mysterious rites—seem to emerge from their places, like things of life. Looking up to the ceiling, now smoke-blackened and defaced, we discover elaborate paintings of scarabæi, winged globes, and zodiacal emblems divided by borders of intricate Greek patterns, the prevailing colors of which are verditer and chocolate. Bands of hieroglyphicinscriptions of royal ovals, of Hathor-heads of mitered hawks, of lion-headed chimeras, of divinities and kings in bas-relief, cover the shafts of the great columns from top to bottom; and even here, every accessible human face, however small, has been laboriously mutilated.
Bewildered at first sight of these profuse and mysterious decorations, we wander round and round; going on from the first hall to the second, from the second to the third; and plunging into deeper darkness at every step. We have been reading about these gods and emblems for weeks past—we have studied the plan of the temple beforehand; yet now that we are actually here, our book knowledge goes for nothing, and we feel as hopelessly ignorant as if we had been suddenly landed in a new world. Not till we have got over this first feeling of confusion—not till, resting awhile on the base of one of the columns, we again open out the plan of the building—do we begin to realize the purport of the sculptures by which we are surrounded.
The ceremonial of Egyptian worship was essentially processional. Herein we have the central idea of every temple and the key to its construction. It was bound to contain store-chambers in which were kept vestments, instruments, divine emblems, and the like; laboratories for the preparation of perfumes and unguents; treasuries for the safe custody of holy vessels and precious offerings; chambers for the reception and purification of tribute in kind; halls for the assembling and marshaling of priests and functionaries; and, for processional purposes, corridors, staircases, court-yards, cloisters, and vast inclosures planted with avenues of trees and surrounded by walls which hedged in with inviolable secrecy the solemn rites of the priesthood.
In this plan, it will be seen, there is no provision made for anything in the form of public worship; but then an Egyptian temple was not a place for public worship. It was a treasure-house, a sacristy, a royal oratory, a place of preparation, of consecration, of sacerdotal privacy. There, in costly shrines, dwelt the divine images. There they were robed and unrobed; perfumed with incense; visited and worshiped by the king. On certain great days of the calendar, as on the occasion of the festival of the new year, or the panegyries of the local gods, these imageswere brought out, paraded along the corridors of the temple, carried round the roof, and borne with waving of banners, and chanting of hymns, and burning of incense, through the sacred groves of the inclosure. Probably none were admitted to these ceremonies save persons of royal or priestly birth. To the rest of the community, all that took place within those massy walls was enveloped in mystery. It may be questioned, indeed, whether the great mass of the people had any kind of personal religion. They may not have been rigidly excluded from the temple precincts, but they seem to have been allowed no participation in the worship of the gods. If now and then, on high festival days, they beheld the sacred bark of the deity carried in procession round the temenos, or caught a glimpse of moving figures and glittering ensigns in the pillared dusk of the Hypostyle Hall, it was all they ever beheld of the solemn services of their church.
The temple of Denderah consists of a portico; a hall of entrance; a hall of assembly; a third hall, which may be called the hall of the sacred boats; one small ground-floor chapel; and upward of twenty side chambers of various sizes, most of which are totally dark. Each one of these halls and chambers bears the sculptured record of its use. Hundreds of tableaux in bas-relief, thousands of elaborate hieroglyphic inscriptions, cover every foot of available space on wall and ceiling and soffit, on doorway and column, and on the lining-slabs of passages and staircases. These precious texts contain, amid much that is mystical and tedious, an extraordinary wealth of indirect history. Here we find programmes of ceremonial observances; numberless legends of the gods; chronologies of kings with their various titles; registers of weights and measures; catalogues of offerings; recipes for the preparation of oils and essences; records of repairs and restorations done to the temple; geographical lists of cities and provinces; inventories of treasure, and the like. The hall of assembly contains a calendar of festivals, and sets forth with studied precision the rites to be performed on each recurring anniversary. On the ceiling of the portico we find an astronomical zodiac; on the walls of a small temple on the roof, the whole history of the resurrection of Osiris, together with the order of prayer for the twelve hours of the night, and a calendar of the festivals of Osiris in all the principalcities of Upper and Lower Egypt. Seventy years ago these inscriptions were the puzzle and despair of the learned; but since modern science has plucked out the heart of its mystery, the whole temple lies before us as an open volume filled to overflowing with strange and quaint and heterogeneous matter—a Talmud in sculptured stone.[34]
Given such help as Mariette’s hand-book affords, one can trace out most of these curious things and identify the uses of every hall and chamber throughout the building. The king, in his double character of Pharaoh and high priest, is the hero of every sculptured scene. Wearing sometimes the truncated crown of Lower Egypt, sometimes the helmet-crown of Upper Egypt, and sometimes the pschent, which is a combination of both, he figures in every tableau and heads every procession. Beginning with the sculptures of the portico, we see him arrive, preceded by his five royal standards. He wears his long robe; his sandals are on his feet; he carries his staff in his hand. Two goddesses receive him at the door and conduct him into the presence of Thoth, the ibis-headed, and Horus, the hawk-headed, who pour upon him a double stream of the waters of life. Thus purified, he is crowned by the goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt, and by them consigned to the local deities of Thebes and Heliopolis, who usher him into the supreme presence of Hathor. He then presents various offerings and recites certain prayers; whereupon the goddess promises him length of days, everlasting renown, and other good things. We next see him, always with the same smile and always in the same attitude, doing homage to Osiris, to Horus and other divinities. He presents them with flowers, wine, bread, incense; while they in return promise him life, joy, abundant harvests, victory, and the love of his people. These pretty speeches—chefs-d’œuvre of diplomatic style and models of elegant flattery—are repeated over and over again in scores of hieroglyphic groups. Mariette, however, sees in them something more than the language of the court grafted upon the language of the hierarchy; hedetects the language of the schools, and discovers in the utterances here ascribed to the king and the gods a reflection of that contemporary worship of the beautiful, the good, and the true, which characterized the teaching of the Alexandrian Museum.[35]
Passing on from the portico to the hall of assembly, we enter a region of still dimmer twilight, beyond which all is dark. In the side-chambers, where the heat is intense and the atmosphere stifling, we can see only by the help of lighted candles. These rooms are about twenty feet in length; separate, like prison cells; and perfectly dark. The sculptures which cover their walls are, however, as numerous as those in the outer halls, and indicate in each instance the purpose for which the room was designed. Thus in the laboratories we find bas-reliefs of flasks and vases and figures carrying perfume bottles of the familiar aryballos form; in the tribute chambers, offerings of lotus lilies, wheat sheaves, maize, grapes and pomegranates. In the oratories of Isis, Amen, and Sekhet, representations of these divinities enthroned, and receiving the homage of the king; while in the treasury, both king and queen appear laden with precious gifts of caskets, necklaces, pectoral ornaments, sistrums, and the like. It would seem that the image-breakers had no time to spare for these dark cells; for here the faces and figures are unmutilated, and in some places even the original coloringremains in excellent preservation. The complexion of the goddesses, for instance, is painted of a light buff; the king’s skin is dark-red; that of Amen, blue. Isis wears a rich robe of the well-known Indian pine-pattern; Sekhet figures in a many colored garment curiously diapered; Amen is clad in red and green chain armor. The skirts of the goddesses are inconceivably scant; but they are rich in jewelry, and their head-dresses, necklaces, and bracelets are full of minute and interesting detail. In one of the four oratories dedicated to Sekhet, the king is depicted in the act of offering a pectoral ornament of so rich and elegant a design that, had there been time and daylight to spare, the writer would fain have copied it.
In the center room at the extreme end of the temple, exactly opposite the main entrance, lies the oratory of Hathor. This dark chamber, into which no ray of daylight has ever penetrated, contains the sacred niche, the holy of holies, in which was kept the great golden sistrum of the goddess. The king alone was privileged to take out that mysterious emblem. Having done so, he inclosed it in a costly shrine, covered it with a thick veil, and placed it in one of the sacred boats of which we find elaborate representations sculptured on the walls of the hall in which they were kept. These boats, which were constructed of cedar wood, gold, and silver, were intended to be hoisted on wrought poles, and so carried in procession on the shoulders of the priests. The niche is still there—a mere hole in the hall, some three feet square and about eight feet from the ground.
Thus, candle in hand, we make the circuit of these outer chambers. In each doorway, besides the place cut out for the bolt, we find a circular hole drilled above and a quadrant-shaped hollow below, where once upon a time the pivot of the door turned in its socket. The paved floors, torn up by treasure-seekers, are full of treacherous holes and blocks of broken stone. The ceilings are very lofty. In the corridors a dim twilight reigns; but all is pitch-dark beyond these gloomy thresholds. Hurrying along by the light of a few flaring candles, one cannot but feel oppressed by the strangeness and awfulness of the place. We speak with bated breath, and even our chattering Arabs for once are silent. The very air tastes as if it had been imprisoned here for centuries.
Finally, we take the staircase on the northern side of the temple, in order to go up to the roof. Nothing that we have yet seen surprises and delights us so much, I think, as this staircase.
We have hitherto been tracing in their order all the preparations for a great religious ceremony. We have seen the king enter the temple; undergo the symbolical purification; receive the twofold crown; and say his prayers to each divinity in turn. We have followed him into the laboratories, the oratories, and the holy of holies. All that he has yet done, however, is preliminary. The procession is yet to come, and here we have it. Here, sculptured on the walls of this dark staircase, the crowning ceremony of Egyptian worship is brought before our eyes in all its details. Here, one by one, we have the standard-bearers, the hierophants with the offerings, the priests, the whole long, wonderful procession, with the king marching at its head. Fresh and uninjured, as if they had but just left the hand of the sculptor, these figures—each in his habit as he lived, each with his foot upon the step—mount with us as we mount, and go beside us all the way. Their attitudes are so natural, their forms so roundly cut, that one could almost fancy them in motion as the lights flicker by. Surely there must be some one weird night in the year when they step out from their places and take up the next verse of their chanted hymn, and, to the sound of instruments long mute and songs long silent, pace the moonlit roof in ghostly order!
The sun is already down and the crimson light has faded, when at length we emerge upon that vast terrace. The roofing-stones are gigantic. Striding to and fro over some of the biggest, our idle man finds several that measure seven paces in length by four in breadth. In yonder distant corner, like a little stone lodge in a vast court-yard, stands a small temple supported on Hathor-headed columns; while at the eastern end, forming a second and loftier stage, rises the roof of the portico.
Meanwhile, the after-glow is fading. The mountains are yet clothed in an atmosphere of tender half-light; but mysterious shadows are fast creeping over the plain, and the mounds of the ancient city lie at our feet, confused and tumbled, like the waves of a dark sea. How high it is here—how lonely—how silent! Hark that thin, plaintivecry! It is the wail of a night-wandering jackal. See how dark it is yonder, in the direction of the river! Quick, quick! We have lingered too long. We must be gone at once; for we are already benighted.
We ought to have gone down by way of the opposite staircase (which is lined with sculptures of the descending procession) and out through the temple; but there is no time to do anything but scramble down by a breach in the wall at a point where the mounds yet lie heaped against the south side of the building. And now the dusk steals on so rapidly that before we reach the bottom we can hardly see where to tread. The huge side wall of the portico seems to tower above us to the very heavens. We catch a glimpse of two colossal figures, one lion-headed and the other headless, sitting outside with their backs to the temple. Then, making with all speed for the open plain, we clamber over scattered blocks and among shapeless mounds. Presently night overtakes us. The mountains disappear; the temple is blotted out; and we have only the faint starlight to guide us. We stumble on, however, keeping all close together; firing a gun every now and then, in the hope of being heard by those in the boats; and as thoroughly and undeniably lost as the babes in the wood.
At last, just as some are beginning to knock up, and all to despair, Talhamy fires his last cartridge. An answering shot replies from near by; a wandering light appears in the distance; and presently a whole bevy of dancing lanterns and friendly brown faces come gleaming out from among a plantation of sugar-canes to welcome and guide us home. Dear, sturdy, faithful little Reïs Hassan, honest Khalîfeh, laughing Salame, gentle Mehemet Ali, and Mûsa, “black but comely”—they were all there. What a shaking of hands there was—what a gleaming of white teeth—what a shower of mutually unintelligible congratulations! For my own part, I may say with truth that I never was much more rejoiced at a meeting in my life.
Comingon deck the third morning after leaving Denderah, we found the dahabeeyah decorated with palm-branches, our sailors in their holiday turbans, and Reïs Hassanen grande tenue; that is to say, in shoes and stockings, which he only wore on very great occasions.
“Nehârak-sa’ïd—good-morning—Luxor!” said he, all in one breath.
It was a hot, hazy morning, with dim ghosts of mountains glowing through the mist and a warm wind blowing.
We ran to the side; looked out eagerly; but could see nothing. Still the captain smiled and nodded; and the sailors ran hither and thither, sweeping and garnishing; and Egendi, to whom his worst enemy could not have imputed the charge of bashfulness, said: “Luxor—kharûf[36]—all right!”—every time he came near us.
We had read and dreamed so much about Thebes, and it had always seemed so far away, that but for this delicate allusion to the promised sheep, we could hardly have believed we were really drawing nigh unto those famous shores. About ten, however, the mist was lifted away like a curtain, and we saw to the left a rich plain studded with palm-groves; to the right a broad margin of cultivated lands bounded by a bold range of limestone mountains; and on the farthest horizon another range, all gray and shadowy.
“Karnak—Gournah—Luxor!” says Reïs Hassan, triumphantly, pointing in every direction at once. Talhamy tries to show us Medinet Habu and the Memnonium. The painter vows he can see the heads of the sitting colossi and the entrance to the valley of the tombs of the kings.
We, meanwhile, stare bewildered, incredulous; seeingnone of these things; finding it difficult, indeed, to believe that any one else sees them. The river widens away before us; the flats are green on either side; the mountains are pierced with terraces of rock-cut tombs; while far away inland, apparently on the verge of the desert, we see here a clump of sycamores—yonder a dark hillock—midway between both a confused heap of something that may be either fallen rock or fallen masonry; but nothing that looks like a temple, nothing to indicate that we are already within recognizable distance of the grandest ruins in the world.
Presently, however, as the boat goes on, a massive, windowless structure which looks (heaven preserve us!) just like a brand-new fort or prison, towers up above the palm-groves to the left. This, we are told, is one of the propylons of Karnak; while a few whitewashed huts and a little crowd of masts now coming into sight a mile or so higher up mark the position of Luxor. Then up capers Egendi with his never-failing “Luxor—kharûf—all right!” to fetch down the tar and darabukkeh. The captain claps his hands. A circle is formed on the lower deck. The men, all smiles, strike up their liveliest chorus, and so, with barbaric music and well-filled sails, and flags flying, and green boughs waving overhead, we make our triumphal entry into Luxor.
The top of another pylon; the slender peak of an obelisk; a colonnade of giant pillars half-buried in the soil; the white houses of the English, American and Prussian consuls, each with its flagstaff and ensign; a steep slope of sandy shore; a background of mud walls and pigeon-towers; a foreground of native boats and gayly painted dahabeeyahs lying at anchor—such, as we sweep by, is our first panoramic view of this famous village. A group of turbaned officials sitting in the shade of an arched doorway rise and salute us as we pass. The assembled dahabeeyahs dozing with folded sails, like sea-birds asleep, are roused to spasmodic activity. Flags are lowered; guns are fired; all Luxor is startled from its midday siesta. Then, before the smoke has had time to clear off, up comes the Bagstones in gallant form; whereupon the dahabeeyahs blaze away again as before.
And now there is a rush of donkeys and donkey boys, beggars, guides and antiquity-dealers, to the shore—thechildren screaming for backshîsh; the dealers exhibiting strings of imitation scarabs; the donkey boys vociferating the names and praises of their beasts; all alike regarding us as their lawful prey.
“Hi, lady! Yankee-Doodle donkey; try Yankee Doodle!” cries one.
“Far-away Moses!” yells another. “Good donkey—fast donkey—best donkey in Luxor!”
“This Prince of Wales donkey!” shouts a third, hauling forward a decrepit little weak-kneed, moth-eaten looking animal, about as good to ride upon as a towel-horse. “First-rate donkey! splendid donkey! God save the queen! Hurrah!”
But neither donkeys nor scarabs are of any importance in our eyes just now, compared with the letters we hope to find awaiting us on shore. No sooner, therefore, are the boats made fast than we are all off, some to the British consulate and some to the poste restante, from both of which we return rich and happy.
Meanwhile we propose to spend only twenty-four hours in Luxor. We were to ride round Karnek this first afternoon; to cross to Medinet Habu and the Ramesseum[37]to-morrow morning; and to sail again as soon after midday as possible. We hope to get a general idea of the topography of Thebes, and to carry away a superficial impression of the architectural style of the Pharaohs. It would be but a glimpse; yet that glimpse was essential. For Thebes represents the great central period of Egyptian art. The earlier styles lead up to that point; the later depart from it; and neither the earlier nor the later are intelligible without it. At the same time, however, travelers bound for the second cataract do well to put off everything like a detailed study of Thebes till the time of coming back. For the present, a rapid survey of the three principal group of ruins is enough. It supplies the necessary link. It helps one to a right understanding of Edfu, of Philæ, of Abu Simbel. In a word, it enables one to put thingsin their right places; and this, after all, is a mental process which every traveler must perform for himself.
Thebes, I need scarcely say, was built, like London, on both sides of the river. Its original extent must have been very great; but its public buildings, its quays, its thousands of private dwellings, are gone and have left few traces. The secular city, which was built of crude brick, is represented by a few insignificant mounds; while of the sacred edifice, five large groups of limestone ruins—three on the western bank and two on the eastern, together with the remains of several small temples and a vast multitude of tombs—are all that remain in permanent evidence of its ancient splendor. Luxor is a modern Arab village, occupying the site of one of the oldest of these five ruins. It stands on the eastern bank, close against the river, about two miles south of Karnak and nearly opposite the famous sitting colossi of the western plain. On the opposite bank lie Gournah, the Ramesseum, and Medinet Habu. A glance at the map will do more than pages of explanation to show the relative position of these ruins. The Temple of Gournah, it will be seen, is almostvis-à-visof Karnak. The Ramesseum faces about half-way between Karnak and Luxor. Medinet Habu is placed farther to the south than any building on the eastern side of the river. Behind these three western groups, reaching far and wide along the edge of the Libyan range, lies the great Theban Necropolis; while farther back still, in the radiating valleys on the other side of the mountains, are found the tombs of the kings. The distance between Karnak and Luxor is a little less than two miles; while from Medinet Habu to the Temple of Gournah may be roughly guessed at something under four. We have here, therefore, some indication of the extent, though not of the limits, of the ancient city.
Luxor is a large village inhabited by a mixed population of Copts and Arabs and doing a smart trade in antiquities. The temple has here formed the nucleus of the village, the older part of which has grown up in and about the ruins. The grand entrance faces north, looking down toward Karnak. The twin towers of the great propylon, dilapidated as they are, stripped of their cornices, incumbered with débris, are magnificent still. In front of them, one on each side of the central gateway sit two helmetedcolossi, battered and featureless and buried to the chin, like two of the proud in the doleful fifth circle. A few yards in front of these again stands a solitary obelisk, also half-buried. The colossi are of black granite; the obelisk is of red, highly polished and covered on all four sides with superb hieroglyphs in three vertical columns. These hieroglyphs are engraved with the precision of the finest gem. They are cut to a depth of about two inches in the outer columns and five inches in the central column of the inscription. The true height of this wonderful monolith is over seventy feet, between thirty and forty of which are hidden under the accumulated soil of many centuries. Its companion obelisk, already scaling away by imperceptible degrees under the skyey influences of an alien climate, looks down with melancholy indifference upon the petty revolutions and counter-revolutions of the Place de la Concorde. On a line with the two black colossi, but some fifty feet or so farther to the west, rises a third and somewhat smaller head of chert or limestone, the fellow to which is doubtless hidden among the huts that encroach half-way across the face of the eastern tower. The whole outer surface of these towers is covered with elaborate sculptures of gods and men, horses and chariots, the pageantry of triumph and the carnage of war. The king in his chariot draws his terrible bow, or slays his enemies on foot, or sits enthroned, receiving the homage of his court. Whole regiments armed with lance and shield march across the scene. The foe flies in disorder. The king, attended by his fan-bearers, returns in state, and the priests burn incense before him.
This king is Rameses II, called Sesostris and Osymandias by ancient writers, and best known to history as Rameses the Great. His actual names and titles as they stand upon the monuments are Ra-user-ma Sotp-en-Ra Ra-messu Mer-Amen; that is to say: “Ra strong in truth, approved of Ra, son of Ra, beloved of Amen.”
The battle scenes here represented relate to that memorable campaign against the Kheta, which forms the subject of the famous “Third Sallier Papyrus,”[38]and is commemoratedupon the walls of almost every temple built by this monarch. Separated from his army and surrounded by the enemy, the king, attended only by his chariot-driver, is said to have six times charged the foe—to have hewn them down with his sword of might—to have trampled them like straw beneath his horses’ feet—to have dispersed them, single-handed, like a god. Two thousand five hundred chariots were there and he overthrew them; one hundred thousand warriors and he scattered them. Those that he slew not with his hand he chased unto the water’s edge, causing them to leap to destruction as leaps the crocodile. Such was the immortal feat of Rameses, and such the chronicle written by the royal scribe, Pentaur.
Setting aside the strain of Homeric exaggeration, which runs through this narrative, there can be no doubt that it records some brilliant deed of arms actually performed by the king, within sight, though not within reach, of his army; and the hieroglyphic texts interspersed among these tableaux state that the events depicted took place on the fifth day of the month Epiphi, in the fifth year of his reign. By this we must understand the fifth year of his sole reign, which would be five years after the death of his father, Seti I, with whom he had from an early age been associated on the throne. He was a man in the prime of life at the time of this famous engagement, which was fought under the walls of Kadesh on the Orontes; and the bas-relief sculptures show him to have been accompanied by several of his sons, who, though evidently very young, are represented in their war-chariots, fully armed and taking part in the battle.[39]
The mutilated colossi are portrait statues of the conqueror. The obelisk, in the pompous style of Egyptian dedications, proclaims that “The Lord of the World, Guardian-Sun of Truth, approved of Ra, has built this edifice in honor of his father Amen Ra, and has erected to him these two great obelisks of stone in face of the house of Rameses in the city of Ammon.”
So stately was the approach made by Rameses the Great to the temple founded about a hundred and fifty years before his time by Amenhotep III. He also built the court-yard upon which this pylon opened, joining it to the older part of the building in such wise that the original first court became now the second court, while next in order came the portico, the hall of assembly, and the sanctuary. By and by, when the long line of Rameses had passed away, other and later kings put their hands to the work. The names of Shabaka (Sabaco), of Ptolemy Philopater and of Alexander the younger appear among the later inscriptions; while those of Amenhotep IV (Khu-en-Aten), Horemheb and Seti, the father of Rameses the Great, are found in the earlier parts of the building. It was in this way that an Egyptian temple grew from age to age, owing a colonnade to this king and a pylon to that, till it came in time to represent the styles of many periods. Hence, too, that frequent irregularity of plan, which, unless it could be ascribed to the caprices of successive builders, would form so unaccountable a feature in Egyptian architecture. In the present instance, the pylon and court-yard of Rameses II are set at an angle of five degrees to the court-yard and sanctuary of Amenhotep III. This has evidently been done to bring the Temple of Luxor into a line with the Temple of Karnak, in order that the two might be connected by means of that stupendous avenue of sphinxes, the scattered remains of which yet strew the course of the ancient roadway.
As I have already said, these half-buried pylons, this solitary obelisk, those giant heads rising in ghastly resurrection before the gates of the temple, were magnificent still. But it was as the magnificence of a splendid prologue to a poem of which only garbled fragments remain. Beyond that entrance lay a smoky, filthy, intricate labyrinth of lanes and passages. Mud hovels, mud pigeon-towers, mud yards and a mud mosque, clustered like wasps’ nests in and about the ruins. Architraves sculptured with royal titles supported the roofs of squallid cabins. Stately capitals peeped out from the midst of sheds in which buffaloes, camels, donkeys, dogs and human beings were seen herding together in unsavory fellowship. Cocks crew, hens cackled, pigeons cooed, turkeys gobbled, children swarmed, women were baking and gossiping andall the sordid routine of Arab life was going on, amid winding alleys that masked the colonnades and defaced the inscriptions of the Pharaohs. To trace the plan of this part of the building was then impossible.
All communication being cut off between the courts and the portico, we had to go round outside and through a door at the farther end of the temple in order to reach the sanctuary and the adjoining chambers. The Arab who kept the key provided an inch or two of candle. For it was very dark in there; the roof being still perfect, with a large, rambling, modern house built on the top of it—so that if this part of the temple was ever partially lighted, as at Denderah and elsewhere, by small wedge-like openings in the roof, even those faint gleams were excluded.
The sanctuary, which was rebuilt in the reign of Alexander Ægus; some small side chambers; and a large hall, which was perhaps the hall of assembly, were all that remained under cover of the original roofing-stones. Some half-buried and broken columns on the side next the river showed, however, that this end was formerly surrounded by a colonnade. The sanctuary—an oblong granite chamber with its own separate roof—stands inclosed in a larger hall, like a box within a box, and is covered inside and outside with bas-reliefs. These sculptures (among which I observed a kneeling figure of the king, offering a kneeling image of Amen Ra) are executed in the mediocre style of the Ptolemies. That is to say, the forms are more natural but less refined than those of the Pharaonic period. The limbs are fleshy, the joints large, the features insignificant. Of actual portraiture one cannot detect a trace; while every face wears the same objectionable smirk which disfigures the Cleopatra of Denderah.
In the large hall, which I have called the hall of assembly, one is carried back to the time of the founder. Between Amenhotep III and Alexander Ægus there lies a great gulf of twelve hundred years; and their styles are as widely separated as their reigns. The merest novice could not possibly mistake the one for the other. Nothing is, of course, more common than to find Egyptian and Græco-Egyptian work side by side in the same temple; but nowhere are the distinctive characteristics of each brought into stronger contrast than in these dark chambers of Luxor. In the sculptures that line the hall of Amenhotepwe find the pure lines, the severe and slender forms, the characteristic heads of a period when the art, having as yet neither gained or lost by foreign influences, was entirely Egyptian. The subjects relate chiefly to the infancy of the king; but it is difficult to see anything properly by the light of a candle tied to the end of a stick; and here, where the bas-relief is so low and the walls are so high, it is almost impossible to distinguish the details of the upper tableaux.
I could make out, however, that Amen, Maut, and their son Khonsu, the three personages of the Theban triad, are the presiding deities of these scenes; and that they are in some way identified with the fortunes of Thothmes IV, his queen, and their son Amenhotep III. Amenhotep is born, apparently, under the especial protection of Maut, the divine mother; brought up with the youthful god Khonsu; and received by Amen as the brother and equal of his own divine son. I think it was in this hall that I observed a singular group representing Amen and Maut in an attitude symbolical perhaps of troth-plight or marriage. They sit face to face, the goddess holding in her right hand the left hand of the god, while in her left hand she supports his right elbow. Their thrones, meanwhile, rest on the heads and their feet are upheld on the hands of two female genii. It is significant that Rameses III and one of the ladies of his so-called hareem are depicted in the same attitude in one of the famous domestic subjects sculptured on the upper stories of the pavilion at Medinet Habu.
We saw this interesting temple[40]much too cursorily; yetwe gave more time to it than the majority of those who year after year anchor for days together close under its majestic columns. If the whole building could be transported bodily to some point between Memphis and Siût, where the river is bare of ruins, it would be enthusiastically visited. Here it is eclipsed by the wonders of Karnak and the western bank, and is undeservedly neglected. Those parts of the original building which yet remain are, indeed, peculiarly precious; for Amenhotep, or Amunoph III, was one of the great builder-kings of Egypt, and we have here one of the few extant specimens of his architectural work.
The Coptic quarter of Luxor lies north of the great pylon and partly skirts the river. It is cleaner, wider, more airy than that of the Arabs. The Prussian consul is a Copt; the polite postmaster is a Copt; and in a modest lodging built half beside and half over the Coptic church lives the Coptic bishop. The postmaster (an ungainly youth in a European suit so many sizes too small that his arms and legs appeared to be sprouting out at the ends ofhis garments) was profuse in his offers of service. He undertook to forward letters to us at Assûan, Korosko, and Wady Halfah, where postoffices had lately been established. And he kept his promise, I am bound to say, with perfect punctuality—always adding some queer little complimentary message on the outer wrapper, such as “I hope you well my compliments;” or “Wishes you good news pleasant voyage.” As a specimen of his literary style I copied the following notice, of which it was evident that he was justly proud:
Notice: On the commandation. We have ordered the post stations in lower Egypt from Assiut to Cartoom. Belonging to the Post Kedevy Egyptian in a good order. Now to pay for letters in lower Egypt as in the upper Egypt twice. Means that the letters which goes from here far than Asiut; must pay for it two piastres per ten grs. Also that which goes far than Cartoom. The letters which goes between Asiut and Cartoom; must pay only one piastre per ten grs. This and that is, to buy stamps from the Post and put it upon the letter. Also if somebody wishes to send letters in insuranced, must two piastres more for any letter. There is orderation in the Post to receive the letters which goes to Europe, America and Asia, as England France, Italy Germany, Syria, Constantinople etc. Also to send newspapers patterns and other things.“L’Ispettore,”M. Adda.Luxor the 1st January 1874.
Notice: On the commandation. We have ordered the post stations in lower Egypt from Assiut to Cartoom. Belonging to the Post Kedevy Egyptian in a good order. Now to pay for letters in lower Egypt as in the upper Egypt twice. Means that the letters which goes from here far than Asiut; must pay for it two piastres per ten grs. Also that which goes far than Cartoom. The letters which goes between Asiut and Cartoom; must pay only one piastre per ten grs. This and that is, to buy stamps from the Post and put it upon the letter. Also if somebody wishes to send letters in insuranced, must two piastres more for any letter. There is orderation in the Post to receive the letters which goes to Europe, America and Asia, as England France, Italy Germany, Syria, Constantinople etc. Also to send newspapers patterns and other things.
“L’Ispettore,”M. Adda.
Luxor the 1st January 1874.
This young man begged for a little stationery and a pen-knife at parting. We had, of course, much pleasure in presenting him with such a modest testimonial. We afterward learned that he levied the same little tribute on every dahabeeyah that came up the river; so I conclude that he must by this time have quite an interesting collection of small cutlery.
From the point where the railroad ends the Egyptian and Nubian mails are carried by runners stationed at distances of four miles all along the route. Each man runs his four miles, and at the end thereof finds the next man ready to snatch up his bag and start off at full speed immediately. The next man transfers it in like manner to the next; and so it goes by day and night without a break, till it reaches the first railway station. Each runner is supposed to do his four miles in half an hour, and the mail which goes out every morning from Luxor reaches Cairo in six days. Considering that Cairo was four hundred and fifty miles away, that two hundred and sixty-eightmiles of this distance had to be done on foot, and that the trains went only once a day, we thought this a very creditable speed.
In the afternoon we took donkeys and rode out to Karnak. Our way lay through the bazaar, which was the poorest we had yet seen. It consisted of only a few open sheds, in one of which, seated on a mud-built divan, cross-legged and turbanless like a row of tumbler mandarins, we saw five of our sailors under the hands of the Luxor barber. He had just lathered all five heads, and was complacently surveying the effect of his work, much as an artistic cook might survey a dish of particularly successful méringues à la crême. The méringues looked very sheepish when we laughed and passed by.
Next came the straggling suburb where the dancing-girls most do congregate. These damsels in gaudy garments of emerald green, bright rose and flaming yellow, were squatting outside their cabins or lounging unveiled about the thresholds of two or three dismal dens of cafés in the market-place. They showed their teeth and laughed familiarly in our faces. Their eyebrows were painted to meet on the bridge of the nose; their eyes were blackened round with kohl; their cheeks were extravagantly rouged; their hair was gummed, and greased, and festooned upon their foreheads, and plaited all over in innumerable tails. Never before had we seen anything in female form so hideous. One of these houris was black; and she looked quite beautiful in her blackness, compared with the painting and plastering of her companions.
We now left the village behind and rode out across a wide plain, barren and hillocky in some parts; overgrown in others with coarse halfeh grass; and dotted here and there with clumps of palms. The Nile lay low and out of sight, so that the valley seemed to stretch away uninterruptedly to the mountains on both sides. Now leaving to the left a sheik’s tomb, topped by a little cupola and shaded by a group of tamarisks; now following the bed of a dry watercourse; now skirting shapeless mounds that indicated the site of ruins unexplored, the road, uneven but direct, led straight to Karnak. At every rise in the ground we saw the huge popylons towering higher above the palms. Once, but for only a few moments, there came into sight a confused and wide-spread mass of ruins,as extensive, apparently, as the ruins of a large town. Then our way dipped into a sandy groove bordered by mud-walls and plantations of dwarf-palms. All at once this groove widened, became a stately avenue guarded by a double file of shattered sphinxes, and led toward a lofty pylon standing up alone against the sky.
Close beside this grand gateway, as if growing there on purpose, rose a thicket of sycamores and palms; while beyond it were seen the twin pylons of a temple. The sphinxes were colossal, and measured about ten feet in length. One or two were ram-headed. Of the rest—some forty or fifty in number—all were headless, some split asunder, some overturned, others so mutilated that they looked like torrent-worn bowlders. This avenue once reached from Luxor to Karnak. Taking into account the distance (which is just two miles from temple to temple) and the short intervals at which the sphinxes are placed, there cannot originally have been fewer than five hundred of them; that is to say, two hundred and fifty on each side of the road.
Dismounting for a few minutes, we went into the temple; glanced round the open court-yard with its colonnade of pillars; peeped hurriedly into some ruinous side-chambers; and then rode on. Our books told us that we had seen the small temple of Rameses III. It would have been called large anywhere but at Karnak.
I seem to remember the rest as if it had all happened in a dream. Leaving the small temple, we turned toward the river, skirted the mud walls of the native village, and approached the great temple by way of its main entrance. Here we entered upon what had once been another great avenue of sphinxes, ram-headed, couchant on plinths deep cut with hieroglyphic legends, and leading up from some grand landing-place beside the Nile.
And now the towers that we had first seen as we sailed by in the morning rose straight before us, magnificent in ruin, glittering to the sun, and relieved in creamy light against blue depths of sky. One was nearly perfect; the other, shattered as if by the shock of an earthquake, was still so lofty than an Arab clambering from block to block midway of its vast height looked no bigger than a squirrel.
On the threshold of this tremendous portal we again dismounted. Shapeless crude-brick mounds, marking thelimits of the ancient wall of circuit, reached far away on either side. An immense perspective of pillars and pylons leading up to a very distant obelisk opened out before us. We went in, the great walls towering up like cliffs above our heads, and entered the first court. Here, in the midst of a large quadrangle open to the sky, stands a solitary column, the last of a central avenue of twelve, some of which, disjointed by the shock, lie just as they fell, like skeletons of vertebrate monsters left stranded by the flood.
Crossing this court in the glowing sunlight, we came to a mighty doorway between two more propylons—the doorway splendid with colored bas-reliefs; the propylons mere cataracts of fallen blocks piled up to right and left in grand confusion. The cornice of the doorway is gone. Only a jutting fragment of the lintel stone remains. That stone, when perfect, measured forty feet and ten inches across. The doorway must have been full a hundred feet in height.
We went on. Leaving to the right a mutilated colossus engraven on arm and breast with the cartouche of Rameses II, we crossed the shade upon the threshold and passed into the famous Hypostyle Hall of Seti I.
It is a place that has been much written about and often painted; but of which no writing and no art can convey more than a dwarfed and pallid impression. To describe it, in the sense of building up a recognizable image by means of words, is impossible. The scale is too vast; the effect too tremendous; the sense of one’s own dumbness, and littleness, and incapacity, too complete and crushing. It is a place that strikes you into silence; that empties you, as it were, not only of words but of ideas. Nor is this a first effect only. Later in the year, when we came back down the river and moored close by, and spent long days among the ruins, I found I never had a word to say in the great hall. Others might measure the girth of those tremendous columns; others might climb hither and thither, and find out points of view, and test the accuracy of Wilkinson and Mariette; but I could only look and be silent.
Yet to look is something, if one can but succeed in remembering; and the great hall of Karnak is photographed in some dark corner of my brain for as long as Ihave memory. I shut my eyes, and see it as if I were there—not all at once, as in a picture; but bit by bit, as the eye takes note of large objects and travels over an extended field of vision. I stand once more among those mighty columns, which radiate into avenues from whatever point one takes them. I see them swathed in coiled shadows and broad bands of light. I see them sculptured and painted with shapes of gods and kings, with blazonings of royal names, with sacrificial altars, and forms of sacred beasts, and emblems of wisdom and truth. The shafts of these columns are enormous. I stand at the foot of one—or of what seems to be the foot; for the original pavement lies buried seven feet below. Six men standing with extended arms, finger-tip to finger-tip, could barely span it round. It casts a shadow twelve feet in breadth—such a shadow as might be cast by a tower. The capital that juts out so high above my head looks as if it might have been placed there to support the heavens. It is carved in the semblance of a full-blown lotus, and glows with undying colors—colors that are still fresh, though laid on by hands that have been dust these three thousand years and more. It would take not six men, but a dozen, to measure round the curved lip of that stupendous lily.
Such are the twelve central columns. The rest (one hundred and twenty-two in number) are gigantic, too, but smaller. Of the roof they once supported, only the beams remain. Those beams are stones—huge monoliths[41]carved and painted, bridging the space from pillar to pillar, and patterning the trodden soil with bands of shadow.
Looking up and down the central avenue, we see at theone end a flame-like obelisk; at the other, a solitary palm against a background of glowing mountain. To right, to left, showing transversely through long files of columns, we catch glimpses of colossal bas-reliefs lining the roofless walls in every direction. The king, as usual, figures in every group, and performs the customary acts of worship. The gods receive and approve him. Half in light, half in shadow, these slender, fantastic forms stand out sharp and clear and colorless; each figure some eighteen or twenty feet in height. They could scarcely have looked more weird when the great roof was in its place and perpetual twilight reigned. But it is difficult to imagine the roof on and the sky shut out. It all looks right as it is; and one feels, somehow, that such columns should have nothing between them and the infinite blue depths of heaven.
The great central avenue was, however, sufficiently lighted by means of a double row of clerestory windows, some of which are yet standing. Certain writers have suggested that they may have been glazed; but this seems improbable for two reasons. Firstly, because one or two of these huge window-frames yet contain the solid stone gratings which in the present instance seem to have done duty for a translucent material; and, secondly, because we have no evidence to show that the early Egyptians, though familiar since the days of Cheops with the use of the blow-pipe, ever made glass in sheets, or introduced it in this way into their buildings.
How often has it been written, and how often must it be repeated, that the great hall at Karnak is the noblest architectural work ever designed and executed by human hands? One writer tells us that it covers four times the area occupied by the cathedral of Nôtre Dame in Paris. Another measures it against St. Peter’s. All admit their inability to describe it; yet all attempt the description. To convey a concrete image of the place to one who has not seen it, is, however, as I have already said, impossible. If it could be likened to this place or that, the task would not be so difficult; but there is, in truth, no building in the wide world to compare with it. The pyramids are more stupendous. The colosseum covers more ground. The parthenon is more beautiful. Yet in nobility of conception, in vastness of detail, in majesty of the highest order, the hall of pillars exceeds them every one. Thisdoorway, these columns, are the wonder of the world. How was that lintel-stone raised? How were these capitals lifted? Entering among those mighty pillars, says a recent observer, “you feel that you have shrunk to the dimensions and feebleness of a fly.” But I think you feel more than that. You are stupefied by the thought of the mighty men who made them. You say to yourself: “There were indeed giants in those days.”
It may be that the traveler who finds himself for the first time in the midst of a grove ofWellingtonia giganteafeels something of the same overwhelming sense of awe and wonder; but the great trees, though they have taken three thousand years to grow, lack the pathos and the mystery that comes of human labor. They do not strike their roots through six thousand years of history. They have not been watered with the blood and tears of millions.[42]Their leaves know no sounds less musical than the singing of birds, or the moaning of the night-wind as it sweeps over the highlands of Calaveros. But every breath that wanders down the painted aisles of Karnak seems to echo back the sighs of those who perished in the quarry, at the oar, and under the chariot-wheels of the conqueror.
The Hypostyle Hall, though built by Seti, the father of Rameses II, is supposed by some Egyptologists to have been planned, if not begun, by that same Amenhotep III who founded the Temple of Luxor and set up the famous colossi of the plain. However this may be, the cartouches so lavishly sculptured on pillar and architrave contain no names but those of Seti, who undoubtedly executed the worken bloc, and of Rameses, who completed it.
And now, would it not be strange if we knew the name and history of the architect who superintended the building of this wondrous hall, and planned the huge doorway by which it was entered, and the mighty pylons which lie shattered on either side? Would it not be interesting to look upon his portrait and see what manner of man he was? Well, the Egyptian room in the Glyptothek museum at Munich contains a statue found some seventy years ago at Thebes, which almost certainly represents that man, and is inscribed with his history. His name was Bak-en-Khonsu (servant of Khonsu). He sits upon the ground, bearded and robed, in an attitude of meditation. That he was a man of unusual ability is shown by the inscriptions engraved upon the back of the statue. These inscriptions record his promotion, step by step, to the highest grade of the hierarchy. Having obtained the dignity of high priest and first prophet of Amen during the reign of Seti I, he became chief architect of the Thebaid under Rameses II, and received a royal commission to superintend the embellishment of the temples. When Rameses II “erected a monument to his divine father Amen Ra,” the building thereof was executed under the direction of Bak-en-Khonsu. Here the inscription, as translated by M. Deveria, goes on to say that “he made the sacred edifice in the upper gate of the abode of Amen.[43]He erected obelisks of granite. He made golden flagstaffs. He added very, very great colonnades.”
M. Deveria suggests that the Temple of Gournah may here be indicated; but to this it might be objected that Gournah is situated in the lower and not the upper part of Thebes; that at Gournah there are no great colonnades and no obelisks; and that, moreover, for some reason at present unknown to us, the erection of obelisks seems to have been wholly confined to the eastern bank of the Nile. It is, however, possible that the works here enumerated may not all have been executed for one and the same temple. The “sacred edifice in the upper gate of the abode of Amen” might be the Temple of Luxor, which Rameses did in fact adorn with the only obelisks we know to be his in Thebes; the monument erected by him to his divine father Amen (evidently a new structure) would scarcely be any other than the Ramesseum; while the “very, very great colonnades,” which are expressly specified as additions, would seem as if they could only belong to the Hypostyle Hall of Karnak. The question is at all events interesting; and it is pleasant to believe that in the Munich statue we have not only a portrait of one who at Karnak played the part of Michael Angelo to some foregone andforgotten Bramante, but who was also the Ictinus of the Ramesseum. For the Ramesseum is the Parthenon of Thebes.
The sun was sinking and the shadows were lengthening when, having made the round of the principal ruins, we at length mounted our donkeys and turned toward Luxor. To describe all that we saw after leaving the great hall would fill a chapter. Huge obelisks of shining granite—some yet erect, some shattered and prostrate; vast lengths of sculptured walls covered with wondrous battle subjects, sacerdotal processions, and elaborate chronicles of the deeds of kings; ruined court-yards surrounded by files of headless statues; a sanctuary built all of polished granite, and engraven like a gem; a second hall of pillars dating back to the early days of Thothmes III; labyrinths of roofless chambers; mutilated colossi, shattered pylons, fallen columns, unintelligible foundations and hieroglyphic inscriptions without end, were glanced at, passed by, and succeeded by fresh wonders. I dare not say how many small outlying temples we saw in the course of that rapid survey. In one place we came upon an undulating tract of coarse halfeh grass, in the midst of which, battered, defaced, forlorn, sat a weird company of green granite sphinxes and lioness-headed basts. In another, we saw a magnificent colossal hawk upright on his pedestal in the midst of a bergfall of ruins. More avenues of sphinxes, more pylons, more colossi were passed before the road we took in returning brought us round to that by which we had come. By the time we reached the sheik’s tomb, it was nearly dusk. We rode back across the plain, silent and bewildered. Have I not said that it was like a dream?
Hurryingclose upon the serenest of Egyptian sunsets came a night of storms. The wind got up about ten. By midnight the river was racing in great waves, and our dahabeeyah rolling at her moorings like a ship at sea. The sand, driving in furious gusts from the Libyan desert, dashed like hail against our cabin windows. Every moment we were either bumping against the bank or being rammed by our own felucca. At length, a little before dawn, a huge slice of the bank gave way, thundering like an avalanche upon our decks; whereupon Reïs Hassan, being alarmed for the safety of the boat, hauled us up to a little sheltered nook a few hundred yards higher. Taking it altogether, we had not had such a lively night since leaving Benisouef.
The lookout next morning was dismal—the river running high in yeasty waves; the boats all huddled together under the shore; the western bank hidden in clouds of sand. To get under way was impossible, for the wind was dead against us; and to go anywhere by land was equally out of the question. Karnak in a sand-storm would have been grand to see; but one would have needed a diving-helmet to preserve eyes and ears from destruction.
Toward afternoon the fury of the wind so far subsided that we were able to cross the river and ride to Medinet Habu and the Ramesseum. As we achieved only a passing glimpse of these wonderful ruins, I will for the present say nothing about them. We came to know them so well hereafter that no mere first impression would be worth record.
A light but fitful breeze helped us on next day as far as Erment, the Ptolemaic Hermonthis, once the site of a goodly temple, now of an important sugar factory. Here we moored for the night, and after dinner received a visitof ceremony from the bey—a tall, slender, sharp-featured, bright-eyed man in European dress, remarkably dignified and well bred—who came attended by his secretary, Kawass, and pipe-bearer. Now the Bey of Erment is a great personage in these parts. He is governor of the town as well as superintendent of the sugar factory; holds a military command; has his palace and gardens close by, and his private steamer on the river; and is, like most high officials in Egypt, a Turk of distinction. The secretary, who was the bey’s younger brother, wore a brown Inverness cape over a long white petticoat, and left his slippers at the saloon door. He sat all the time with his toes curiously doubled under, so that his feet looked like clenched fists in stockings. Both gentlemen wore tarbooshes and carried visiting-canes. The visiting-cane, by the way, plays a conspicuous part in modern Egyptian life. It measures about two and a half feet in length, is tipped at both ends with gold or silver, and is supposed to add the last touch of elegance to the bearer.
We entertained our guests with coffee and lemonade, and, as well as we could, with conversation. The bey, who spoke only Turkish and Arabic, gave a flourishing account of the sugar works, and dispatched his pipe-bearer for a bundle of fresh canes and some specimens of raw and candied sugars. He said he had an English foreman and several English workmen, and that for the English as a nation he had the highest admiration and regard; but that the Arabs “had no heads.” To our inquiries about the ruins, his replies were sufficiently discouraging. Of the large temple every vestige had long since disappeared; while of the smaller one only a few columns and part of the walls were yet standing. They lay out beyond the town and a long way from the river. There was very little to see. It was all “sagheer” (small); “mooshtaïb” (bad); not worth the trouble of the walk. As for “anteekahs,” they were rarely found here, and when found were of slight value.
A scarab which he wore in a ring was then passed round and admired. It fell to our little lady’s turn to examine it last and restore it to the owner. But the owner, with a bow and a deprecating gesture, would have none of it. The ring was a toy—a nothing—the lady’s—his no longer. She was obliged to accept it, however unwillingly. To decline would have been to offend. But it was the way in which the thing was done that made the charm of this little incident. The grace, the readiness, the courtesy, the lofty indifference of it, were alike admirable. Macready in his best days could have done it with as princely an air; but even he would probably have missed something of the oriental reticence of the Bey of Erment.
He then invited us to go over the sugar factory (which we declined on account of the lateness of the hour), and presently took his leave. About ten minutes after came a whole posse of presents—three large bouquets of roses for the sittàt (ladies), two scarabei, a small funereal statuette in the rare green porcelain, and a live turkey. We in return sent a complicated English knife with all sorts of blades, and some pots of English jam.
The wind rose next morning with the sun, and by breakfast time we had left Erment far behind. All that day the good breeze served us well. The river was alive with cargo-boats. The Philæ put on her best speed. The little Bagstones kept up gallantly. And the Fostât, a large iron dahabeeyah full of English gentlemen, kept us close company all the afternoon. We were all alike bound for Esneh, which is a large trading town and lies twenty-six miles south of Erment.
Now, at Esneh the men were to bake again. Great, therefore, was Reïs Hassan’s anxiety to get in first, secure the oven and buy the flour before dusk. The reïs of the Fostât and he of the Bagstones were equally anxious, and for the same reasons. Our men, meanwhile, were wild with excitement, watching every maneuver of the other boats; hanging on to the shoghool like a swarm of bees; and obeying the word of command with unwonted alacrity. As we neared the goal the race grew hotter. The honor of the boats was at stake, and the bread question was for the moment forgotten. Finally all three dahabeeyahs ran in abreast and moored side by side in front of a row of little open cafés, just outside the town.
Esneh (of which the old Egyptian civil name was Sni, and the Roman name Latopolis) stands high upon the mounds of the ancient city. It is a large place—as large, apparently, as Minieh, and, like Minieh, it is the capital of a province. Here dragomans lay in provision of limes, charcoal, flour and live stock for the Nubian journey; andcrews bake for the last time before their return to Egypt. For in Nubia food is scarce and prices are high, and there are no public ovens.
It was about five o’clock on a market day when we reached Esneh and the market was not yet over. Going up through the usual labyrinth of windowless mud-alleys where the old men crouched, smoking, under every bit of sunny wall, and the children swarmed like flies, and the cry for backshîsh buzzed incessantly about our ears, we came to an open space in the upper part of the town, and found ourselves all at once in the midst of the market. Here were peasant-folk selling farm produce; stall-keepers displaying combs, looking-glasses, gaudy printed handkerchiefs and cheap bracelets of bone and colored glass; camels lying at ease and snarling at every passer-by; patient donkeys; ownerless dogs; veiled women; blue and black robed men; and all the common sights and sounds of a native market. Here too, we found Reïs Hassan bargaining for flour, Talhemy haggling with a charcoal dealer; and the M. B.’s buying turkeys and geese for themselves and a huge store of tobacco for their crew. Most welcome sight of all, however, was a dingy chemist’s shop, about the size of a sentry-box, over the door of which was suspended an Arabic inscription; while inside, robed all in black, sat a lean and grizzled Arab, from whom we bought a big bottle of rose-water to make eye-lotion for L——’s ophthalmic patients.
Meanwhile there was a temple to be seen at Esneh; and this temple, as we had been told, was to be found close against the market-place. We looked round in vain, however, for any sign of pylon or portico. The chemist said it was “kureiyib,” which means “near by.” A camel-driver pointed to a dilapidated wooden gateway in a recess between two neighboring houses. A small boy volunteered to lead the way. We were greatly puzzled. We had expected to see the temple towering above the surrounding houses, as at Luxor, and could by no means understand how any large building to which that gateway might give access should not be visible from without.
The boy, however, ran and thumped upon the gate and shouted “Abbas! Abbas!” Mehemet Ali, who was doing escort, added some thundering blows with his staff and a little crowd gathered, but no Abbas came.
The by-standers, as usual, were liberal with their advice;recommending the boy to climb over and the sailor to knock louder and suggesting that Abbas the absent might possibly be found in a certain neighboring café. At length I somewhat impatiently expressed my opinion that there was “Mafeesh Birbeh” (no temple at all); whereupon a dozen voices were raised to assure me that the Birbeh was no myth—that it was “kebîr” (big)—that it was “kwy-ees” (beautiful)—and that all the “Ingleez” came to see it.
In the midst of the clamor, however, and just as we are about to turn away in despair, the gate creaks open; the gentlemen of the Fostât troop out in puggaries and knickerbockers; and we are at last admitted.
This is what we see—a little yard surrounded by mud walls; at the farther end of the yard a dilapidated doorway; beyond the doorway, a strange-looking, stupendous mass of yellow limestone masonry, long and low and level and enormously massive. A few steps farther and this proves to be the curved cornice of a mighty temple—a temple neither ruined nor defaced, but buried to the chin in the accumulated rubbish of a score of centuries. This part is evidently the portico. We stand close under a row of huge capitals. The columns that support them are buried beneath our feet. The ponderous cornice juts out above our heads. From the level on which we stand to the top of that cornice may measure about twenty-five feet. A high mud wall runs parallel to the whole width of the façade, leaving a passage of about twelve feet in breadth between the two. A low mud parapet and a handrail reach from capital to capital. All beyond is vague, cavernous, mysterious—a great shadowy gulf, in the midst of which dim ghosts of many columns are darkly visible. From an opening between two of the capitals a flight of brick steps leads down into a vast hall so far below the surface of the outer world, so gloomy, so awful, that it might be the portico of Hades.
Going down these steps we come to the original level of the temple. We tread the ancient pavement. We look up to the massive ceiling, recessed and sculptured and painted, like the ceiling at Denderah. We could almost believe, indeed, that we are again standing in the portico of Denderah. The number of columns is the same. The arrangement of the intercolumnar screen is the same.The general effect and the main features of the plan are the same. In some respects, however, Esneh is even more striking. The columns, though less massive than those of Denderah, are more elegant and look loftier. Their shafts are covered with figures of gods and emblems and lines of hieroglyphed inscription, all cut in low relief. Their capitals, in place of the huge draped Hathor-heads of Denderah, are studied from natural forms—from the lotus-lily, the papyrus-blossom, the plumy date-palm. The wall-sculpture, however, is inferior to that at Denderah and immeasurably inferior to the wall-sculpture at Karnak. The figures are of the meanest Ptolemaic type and all of one size. The inscriptions, instead of being grouped wherever there happened to be space and so producing the richest form of wall decoration ever devised by man, are disposed in symmetrical columns, the effect of which, when compared with the florid style of Karnak, is as the methodical neatness of an engrossed deed to the splendid freedom of an illuminated manuscript.