Chapter XIX

Chapter XIXIt was very early one morning and Lucius was walking alone on the opposite bank of the river. In the tender dawn the vast grey lines of Memphis became visible in rose-red silhouette.Lucius was wandering alone. Solitude had become dear to him, like rest after a severe illness, especially because he doubted his cure. He doubted; he doubted the certainty.Did he know the truth? He was doubting now, after a sleepless night, and asking himself, did he know the truth? And, if he knew the truth, was he really cured, cured in his sick soul, cured of his suffering?He did not know; he no longer knew anything. He wandered beside the Nile, alone, without knowing, without knowing. A dulness filled his brain, like a mist. Life was awaking on the farms with cheerful rural activity. The grain burst under the mill-stones; and the women on their knees rubbed with powerful palms the dough which the men beside them had already kneaded withthe vigorous dance of their feet. Lucius stopped to look on; and they laughed; and he laughed back. The men danced and the women rubbed; and they laughed and were happy. A jealousy of their happiness rose hotly in the young Roman.“Will you give me some milk?” he asked a girl who was milking a splendid, snow-white cow.The girl handed the stranger the milk in the hollow leaf of a cyamus-plant. Lucius did not know whether to give her any money. He drank and handed back the reed goblet:“Thank you,” he said; and she laughed and went on milking.He gave her no money and went on. How beautiful the world was and the morning! How rosy this first light over the silvering stream! How grey and colossal the past, yonder, of that dying, sinking city! How beautiful and impressive were every form and tint! How lovely was the world! Even the people down there, those labourers, those shepherdesses, those men and women baking, had a calm rustic, idyllic beauty in their simplicity and naturalness. How good the world was and how happy people couldbe, if the gods did not pour grief into their hearts!Grief! Did he feel grief? Or had the mere thought that Ilia had proved unworthy of his great love already cured him of the disease that was grief? But was he cured and did he know?He was approaching the hamlet of Troia. And he remembered reading in Thrasyllus’ notes that Menelaus had come past here with his band of Trojan captives and generously permitted them to settle here. They had founded their colony. Behind Troia stood a rocky mountain-range; and behold, there was the ancient quarry from which, years ago, the blocks of stone were hewn to build the pyramids, block upon block, without cement! And Lucius’ feet rattled through the curious fossils which strewed the ground like pebbles with the shapes of long lentils and pea-pods and which were thought to be the petrified remnants of the meals served to the many thousand slaves who had worked at the pyramids.Suddenly he saw a woman. She was resting, sitting against the rocks and gazing at the rosy sky. He recognized his slave,the one with the beautiful voice, the singer, Cora.She started when she saw him and rose and bowed low, with outstretched hands:“Forgive me, my lord,” she stammered, “for straying so far from the barge.”He reassured her: he was a master who did not grudge his slaves a liberty. And he asked her, in a kind voice:“Why did you stray so far?”“I strayed without intending it, my lord. My thoughts carried me along!”“What were you thinking of?”“I was thinking of Cos, my dear birthplace, and whether I should ever see it again.”“It is the birthplace of Apelles the painter and of Epicharmus the poet-philosopher and inventor of comedy. It is a place of beauty and art, is it not, Cora?”“It is like a most charming garden, my lord. It contains the temples of Æsculapius and Aphrodite. I was born there in the slave-school. I had a delightful childhood. There was a big garden in which I used to play.... Forgive me, my lord....”“Go on.”“I was trained there and tended. I wasbathed and carefully anointed and rubbed. This was done by the negresses. I learned to dance when I was very young. That is why I am lithe, my lord; and I hope that I dance well. But I also loved music; I sang. We had masters, who taught us to sing and play the harp, and mistresses, who taught us to dance. Dryope, who was in charge of the slave-school, was stern, but she was not unkind. My parents also were her slaves. My father was a runner and my mother was a dancer too. There were wagers when my father ran in a race; and he but seldom failed to win the prize for our mistress. She would have him flogged when he did not win the prize, but not hard, for she did not want to injure his precious body. Dryope was a good mistress to us, for my mother stopped dancing after she had once sprained her foot and Dryope nevertheless remained kind and gentle to her slave. But, when I was able to sing and dance, my lord, Dryope sold me for a big sum to a slave-dealer who was going to Rome with a number of slaves, male and female. I embraced Dryope and my parents and went with the dealer. He also was not harsh to me, because I was a valuable slave, my lord; he was not harshto his slaves; he was careful of them as of precious merchandise. Thrasyllus bought me for you, my lord, on the slave-market in Rome; and I was proud when he paid a big sum for me after hearing my trial song and seeing my trial dance. And now ... now I am happy, my lord, to belong to a master like yourself. But still my thoughts often wander to Cos, to the slaves’ quarters, to my parents, to my fellow-slaves there and to Dryope. Forgive me, my lord.”“And would you like to go back to Cos, Cora?”“My lord, our native land remains dear to us. But I belong to you; and where you are there I will be.”“And shall you be happy there too, Cora, so far from Cos?”“I shall be happy where you are happy, my lord, and unhappy where you are unhappy.”Lucius looked at her. He did not take her words to be more than the politeness of a courteous slave, who came from a famous slave-school and for whom he had paid a high price, because of her delicate beauty and her accomplishments. But still the sound of Cora’s voice was pleasant to hisear; and he said, graciously and with a gentle smile:“You know how to speak the word that sounds well, even as you sing true and play true.”She made no further answer and bowed her head, feeling that he did not count her words as more than a well-sounding speech:“Have I your permission, my lord, to go back to the barge?” she asked.“Yes,” he said, “go.”She made a gesture of graceful reverence and moved away. He followed her at a distance. She walked along by the tall reeds of the river. She was very pretty and dainty, like the soft-tinted statuettes that came from Tanagra. Her flowered muslin peplos hung limply pleated around her shapely body in a succession of thin folds, which blew open and shut. Her bare arms were very slender. Her blue-black hair was fine and caught golden gleams. Now, while she stopped to pluck a flowering reed, she stood among the stems like a nymph.And Lucius smiled because she was so very pretty, so tenderly winsome, because she sang and played the harp so very beautifullyand because she said such civil words and had spoken so charmingly of her native island, Cos, where she was born in Dryope’s slave-school.Chapter XXUncle Catullus lay under the awning of the thalamegus and asked Cora to come and sit by him:“Sing and play me some cheerful songs, Cora,” he said. “Be kind to me even though I be not your master. For I feel bored here, on this Nile boat, at Memphis. I have been bored ever since Lucius went to the oracle of Ammon, through the barren desert. What an idea, what a mad idea! They have been gone five days now; they will probably arrive to-morrow.... I am bored, Cora, I am horribly bored. Egypt will be the death of me! First I am saturated with new impressions, like a sponge with water, and then Lucius abandons me to unlimited boredom. He’s an egoist; he never thinks of his old uncle.... Cora, be amiable to me and sing and play me some cheerful songs, won’t you?”This was the burden of Uncle Catullus’ complaint. As he said, Lucius had gone through the desert to the oracle of Ammon, with Caleb, Thrasyllus and Tarrar, withguards and drivers, and Uncle Catullus had remained behind on the barge, under the care of Rufus the under-steward, with all the other slaves, male and female.A track led from Memphis through the desert to the oasis where the oracle of Ammon resided. It ran through the sands marked with granite posts, like small obelisks, nothing more. It was a chain of sign-posts rather than a road. The summer sun beat down implacably upon the scorching sands, which lay blown against the rocky range of mountains along the south of which the road was traced.The caravan had now been travelling five days through the sands. Lucius, on an elephant, lay in a spacious, square litter, with blue and yellow curtains to keep out the light, and had expressed a wish that Thrasyllus should sit by his side. Caleb, swathed in white muslin, which left only his gleaming eyes and flashing teeth visible, sat upon a powerful dromedary, on leather cushions, under a great parasol fixed to his saddle-gear, and occasionally swaying gently to and fro. Elephant and dromedary were surrounded with long fly-nets, from which dangled many-coloured fringes. Tarrar, alsoswathed in linens of many colours, squatted like a little monkey on a camel and defied the sun of his native land, the glare of his Libyan desert. The guards and drivers rode mules; and ponies carried the travellers’ luggage, their tents, their provisions and their still swollen water-bags.For five days now they had been marching on their monotonous journey through the desert. At break of day the caravan started; at noon a halt was made under the tents; in the evening the procession moved on again, until darkness and fatigue urged the travellers to rest. It was an endless journey. It seemed as if the goal would never be reached. It was an unrelieved alternation of gold-glittering sands, under implacable, blazing skies, and fading sands, under endless skies of nocturnal blue. It was an unrelieved alternation of rosy sunrises and orange sunsets. It was an unrelieved alternation of the peeping, the radiant awakening and the duller waning of the stars. Sometimes the south wind rose and blew for hours. Silently the caravan plodded through the rising whirls of sand. Sometimes the faint track of posts seemed to have disappeared; the obelisksstood aslant, sunk into the sands. A melancholy descended over man and beast.The midday meal, taken under a tent, Lucius shared with Thrasyllus, Caleb, and Tarrar. It consisted always of broiled mutton, dates and an unvarying ration of water, with a dash of palm-wine in it. Strange to say, Lucius was almost cheerful and declared that Uncle Catullus had done well not to accompany them to the oasis of Ammon, as such meals would certainly have been a sore trial for him. And, strange again, Caleb, usually so merry and cheerful, became despondent and sad. At least, he exclaimed, now that Lucius began to jest:“I wonder, my lord, that you can be gay in these god-forsaken Libyan sands! They weigh upon my chest, O my lord, as though I were already sinking under them, like the obelisks and sphinxes! O my noble lord, O my princely lord, what a desperate idea of your lordship’s to wish to undertake this awful journey, to wish to go to the oracle of Ammon, which is quite ruined and deserted, whither perhaps for two centuries past no noble lord like your lordship has ever travelled! O my lord, O my lord, if only this horrible journey ends well! The driversand guards are not yet complaining; there is still water in the bags for men and beasts; we have not yet experienced any other adventure beyond the appearance of one lion, who stood proudly on the point of a rock but fled when he saw my burnous flapping in the distance, while our hunters tried to shoot him with poisoned arrows. But my lord, if more lions appear, or if robbers suddenly come in sight, or if those terrible ghosts loom up: the sphinxes with the human heads and the giants with faces of animals, which, people say, fill the desert; or if we meet the giant snake, who has a forest growing on his back and who makes his nest underground and who, when hungry, bores his terrible body right through the earth’s flat disk and swallows towns and villages, O my lord, then I doubt, alas, whether my flapping burnous and the bows and arrows of our hunters and guards will save us! O my lord, O my gracious, noble lord, shall I ever see Saba again, my dear country blessed by the gods!”Thus ran Caleb’s complaint; but Lucius said:“Tarrar is seeing his country again, aren’t you, Tarrar?”“Yes, my lord,” said the little slave, “but I come from the sea-coast, not from the desert, and I was not happy in my country and my parents gave me no food to eat and the country is not beautiful either, as Saba is, and I would much rather be with you, in Rome, for that is the loveliest country in the world, and in your house, which is the loveliest house in the world.”After the midday rest the journey was resumed and the sun sank slowly: the sky was like a glowing copper dome, which dulled and cooled; and the stars came out; and over the rocky crests that rose on ridges along the road appeared the flying figures of wild animals. Startling roars sounded in the night, to the great alarm of Caleb, who said that he did not mind lions or hyenas but that he was afraid of the giants and the colossal snake and the ghosts of the desert, which lured travellers to the magic cities which are nothing but hallucination, enchantment and destruction. And all the drivers and guards, sturdy Libyans and Arabs, were like him and said that they did not fear the tangible lions and would hunt them if need be, but that they did fear the intangible lions of the desert, all the haunting,shadowy visions of wrath with which Typhon lures the caravans into Hell.Then great fires were kindled, to ward off the lions and the ghosts; and they glowed in the still glowing night; and the guards and drivers danced fantastic dances round the fires; and Caleb, to forget his alarm, joined in the dance.But Thrasyllus told his master about Alexander the Great. When Alexander founded Alexandria, the oracle of Ammon was the most celebrated in Egypt; and Callisthenes and Plutarch relate how the great Macedonian started from Parætonium, on the coast, to make his way through the desert by way of the oasis. Violent south-winds attacked his retinue; but he did not give in, though sand-storms nearly swallowed him up, with his elephants and camels. Suddenly, however, kindly showers fell, at the bidding of the gods, and the winds abated and the sand-storms dropped. Two crows flew beside the great Alexander and guided him to the oasis.At the first ray of dawn, after a refreshing sleep, the journey was resumed, the monotonous journey, the endless journey. It was the last day but one; and, when the halt wascalled, it appeared that the drivers and guards had cut open the water-bags and drunk their fill of the water. Caleb grew furious and instantly drew his dagger and wanted to fling himself on the Libyans and Arabs; but they also drew their daggers and everybody shouted and screamed and yelled. Then Lucius intervened and quieted them all and gave them money; and they fell on their knees and sobbed and begged his pardon for drinking up the water, but they had been so thirsty and they accused Caleb of being too sparing with the ration. And Caleb defended himself and said that in the desert one had to be sparing and not gulp down all the water at once, without thinking of the morrow, of the animals and of the noble lord, who now had not a drop of water left. But the noble lord caused a heavy basket full of lemons to be let down from his elephant and gave each of the guards and drivers one lemon and told them that they must now hold out, by sucking this lemon, until they reached the oasis. And they kissed his hands and abased themselves before him and caressed his legs and called him Osiris and Serapis and Ammon-Râ and their life’s benefactor.Men and animals were exhausted, but they allowed themselves hardly any rest that night and no one slept and all wanted to go on, ever on, in the last spurring of their energies.Was it, after the sleepless night, because of that exhaustion and that last spurring, an atmospheric phenomenon, an hallucination, an illusion, a fata morgana? In the first rosy glimmers of the dawn, reflected from the east to the west, there rose in the west as it were a dream, a nebulous dream-vision of unsubstantial forms, the vague paradisial vision of barely-outlined, rose-tinted trees, slender, shadowy trunks and palm-crowns suffused in rosy light; and then the straight lines, no more than an azure shadow, of walls, of roofs, terraces, domes.Was it a vision, was it a dream? No, it was real; and Caleb jubilantly pointed and shouted:“Ammon-Râ! Ammon-Râ!”“Ammon-Râ! Ammon-Râ!” repeated the guards and drivers, yelling wildly and cheering like madmen, for the oasis took colour, the trees became more clearly markedand the temple, large as a town, now stretched its walls impressively.The horses sniffed the air and neighed, the elephants waved their trunks, the camels swung out their legs, the men thrust forward their throats and inhaled the fragrance of verdure and the coolness of running wells; and the inhabitants of the oasis, poor natives in the service of the priests of the temple, poured out of their huts to meet the caravan and knelt in the road, offering split coconuts, juicy oranges and scarlet fruits, of strange shapes and juicy pulp, and earthenware dishes full of water limpid as flowing crystal.Chapter XXIThere was a dense wood of palm-trees through which the travellers made their way to the temple of Ammon-Râ, whose walls lay spread like a town.“See, my lord,” said Caleb, walking ahead and pointing, “these are male palm-trees; and those more slender ones are female; and they marry one another, my lord, and feel love for one another; they grow towards one another, see, my lord, like these two; and they wave to one another and the male fructifies the female; and it is only when they love each other that the fruits are luxuriant and their honey and wine pleasant to the taste.”“It is as Caleb says,” Tarrar assented. “The palm-trees in my country marry one another and they are the most excellent in the whole world.”“They also marry in Saba,” said Caleb, in pique. “We have sweeter honey anddate-wine in Saba than you have here in Libya.”A heated discussion arose between Caleb and Tarrar upon the respective merits of the Sabæan and Libyan palm-trees. But the travellers were now entering the first gate of the temple.There was a triple row of walls round the old sanctuary, but they were falling into ruins, the obelisks were sinking away, the sphinxes were covered with luxuriant, flowering creepers, tall grasses shot up between the flag-stones of the dromos and all the doors were open. There was a deep shade from the leafy tops of the turpentine-trees, which were fragrant with heavy perfumes in the sunshine. The fleshy aloes drove their sword-like leaves over the walls; and their long stalks blossomed with huge scarlet flowers which smoked as though with incense. But it was above all the daturas whose pendant alabaster goblets poured forth a giddiness, an intoxication of heavy scents, around which the great Atlas moths flew slowly hovering.There were no door-keepers; and the travellers walked on, through the endless dromos. The monolithic colossi rose oneither hand; but they also were shelving to one side, or sinking away. Lastly, from out of the vista of the pylons, which stood in endless row after row, a group of priests approached the travellers. It was the high-priest of Ammon-Râ, accompanied by eleven other priests; and they were all very old and grey. They all had grey locks and they all wore long, grey beards. They all wore long, fiery red robes; and, when they drew near in procession, they were like gods in their placid dignity.They did not wish to betray their surprise to the travellers. The oracle of Ammon was no longer visited as it had been visited two centuries ago. It was no longer held in honour; the temple was fallen into decay; summers would pass without the advent of a single pilgrim. But Lucius had wanted to consult the oracle of Ammon just because its historic past gave it a poetic charm for him. And, when he saw the high-priest approach, he stretched out his hands in reverence to the ground and knelt and bowed his head; and Thrasyllus, Caleb and Tarrar knelt and bowed behind him.“What do you seek, my son?” asked the centenarian high-priest.“The truth,” replied Lucius.“Then enter into the House of the Sun,” the high-priest ordained.And the travellers rose; and the priests gladly led the way. They led their visitors through the pronaos and naos to the secos, to the holy of holies. And, pointing in the golden shade of midday dusk, between pillars like tree-trunks, to the enormous statue of Ammon-Râ, old as time, the sun-god with the bull’s head, the high-priest continued:“The Sun reveals the truth to him who is worthy to hear it, even as ages ago he revealed the truth to Alexander of Macedon. Before his coming, the deity uttered himself only by moving his brows and wrinkling his bull forehead between his divine horns. But the deity addressed Alexander of Macedon with the sound of his lowing voice and told him, in words plainly audible to the king and all his following, that he was the son of the Sun, the son of Jupiter Ammon-Râ.”Lucius looked up at the statue. In the golden twilight of the temple, where the noontide daylight filtered in and broke between the pillars in a shimmer of dust, he saw the supreme god, who was no longerheld in honour, wrapped in shadow, paintless wood and colourless basalt, blind and pock-pitted where his bull head and his human neck had been robbed of the jewelled eyes and the precious stones with which he had once been inlaid. And Lucius felt so deep a compassion within himself for the fading god, once all-honoured and now forgotten in his distant, sinking temple in the Libyan desert, that he bent his knees in pity and reverence.The Jewish seer, who lived in the cave of Neith, had haply seen the new god, the Son of Jahve, crowned with light for days and days. Here, in the immensity of his ruined sanctuary, Lucius beheld the fading of the god who was forgotten, but whom, centuries ago, Alexander of Macedon had travelled through whirlwinds and sand-storms to seek.When Lucius looked up, he was alone with the old high-priest:“Father,” he said, kneeling, “I would know the truth. I would know if what I believe to be the truth, revealed to me by oracle after oracle, is the truth to Jupiter Ammon-Râ.”“My son,” said the priest, “the truth does not shine forth until after meditation,after contemplation and pious prayers, after days and nights of communing with the deity. I will be your intermediary. And you shall know what you would know, if you have faith.”“Father,” said Lucius, “I lay my forehead, heavy with care and suffering and doubt, in your holy hands.”And he bowed his head towards the priest’s open palms.He remained five days and nights together with the priest. In the temple, the golden shadows of the day changed into the blue shadows of the night and the glittering of the sun into the flickering of the lamps. There was prayer and fasting and the touch of soul to soul.Chapter XXIIAfter five days and nights, Lucius knew. Pale, tired and enlightened, he sought out his followers, Thrasyllus, Caleb and Tarrar, who were staying in the great, cavernous rooms of the temple. And he was calm, peaceful and dignified. He bathed and ate and slept. And at night, in the silence of the temple-grounds, which wove itself into one mystic atmosphere with the golden gleam of the stars, he woke Tarrar and said:“Take this sycamore box.”It was a small casket of delicate workmanship, which had always accompanied him wherever he went.Tarrar, heavy with sleep, took up the little box.“Follow me,” said Lucius.The little slave, in astonishment, followed his master. Lucius passed through the shadow-haunted temple-precincts, which stretched endlessly in every direction. He went through the parks, which were haunted with sphinxes and obelisks and thick withthe sultry heat of datura-scent. He went through the whole oasis, under the grove of palm-trees and past the huts of the natives.Tarrar followed him. The little slave felt, inquisitively, that the sycamore casket was not locked. He opened it for an instant; and by the flickering starlight Tarrar saw a small woman’s sandal, which he knew. The little slave wondered and wondered. But he continued to follow his master, faithfully; he would have followed him to the death.They came to the desert. The master entered the desert; and Tarrar continued to wonder. The starry night now spread its dome over their heads; the silvery sands lay outstretched before him.“Dig,” Lucius commanded, suddenly turning round.Tarrar gave a start. He put down the casket in the sand and dug a hole with his hands.“Deeper,” Lucius commanded. “Dig deeper.”The little slave dug; quickly, like a little monkey, he dug the hole deep with his two hands.“Put the casket in the hole,” Lucius commanded.Tarrar did so and looked at his master.“Cover the casket up with sand.”Tarrar did as his master commanded. Then Lucius said:“Now come back.”And he went back to the oasis; but Tarrar, before following him, stamped down the sand under which the casket lay buried and overwhelmed it, amid violent gestures of delight, with native curses, curses not to be averted, in the Libyan tongue.Chapter XXIIIThe travellers had returned to Memphis and Caleb displayed the skin of a lion which had been shot in the desert and told the people in the thalamegus terrible tales of desert ghosts and dread visions. The barge was now gliding up the Nile in the night; the sky was softly blue, like dark byssus; the water was a pale blue, like rippling silk; and the waning moon hung above the palm-clusters and country-mansions on the river-bank like a great, overripe fruit which threatened to burst in the sky and whose juice was already trickling in thick orange drops that flowed far over the Nile.And, while the rowers’ monotonous chant resounded with the regular beat of the oars, Thrasyllus, sitting beside Lucius, gave way to melancholy and said:“Egypt is Egypt no longer. Alexandria is a commercial town; Memphis is a decaying greatness; and the priests are venal and no longer know the Hermetic wisdom. I have sought for five days among the dusty papyriof the neglected library in the temple of Ammon; it is as though all that is worth knowing were hiding itself.”“The priests must be hiding the Hermetic wisdom on purpose,” said Lucius.“They used to do so in other days for Plato and Pythagoras, when their souls were lofty and incorruptible. Nowadays they show what they have and tell what they know for money. But what they have is not more than we in Rome possess in the temple of Isis; and what they know is not the key to happiness. And yet ... and yet I believe in a sacred word, handed down in the wisdom of the Kabbala by word of mouth, from father to son. But I have not yet received it from any priest, neither at Memphis nor in the oasis. And yet I have hopes. There is Thebes; and there are the secrets of Ethiopia ... down to the pillars of Sesostris.”Lucius smiled gently:“The word,” he said, “the secret of happiness ... Thrasyllus, is happiness not an illusion of the brain? Does happiness not lie in resigning one’s self piously to one’s fate and is the secret word not the proud ‘Be a god unto yourself’?”The old man started. And he whispered:“You also? Have you also heard that word, asIheard it at Sais? I took no account of it, it did not satisfy me.”“It satisfied me in the oasis, because it is a proud, strong word and I have needed pride and strength ... since I haveknown, Thrasyllus.”“Known what, Lucius?”“That Carus stole Ilia from me.”The old man started violently:“You know?” he exclaimed. “You know?Whotold you?Whobetrayed the secret?”“The voice itself within my own soul, which the oracles caused to speak to me. My own thoughts, tossing this way and that, which the oracles guided. From the sibyl of Rhacotis, who merely guessed my own thoughts, down to the old high-priest of Ammon-Râ, who spoke to me like a father ... and who said to me the word, ‘Be a god unto yourself!’”“As Nemu-Pha said to me, at Sais. I paid for it in gold.”“I paid for it in gold in the oasis. But what does that matter, Thrasyllus? The word gave me strength and pride.”“O my son, if you could be cured of your sorrow, of your grief!”“They are no longer in me. I no longer have any grief, no longer any sorrow. I am a god unto myself.”“The gods suffer. Isis suffered because of Osiris. All the gods suffer.”“I suffer no longer. My grief has departed from me. The world and life are beautiful. See, the colours and the light are beautiful. The sky is softly blue, like dark byssus; the water ripples like blue silk; and the moon is like a great, overripe fruit which bursts in the sky and whose juice trickles over the Nile. To-morrow the day will bring another beauty. In these successive beauties, Thrasyllus, I will be a god unto myself.”“O my son, though I did not tell you the word myself, I am so happy that you yourself found the word!”In the night there sounded the high, rising tones of a harp, followed by Cora’s crystal-clear voice, which was accompanied by other harps and other voices.“The word of pride, the word of strength,Thrasyllus,” said Lucius, calmly; and the old tutor saw a tranquil smile on his young master’s face as he added, “The word that almost makes me happy.”Chapter XXIVAfter the abundant dews of the night came the delight of the cool-warm summer day. The clustering trees now pressed their way forward more richly and luxuriously along the banks of the Nile. Here, on the Libyan side, lay the town of Acanthus, with its temple of Osiris in a spreading wood of Theban acanthus-trees, of which the natives tap the fragrant gums. Next, on the Arabian bank, came Aphroditopolis, the second town of the name, with the temple of the White Cow; and then the travellers reached the Heracleotic nome, a big island in the Nile, from which a canal cuts through the Arsinoic nome, the most fertile in the whole country. Here and here alone the olive-tree flourished in dense, silvery woods; but here also there twisted and twined, in close festoons, the vine-branches, on which the grapes were beginning to swell; here the fruit-trees bent under their heavy load and the orchards stretched; here the sickles of the husbandmen waved through the abundant ears ofcorn. Here the fat soil yielded wealth and prosperity; here the innumerable sheep spread in a wave of wool over the hills, like a shadowy white sea. Here, between margins of sands, Lake Mœris stretched exquisite and crystal blue to the horizon, as it were a fresh-water inland sea. In earlier ages, the ocean must have extended to those margins and stolen the whole northern land of Lower Egypt, that gift of the Nile, as Herodotus had called it long ago. Here the double lotus-flowers were trained to blossom in the waters; and here the sacred scarabs were bred and worshipped upon the white flowers.Lucius would wander alone of a morning, strolling along the banks of the lake. It was so strangely calm here and so divinely beautiful; and a heaven-sent consolation filled the air. These were the regions blest by the gods; and it pleased Lucius to linger here. The thalamegus lay moored under acanthus-trees; the flowering reeds shot up to a man’s height around her. And every afternoon, at sunset, Lucius, sometimes accompanied by Thrasyllus, sometimes alone, walked to the labyrinth.The road lay along the waterworks of the canal, where daily, under the supervisionof the engineers, the quantity of water that flowed in and out of the lake through the canal was closely gauged. The tilled and inhabited lands around Lake Mœris, large as a sea, were never flooded. If the Nile increased, all that happened was that the blue crystal mirror of the lake rose. If the waters of the river fell, then those of the lake filled them up, by careful management of the sluices. The water was never other than a benevolent deity.Along the waterworks ran the road to the labyrinth. In the sinking glory of the sun, in blood-red and orange splendours, Lucius saw it daily, the strange Titanic town of monoliths, the linked rows of palaces and courts, projecting their columns endlessly, endlessly, towards the sunlit horizon. Orange and blood-red gleams glowed over the flat stone tables of the roofs, which were not higher than a single pillared storey and which spread out their immense terrace like a paved desert. There were twenty palaces, each surrounded by twenty-seven monolithic columns; and all this wondrous architecture of past centuries was without a beam of wood, was without cement or masonry, was simply stone laid upon stone withfaultless precision and column hewn beside column, absolutely circular, each column a single stone. At the end of the palaces, which were a stadium long, rose the square pyramid, the tomb of the builder, King Amenemha.The holy place was guarded by priests, who led Lucius through the halls and crypts. The twenty palaces represented the former twenty Egyptian nomes, or provinces; and the emissaries of each province used to gather with their priests and priestesses in their palace or court and offer up sacrifices and discuss great questions of policy or local welfare. But nowadays the palaces were deserted, the crypts were deserted, and the priests led Lucius along endless, deserted, winding corridors which meandered from palace to palace. The torches smeared the walls with blood-red light, smeared the smooth stone walls of the corridors and halls and floors and ceilings, stone after stone upon stone of wonderful dimensions all resting one upon another without cement. And to Lucius it was one of the marvels of the world, even more marvellous, because of its sublime human architecture, than the pyramids had been.Travelling on camels with Uncle Catullus and a great retinue, Lucius went a hundred stadia farther, to Arsinoe-Crocodilopolis. The trees flourished more richly, more luxuriantly, like a richly-wooded park around the travellers, till they came to the sacred lake where the sacred crocodile, named Such, was held in veneration.“Well,” said Uncle Catullus, “here’s another of these little pets which are kept for the edification of foreigners!”And in fact the priests who came to meet the travellers in front of the dromos of the sacred lake, surrounded on every side with pillars, first amiably demanded a stater a head as entrance-fee, while Caleb, of course, had seen to a supply of rich provisions, as an offering to the deity. The slaves carried baskets with cakes, roast meats and jars of hydromel.In the lake lay Such, the huge monster; but the priests had tamed the terrible deity: they were luring him from the middle of the lake, where his temple was, to the bank, because some Persian visitors happened to have arrived before Lucius and wished to present their offerings. On the edge of the lake the priests took Such fearlessly by histerrible jaws and made him swallow the cakes and meat and wine of the Persian grandees, who were greatly diverted and laughed aloud.“They must be great noblemen,” said Caleb, “and are going from the pillars of Sesostris to Alexandria, even as you, my noble lords, are going from Alexandria to the pillars of Sesostris. My lord, if you permit me, I should much like to exchange a few words with the guide of the Persian lords.”Lucius gave his permission; and the crocodile, who had swallowed his Persian presents, swam back to the middle of the lake. But the priests now quickly lured him to the other side, where Lucius was waiting; and the ever greedy crocodile approached; and the priests again took him fearlessly by his terrible jaws and the monster now swallowed Lucius’ gifts, the cakes, the roast meat, as though insatiable; and the priests, laughing, emptied a jar of hydromel into his maw.Meanwhile, Caleb, after a few words with the guide, had sunk in salaams before the Persian lords.“He’s offering the Persians his diversorium,” said Uncle Catullus, jestingly.And in fact Caleb, in a few minutes, came back happy and swaggering to his own travellers and said, in a mysterious whisper:“I have recommended their Persian lordships to be sure to stop at the Hermes House at Alexandria; and I slipped a gold ptolemy into their guide’s hand. Yes, my lords, business is business; and, if we did no business at Alexandria, I could never hope to see my beloved Saba again. For there you must havedonebusiness, if you want to live in the country; there’s no business to be donethere, my lords.”By way of Heracleopolis, where divine honours were paid to the ichneumon, the spotted rat that devours the eggs of the adders and attacks the adders themselves, after first rolling itself in the mud, which dries round its body and forms an armour, the travellers reached Cynopolis, where the dog is worshipped as Anubis, and Oxyrynchus, where the fish of the name is venerated. And it now appeared that, in this region of Heptanomis, where, on the Arabian side of the Nile, the strange battlements of the blinding white Alabastrites Mountains blaze against the sky, all animals received divine honours, as though the priests had institutedthese popular forms of worship in great numbers everywhere, so that they might the more carefully keep to themselves the secret Hermetic wisdom. Cats and falcons, sheep and wolves, baboons and zebus, eagles and lions, goats and spiders: all the animals were worshipped in one or other town or village; all the animals had their temples and priests; and Uncle Catullus said that he grew weary of having to admire so many sacred animals, especially as Apis, the little bull, and Such, the crocodile, were after all the only ones that were really interesting to see. But all these cattle, all these birds and fishes, all these creatures, from carnivora down to insects, were worshipped, tended, fed and shown in the temples to strangers, each time at a piece of gold a head. No, it was really too silly, especially when, after the first Crocodilopolis, on the left, the second Crocodilopolis appeared on the right, on the bank of the Nile, with another Such!“Lucius,” said Uncle Catullus, “honestly, I’m not going to feed any more sacred crocodiles, nor any sacred goats or cats or beetles either. I’ve seen enough of all those pests, do you hear, nephew?”And Lucius and Thrasyllus were inclined to agree with Uncle Catullus; and the barge sped past the wondrous purple of the Porphyrites Mountains, gold-ruddy crests in the orange evening sky, up to Ptolemais, the greatest town in the Thebais.Ptolemais was a prosperous city, ruled like Alexandria by a municipal government founded on the Greek model; but after Ptolemais the travellers were especially charmed with Abydos. Here they saw the Memnonium, which was not so gigantic as the labyrinth, but which still was built of great single blocks of stone, according to that same marvellous system of lost ancient architecture. They also saw the underground well, which is reached by vaults and galleries, a subterranean miracle of monoliths, always fitted to one another and upon one another, without masonry. The temple of Apollo rose in a flowering acacia-wood, as in a sudden dream of swarming white, fragrant blossoms.LesserDiospolisand Tentyra followed. The Tentyrians worship Aphrodite and hunt the crocodile, which they destroy wherever they can; and Uncle Catullus said that they showed good taste in this civilized choice.After the half-Arabian Coptos and Apollonopolis, Thebes loomed into view, with its hundred gates, the gates which Homer sang, the gates through which two hundred warriors, with all their horses and chariots, could pass. And, as the travellers drew near, in the rosy dawn behind Thebes, the Smaragdis Hills appeared in green outline, transparent and far-away as a dream, through the misty light of the horizon.Thebes was already called Greater Diospolis and worshipped Zeus-Jupiter.“Heaven be praised!” said Uncle Catullus. “The Upper Egyptians are become sensible. Venus and Jupiter are once more held in honour! Every conceivable sort of crocodile, goat, dog, rat, falcon and beetle is done with. It was high time!”Like Memphis, Thebes spread itself as an immense, ancient, but dying city. For eighty stadia along the Nile its ancient palaces and temples stood in an endless row, forsaken, ruined, cracking, slanting and sinking, with their pillars and walls, their mutilated colossi and sphinxes, their obelisks already fallen to the ground. Even in the sun, a grey melancholy spread over the great city, whose streets, indeed, werecrowded with numbers of pedestrians, camels and litters, but without the feverish, metropolitan bustle which had reigned at Alexandria. The gloom of a fatally waning glory lay like a haze over all this architectural immensity, which Cambyses, with his Persian hordes, had in past ages destroyed beyond repair, as with gigantic hammer-strokes.In the moonlit night the city, with its vast outlines, with its endless row of Titanic palaces, rose beside the Nile like a Titanic citadel, mysteriously chilling to the heart. In these abandoned temples the lost wisdom especially had been cultivated by the omniscient priests, the heirs of Moses and of Hermes Trismegistus. Here the utmost wisdom of philosophy and astronomy and astrology was known. Here the year and the day were calculated by the sun and no longer, as of yore, by the moon; here the year was divided into twelve months of thirty days, with five intercalary days; and here was calculated the time that must be added to the three hundred and sixty-five days in order to arrive at the exact length of the year. The kings who reigned here reigned, according to the hieroglyphs on theobelisks, over Scythia, Bactria, Ionia and India! They had ruled the world, in the deep-sunk centuries! In the measureless spaces of their immense palaces and temples, from which the Nile, flowing silver in the moonlight, could be seen through the rows of pylons gleaming as it had gleamed centuries ago, not an atom remained of the material or immaterial life of this long, long array of monarchs. Their names alone were still extant, written on cracking or mutilated obelisks, but their history lingered only in a few disputed legends. The unplumbed depth of the past made Lucius’ sensitive mind turn giddy. Yet, as he wandered by Thrasyllus’ side through the endless forsaken halls and rooms and courts, here dark with shadow, there lighted by the spectral moon, he was charmed by the sombre beauty and grandeur of that giddy depth.Here, too, stood a monolithic memnonium. Next came, linked together, the forty royal tombs hewn in the rock. And, in front of this Titanic ruin, in which not a mummy remained, the travellers saw, in the moonlit night, the two seated colossi, themselves carved out of monoliths; but one, with the trunk broken off—by what power?—hadfallen in the high grass, while the other still stared towards the east, in the hieratic attitude, the long hands upon the knees, the pschent crowning the vast, ecstatic head, with its huge, staring, sightless eyes, from which the enamel had disappeared and the jewelled pupils.The travellers stood in silence before the statue in the moonlight; and even Uncle Catullus refrained from jesting. The atmosphere at this spot was woven of shimmering divinity. The moon was waning, the dawn was rising rose-red. And, as though with a human voice, a single note sounded from the statue. The note was intoned clearly and almost plaintively; it developed into the powerful sound of a man’s high voice, swelled into something terribly human and almost divine and broke off short and hard. They all heard it in the uncertain light: Lucius, Thrasyllus, Catullus, Caleb, Cora, all the slaves, male and female, who had accompanied the travellers. Caleb turned very pale and time after time pressed his lips to his amulets.And, motionless and now silent, the blind colossus stared towards the sun, which wasrising out of a sea of rosy beams and gold-dust cloud.That evening, in the temple of Zeus-Jupiter-Râ, the travellers saw the strange ceremony of the wedding of the Pallade, or Pallachide. She was the daughter of one of the greatest families of Diospolis and was chosen a month ago, for her birth and beauty, as the priestess of the god. She had served the god that month by giving her beauty to whomsoever she would. Now that the period of her service was past, she was marrying her bridegroom, a young man, like herself a member of one of the greatest and oldest Theban families. There was a ceremony of mourning and dirge because the service of so fair and famed a maiden was at an end; there was the presentation of gifts by all whom she had embraced that month; there was glad gaiety now because of her wedding. She was attired and anointed as a goddess and received great honour from the close-packed multitude; and after her wedding she kissed the priestess who succeeded her, likewise a virgin from one of the leading families of the town, and who was shown naked before the altar and was exquisitely beautiful as a child.“Every country has its customs,” said Uncle Catullus, with a shrug. “I don’t envy the bridegroom; but no one seems to consider it odd; and the polite thing for us foreigners to do will be just to act as though we thought it all quite natural.”And with Lucius, Thrasyllus and Caleb he approached the bride, who was now sparkling with jewels beside her bridegroom; and their slaves threw roses and lilies and lotus-flowers before her feet; and she thanked him with a silent, winning dignity, standing amid the circle of her kinsmen in a queenly attitude.But, after Thebes, to Uncle Catullus’ despair, there reappeared on the banks of the Nile the towns at which crocodiles, fishes and falcons were worshipped.“Lucius,” said Uncle Catullus to his nephew, seriously, one morning, while the barge was approaching Apollonopolis Magna, “Lucius, my dear boy, I have a confession to make to you. I think I’ve had enough of it. I’m sick of falcons, fishes and crocodiles which are gods, not to mention dogs, wolves, beetles, bulls and other cattle. And, in addition to being sick of all these sacred animals, I’m sick of all those strangeEgyptian foodstuffs, while, moreover, I suspect Caleb of fortifying with barley-spirit the wines with which he supplies us out of his store; and this applies not only to the thick-as-ink Mareotis wine, but also to the topaz-yellow liqueurs of Napata.... Lucius, my dear boy, I am old and I feel ill. My head is like a sponge saturated not with water but with impressions of strange ceremonies and immoral customs. Also my stomach is overloaded and my palate over-excited. I have a craving for a few succulent oysters and a young roast peacock. I understand that one can’t get those here, on the Nile; but still I should like to learn what your plans really are ... I’ve heard something about hunting-expeditions and the pillars of Sesostris....”“Yes, uncle,” said Lucius, with a smile, “Caleb did suggest that we should leave the barge at Philæ, where we shall soon be arriving, and go through Ethiopia with carts, camels, elephants and tents, go hunting on elephants and ostriches and travel over Napata and Meroe, through forest and wilderness, to Cape Dire and the pillars of Sesostris, where we shall find the quadrireme waiting for the homeward journey.”“Well, my dear boy, I think that this programme, together with my spongy brain and overloaded stomach, would be too much for me. If I were to accomplish it by your side, then Egypt would certainly be the death of me, a contingency which I am dreading as it is. I think, don’t you, that I had better go down the Nile again in the barge, past all the sacred wolves and falcons and cats and beetles?”But Caleb had approached:“In that case, my noble Lord Catullus,” he said, “I have a much better plan. In fact, I, your humble, obedient servant, agree with you that the journey through Ethiopia would perhaps be very tiring for you. That is why I would propose that the thalamegus take you from Apollonopolis Magna, by the canal, to Berenice, on the Bay of Acathantus, in the Arabian Gulf.1At Berenice you will meet the quadrireme, which has gone by Pelusium and the Nechao Canal2and is ascending the Arabian Gulf to fetch us at the pillars of Sesostris. In this way you will do the journey without inconvenience and yet with enjoyment, for the Berenice Canal passes along the Smaragdis Mountains and they are a dream,my lord; my lord, they’re adream!...”Thus did Caleb advise him, reflecting that, if Uncle Catullus adopted this programme, instead of going back to Alexandria, the princely apartments at the Hermes House would remain unoccupied and could be let to the Persian grandees who had fed the sacred Such on Lake Mœris and who were travelling in the opposite direction to his own noble clients....1The Red Sea.2The old canal through the Isthmus of Suez.

Chapter XIXIt was very early one morning and Lucius was walking alone on the opposite bank of the river. In the tender dawn the vast grey lines of Memphis became visible in rose-red silhouette.Lucius was wandering alone. Solitude had become dear to him, like rest after a severe illness, especially because he doubted his cure. He doubted; he doubted the certainty.Did he know the truth? He was doubting now, after a sleepless night, and asking himself, did he know the truth? And, if he knew the truth, was he really cured, cured in his sick soul, cured of his suffering?He did not know; he no longer knew anything. He wandered beside the Nile, alone, without knowing, without knowing. A dulness filled his brain, like a mist. Life was awaking on the farms with cheerful rural activity. The grain burst under the mill-stones; and the women on their knees rubbed with powerful palms the dough which the men beside them had already kneaded withthe vigorous dance of their feet. Lucius stopped to look on; and they laughed; and he laughed back. The men danced and the women rubbed; and they laughed and were happy. A jealousy of their happiness rose hotly in the young Roman.“Will you give me some milk?” he asked a girl who was milking a splendid, snow-white cow.The girl handed the stranger the milk in the hollow leaf of a cyamus-plant. Lucius did not know whether to give her any money. He drank and handed back the reed goblet:“Thank you,” he said; and she laughed and went on milking.He gave her no money and went on. How beautiful the world was and the morning! How rosy this first light over the silvering stream! How grey and colossal the past, yonder, of that dying, sinking city! How beautiful and impressive were every form and tint! How lovely was the world! Even the people down there, those labourers, those shepherdesses, those men and women baking, had a calm rustic, idyllic beauty in their simplicity and naturalness. How good the world was and how happy people couldbe, if the gods did not pour grief into their hearts!Grief! Did he feel grief? Or had the mere thought that Ilia had proved unworthy of his great love already cured him of the disease that was grief? But was he cured and did he know?He was approaching the hamlet of Troia. And he remembered reading in Thrasyllus’ notes that Menelaus had come past here with his band of Trojan captives and generously permitted them to settle here. They had founded their colony. Behind Troia stood a rocky mountain-range; and behold, there was the ancient quarry from which, years ago, the blocks of stone were hewn to build the pyramids, block upon block, without cement! And Lucius’ feet rattled through the curious fossils which strewed the ground like pebbles with the shapes of long lentils and pea-pods and which were thought to be the petrified remnants of the meals served to the many thousand slaves who had worked at the pyramids.Suddenly he saw a woman. She was resting, sitting against the rocks and gazing at the rosy sky. He recognized his slave,the one with the beautiful voice, the singer, Cora.She started when she saw him and rose and bowed low, with outstretched hands:“Forgive me, my lord,” she stammered, “for straying so far from the barge.”He reassured her: he was a master who did not grudge his slaves a liberty. And he asked her, in a kind voice:“Why did you stray so far?”“I strayed without intending it, my lord. My thoughts carried me along!”“What were you thinking of?”“I was thinking of Cos, my dear birthplace, and whether I should ever see it again.”“It is the birthplace of Apelles the painter and of Epicharmus the poet-philosopher and inventor of comedy. It is a place of beauty and art, is it not, Cora?”“It is like a most charming garden, my lord. It contains the temples of Æsculapius and Aphrodite. I was born there in the slave-school. I had a delightful childhood. There was a big garden in which I used to play.... Forgive me, my lord....”“Go on.”“I was trained there and tended. I wasbathed and carefully anointed and rubbed. This was done by the negresses. I learned to dance when I was very young. That is why I am lithe, my lord; and I hope that I dance well. But I also loved music; I sang. We had masters, who taught us to sing and play the harp, and mistresses, who taught us to dance. Dryope, who was in charge of the slave-school, was stern, but she was not unkind. My parents also were her slaves. My father was a runner and my mother was a dancer too. There were wagers when my father ran in a race; and he but seldom failed to win the prize for our mistress. She would have him flogged when he did not win the prize, but not hard, for she did not want to injure his precious body. Dryope was a good mistress to us, for my mother stopped dancing after she had once sprained her foot and Dryope nevertheless remained kind and gentle to her slave. But, when I was able to sing and dance, my lord, Dryope sold me for a big sum to a slave-dealer who was going to Rome with a number of slaves, male and female. I embraced Dryope and my parents and went with the dealer. He also was not harsh to me, because I was a valuable slave, my lord; he was not harshto his slaves; he was careful of them as of precious merchandise. Thrasyllus bought me for you, my lord, on the slave-market in Rome; and I was proud when he paid a big sum for me after hearing my trial song and seeing my trial dance. And now ... now I am happy, my lord, to belong to a master like yourself. But still my thoughts often wander to Cos, to the slaves’ quarters, to my parents, to my fellow-slaves there and to Dryope. Forgive me, my lord.”“And would you like to go back to Cos, Cora?”“My lord, our native land remains dear to us. But I belong to you; and where you are there I will be.”“And shall you be happy there too, Cora, so far from Cos?”“I shall be happy where you are happy, my lord, and unhappy where you are unhappy.”Lucius looked at her. He did not take her words to be more than the politeness of a courteous slave, who came from a famous slave-school and for whom he had paid a high price, because of her delicate beauty and her accomplishments. But still the sound of Cora’s voice was pleasant to hisear; and he said, graciously and with a gentle smile:“You know how to speak the word that sounds well, even as you sing true and play true.”She made no further answer and bowed her head, feeling that he did not count her words as more than a well-sounding speech:“Have I your permission, my lord, to go back to the barge?” she asked.“Yes,” he said, “go.”She made a gesture of graceful reverence and moved away. He followed her at a distance. She walked along by the tall reeds of the river. She was very pretty and dainty, like the soft-tinted statuettes that came from Tanagra. Her flowered muslin peplos hung limply pleated around her shapely body in a succession of thin folds, which blew open and shut. Her bare arms were very slender. Her blue-black hair was fine and caught golden gleams. Now, while she stopped to pluck a flowering reed, she stood among the stems like a nymph.And Lucius smiled because she was so very pretty, so tenderly winsome, because she sang and played the harp so very beautifullyand because she said such civil words and had spoken so charmingly of her native island, Cos, where she was born in Dryope’s slave-school.

Chapter XIX

It was very early one morning and Lucius was walking alone on the opposite bank of the river. In the tender dawn the vast grey lines of Memphis became visible in rose-red silhouette.Lucius was wandering alone. Solitude had become dear to him, like rest after a severe illness, especially because he doubted his cure. He doubted; he doubted the certainty.Did he know the truth? He was doubting now, after a sleepless night, and asking himself, did he know the truth? And, if he knew the truth, was he really cured, cured in his sick soul, cured of his suffering?He did not know; he no longer knew anything. He wandered beside the Nile, alone, without knowing, without knowing. A dulness filled his brain, like a mist. Life was awaking on the farms with cheerful rural activity. The grain burst under the mill-stones; and the women on their knees rubbed with powerful palms the dough which the men beside them had already kneaded withthe vigorous dance of their feet. Lucius stopped to look on; and they laughed; and he laughed back. The men danced and the women rubbed; and they laughed and were happy. A jealousy of their happiness rose hotly in the young Roman.“Will you give me some milk?” he asked a girl who was milking a splendid, snow-white cow.The girl handed the stranger the milk in the hollow leaf of a cyamus-plant. Lucius did not know whether to give her any money. He drank and handed back the reed goblet:“Thank you,” he said; and she laughed and went on milking.He gave her no money and went on. How beautiful the world was and the morning! How rosy this first light over the silvering stream! How grey and colossal the past, yonder, of that dying, sinking city! How beautiful and impressive were every form and tint! How lovely was the world! Even the people down there, those labourers, those shepherdesses, those men and women baking, had a calm rustic, idyllic beauty in their simplicity and naturalness. How good the world was and how happy people couldbe, if the gods did not pour grief into their hearts!Grief! Did he feel grief? Or had the mere thought that Ilia had proved unworthy of his great love already cured him of the disease that was grief? But was he cured and did he know?He was approaching the hamlet of Troia. And he remembered reading in Thrasyllus’ notes that Menelaus had come past here with his band of Trojan captives and generously permitted them to settle here. They had founded their colony. Behind Troia stood a rocky mountain-range; and behold, there was the ancient quarry from which, years ago, the blocks of stone were hewn to build the pyramids, block upon block, without cement! And Lucius’ feet rattled through the curious fossils which strewed the ground like pebbles with the shapes of long lentils and pea-pods and which were thought to be the petrified remnants of the meals served to the many thousand slaves who had worked at the pyramids.Suddenly he saw a woman. She was resting, sitting against the rocks and gazing at the rosy sky. He recognized his slave,the one with the beautiful voice, the singer, Cora.She started when she saw him and rose and bowed low, with outstretched hands:“Forgive me, my lord,” she stammered, “for straying so far from the barge.”He reassured her: he was a master who did not grudge his slaves a liberty. And he asked her, in a kind voice:“Why did you stray so far?”“I strayed without intending it, my lord. My thoughts carried me along!”“What were you thinking of?”“I was thinking of Cos, my dear birthplace, and whether I should ever see it again.”“It is the birthplace of Apelles the painter and of Epicharmus the poet-philosopher and inventor of comedy. It is a place of beauty and art, is it not, Cora?”“It is like a most charming garden, my lord. It contains the temples of Æsculapius and Aphrodite. I was born there in the slave-school. I had a delightful childhood. There was a big garden in which I used to play.... Forgive me, my lord....”“Go on.”“I was trained there and tended. I wasbathed and carefully anointed and rubbed. This was done by the negresses. I learned to dance when I was very young. That is why I am lithe, my lord; and I hope that I dance well. But I also loved music; I sang. We had masters, who taught us to sing and play the harp, and mistresses, who taught us to dance. Dryope, who was in charge of the slave-school, was stern, but she was not unkind. My parents also were her slaves. My father was a runner and my mother was a dancer too. There were wagers when my father ran in a race; and he but seldom failed to win the prize for our mistress. She would have him flogged when he did not win the prize, but not hard, for she did not want to injure his precious body. Dryope was a good mistress to us, for my mother stopped dancing after she had once sprained her foot and Dryope nevertheless remained kind and gentle to her slave. But, when I was able to sing and dance, my lord, Dryope sold me for a big sum to a slave-dealer who was going to Rome with a number of slaves, male and female. I embraced Dryope and my parents and went with the dealer. He also was not harsh to me, because I was a valuable slave, my lord; he was not harshto his slaves; he was careful of them as of precious merchandise. Thrasyllus bought me for you, my lord, on the slave-market in Rome; and I was proud when he paid a big sum for me after hearing my trial song and seeing my trial dance. And now ... now I am happy, my lord, to belong to a master like yourself. But still my thoughts often wander to Cos, to the slaves’ quarters, to my parents, to my fellow-slaves there and to Dryope. Forgive me, my lord.”“And would you like to go back to Cos, Cora?”“My lord, our native land remains dear to us. But I belong to you; and where you are there I will be.”“And shall you be happy there too, Cora, so far from Cos?”“I shall be happy where you are happy, my lord, and unhappy where you are unhappy.”Lucius looked at her. He did not take her words to be more than the politeness of a courteous slave, who came from a famous slave-school and for whom he had paid a high price, because of her delicate beauty and her accomplishments. But still the sound of Cora’s voice was pleasant to hisear; and he said, graciously and with a gentle smile:“You know how to speak the word that sounds well, even as you sing true and play true.”She made no further answer and bowed her head, feeling that he did not count her words as more than a well-sounding speech:“Have I your permission, my lord, to go back to the barge?” she asked.“Yes,” he said, “go.”She made a gesture of graceful reverence and moved away. He followed her at a distance. She walked along by the tall reeds of the river. She was very pretty and dainty, like the soft-tinted statuettes that came from Tanagra. Her flowered muslin peplos hung limply pleated around her shapely body in a succession of thin folds, which blew open and shut. Her bare arms were very slender. Her blue-black hair was fine and caught golden gleams. Now, while she stopped to pluck a flowering reed, she stood among the stems like a nymph.And Lucius smiled because she was so very pretty, so tenderly winsome, because she sang and played the harp so very beautifullyand because she said such civil words and had spoken so charmingly of her native island, Cos, where she was born in Dryope’s slave-school.

It was very early one morning and Lucius was walking alone on the opposite bank of the river. In the tender dawn the vast grey lines of Memphis became visible in rose-red silhouette.

Lucius was wandering alone. Solitude had become dear to him, like rest after a severe illness, especially because he doubted his cure. He doubted; he doubted the certainty.

Did he know the truth? He was doubting now, after a sleepless night, and asking himself, did he know the truth? And, if he knew the truth, was he really cured, cured in his sick soul, cured of his suffering?

He did not know; he no longer knew anything. He wandered beside the Nile, alone, without knowing, without knowing. A dulness filled his brain, like a mist. Life was awaking on the farms with cheerful rural activity. The grain burst under the mill-stones; and the women on their knees rubbed with powerful palms the dough which the men beside them had already kneaded withthe vigorous dance of their feet. Lucius stopped to look on; and they laughed; and he laughed back. The men danced and the women rubbed; and they laughed and were happy. A jealousy of their happiness rose hotly in the young Roman.

“Will you give me some milk?” he asked a girl who was milking a splendid, snow-white cow.

The girl handed the stranger the milk in the hollow leaf of a cyamus-plant. Lucius did not know whether to give her any money. He drank and handed back the reed goblet:

“Thank you,” he said; and she laughed and went on milking.

He gave her no money and went on. How beautiful the world was and the morning! How rosy this first light over the silvering stream! How grey and colossal the past, yonder, of that dying, sinking city! How beautiful and impressive were every form and tint! How lovely was the world! Even the people down there, those labourers, those shepherdesses, those men and women baking, had a calm rustic, idyllic beauty in their simplicity and naturalness. How good the world was and how happy people couldbe, if the gods did not pour grief into their hearts!

Grief! Did he feel grief? Or had the mere thought that Ilia had proved unworthy of his great love already cured him of the disease that was grief? But was he cured and did he know?

He was approaching the hamlet of Troia. And he remembered reading in Thrasyllus’ notes that Menelaus had come past here with his band of Trojan captives and generously permitted them to settle here. They had founded their colony. Behind Troia stood a rocky mountain-range; and behold, there was the ancient quarry from which, years ago, the blocks of stone were hewn to build the pyramids, block upon block, without cement! And Lucius’ feet rattled through the curious fossils which strewed the ground like pebbles with the shapes of long lentils and pea-pods and which were thought to be the petrified remnants of the meals served to the many thousand slaves who had worked at the pyramids.

Suddenly he saw a woman. She was resting, sitting against the rocks and gazing at the rosy sky. He recognized his slave,the one with the beautiful voice, the singer, Cora.

She started when she saw him and rose and bowed low, with outstretched hands:

“Forgive me, my lord,” she stammered, “for straying so far from the barge.”

He reassured her: he was a master who did not grudge his slaves a liberty. And he asked her, in a kind voice:

“Why did you stray so far?”

“I strayed without intending it, my lord. My thoughts carried me along!”

“What were you thinking of?”

“I was thinking of Cos, my dear birthplace, and whether I should ever see it again.”

“It is the birthplace of Apelles the painter and of Epicharmus the poet-philosopher and inventor of comedy. It is a place of beauty and art, is it not, Cora?”

“It is like a most charming garden, my lord. It contains the temples of Æsculapius and Aphrodite. I was born there in the slave-school. I had a delightful childhood. There was a big garden in which I used to play.... Forgive me, my lord....”

“Go on.”

“I was trained there and tended. I wasbathed and carefully anointed and rubbed. This was done by the negresses. I learned to dance when I was very young. That is why I am lithe, my lord; and I hope that I dance well. But I also loved music; I sang. We had masters, who taught us to sing and play the harp, and mistresses, who taught us to dance. Dryope, who was in charge of the slave-school, was stern, but she was not unkind. My parents also were her slaves. My father was a runner and my mother was a dancer too. There were wagers when my father ran in a race; and he but seldom failed to win the prize for our mistress. She would have him flogged when he did not win the prize, but not hard, for she did not want to injure his precious body. Dryope was a good mistress to us, for my mother stopped dancing after she had once sprained her foot and Dryope nevertheless remained kind and gentle to her slave. But, when I was able to sing and dance, my lord, Dryope sold me for a big sum to a slave-dealer who was going to Rome with a number of slaves, male and female. I embraced Dryope and my parents and went with the dealer. He also was not harsh to me, because I was a valuable slave, my lord; he was not harshto his slaves; he was careful of them as of precious merchandise. Thrasyllus bought me for you, my lord, on the slave-market in Rome; and I was proud when he paid a big sum for me after hearing my trial song and seeing my trial dance. And now ... now I am happy, my lord, to belong to a master like yourself. But still my thoughts often wander to Cos, to the slaves’ quarters, to my parents, to my fellow-slaves there and to Dryope. Forgive me, my lord.”

“And would you like to go back to Cos, Cora?”

“My lord, our native land remains dear to us. But I belong to you; and where you are there I will be.”

“And shall you be happy there too, Cora, so far from Cos?”

“I shall be happy where you are happy, my lord, and unhappy where you are unhappy.”

Lucius looked at her. He did not take her words to be more than the politeness of a courteous slave, who came from a famous slave-school and for whom he had paid a high price, because of her delicate beauty and her accomplishments. But still the sound of Cora’s voice was pleasant to hisear; and he said, graciously and with a gentle smile:

“You know how to speak the word that sounds well, even as you sing true and play true.”

She made no further answer and bowed her head, feeling that he did not count her words as more than a well-sounding speech:

“Have I your permission, my lord, to go back to the barge?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, “go.”

She made a gesture of graceful reverence and moved away. He followed her at a distance. She walked along by the tall reeds of the river. She was very pretty and dainty, like the soft-tinted statuettes that came from Tanagra. Her flowered muslin peplos hung limply pleated around her shapely body in a succession of thin folds, which blew open and shut. Her bare arms were very slender. Her blue-black hair was fine and caught golden gleams. Now, while she stopped to pluck a flowering reed, she stood among the stems like a nymph.

And Lucius smiled because she was so very pretty, so tenderly winsome, because she sang and played the harp so very beautifullyand because she said such civil words and had spoken so charmingly of her native island, Cos, where she was born in Dryope’s slave-school.

Chapter XXUncle Catullus lay under the awning of the thalamegus and asked Cora to come and sit by him:“Sing and play me some cheerful songs, Cora,” he said. “Be kind to me even though I be not your master. For I feel bored here, on this Nile boat, at Memphis. I have been bored ever since Lucius went to the oracle of Ammon, through the barren desert. What an idea, what a mad idea! They have been gone five days now; they will probably arrive to-morrow.... I am bored, Cora, I am horribly bored. Egypt will be the death of me! First I am saturated with new impressions, like a sponge with water, and then Lucius abandons me to unlimited boredom. He’s an egoist; he never thinks of his old uncle.... Cora, be amiable to me and sing and play me some cheerful songs, won’t you?”This was the burden of Uncle Catullus’ complaint. As he said, Lucius had gone through the desert to the oracle of Ammon, with Caleb, Thrasyllus and Tarrar, withguards and drivers, and Uncle Catullus had remained behind on the barge, under the care of Rufus the under-steward, with all the other slaves, male and female.A track led from Memphis through the desert to the oasis where the oracle of Ammon resided. It ran through the sands marked with granite posts, like small obelisks, nothing more. It was a chain of sign-posts rather than a road. The summer sun beat down implacably upon the scorching sands, which lay blown against the rocky range of mountains along the south of which the road was traced.The caravan had now been travelling five days through the sands. Lucius, on an elephant, lay in a spacious, square litter, with blue and yellow curtains to keep out the light, and had expressed a wish that Thrasyllus should sit by his side. Caleb, swathed in white muslin, which left only his gleaming eyes and flashing teeth visible, sat upon a powerful dromedary, on leather cushions, under a great parasol fixed to his saddle-gear, and occasionally swaying gently to and fro. Elephant and dromedary were surrounded with long fly-nets, from which dangled many-coloured fringes. Tarrar, alsoswathed in linens of many colours, squatted like a little monkey on a camel and defied the sun of his native land, the glare of his Libyan desert. The guards and drivers rode mules; and ponies carried the travellers’ luggage, their tents, their provisions and their still swollen water-bags.For five days now they had been marching on their monotonous journey through the desert. At break of day the caravan started; at noon a halt was made under the tents; in the evening the procession moved on again, until darkness and fatigue urged the travellers to rest. It was an endless journey. It seemed as if the goal would never be reached. It was an unrelieved alternation of gold-glittering sands, under implacable, blazing skies, and fading sands, under endless skies of nocturnal blue. It was an unrelieved alternation of rosy sunrises and orange sunsets. It was an unrelieved alternation of the peeping, the radiant awakening and the duller waning of the stars. Sometimes the south wind rose and blew for hours. Silently the caravan plodded through the rising whirls of sand. Sometimes the faint track of posts seemed to have disappeared; the obelisksstood aslant, sunk into the sands. A melancholy descended over man and beast.The midday meal, taken under a tent, Lucius shared with Thrasyllus, Caleb, and Tarrar. It consisted always of broiled mutton, dates and an unvarying ration of water, with a dash of palm-wine in it. Strange to say, Lucius was almost cheerful and declared that Uncle Catullus had done well not to accompany them to the oasis of Ammon, as such meals would certainly have been a sore trial for him. And, strange again, Caleb, usually so merry and cheerful, became despondent and sad. At least, he exclaimed, now that Lucius began to jest:“I wonder, my lord, that you can be gay in these god-forsaken Libyan sands! They weigh upon my chest, O my lord, as though I were already sinking under them, like the obelisks and sphinxes! O my noble lord, O my princely lord, what a desperate idea of your lordship’s to wish to undertake this awful journey, to wish to go to the oracle of Ammon, which is quite ruined and deserted, whither perhaps for two centuries past no noble lord like your lordship has ever travelled! O my lord, O my lord, if only this horrible journey ends well! The driversand guards are not yet complaining; there is still water in the bags for men and beasts; we have not yet experienced any other adventure beyond the appearance of one lion, who stood proudly on the point of a rock but fled when he saw my burnous flapping in the distance, while our hunters tried to shoot him with poisoned arrows. But my lord, if more lions appear, or if robbers suddenly come in sight, or if those terrible ghosts loom up: the sphinxes with the human heads and the giants with faces of animals, which, people say, fill the desert; or if we meet the giant snake, who has a forest growing on his back and who makes his nest underground and who, when hungry, bores his terrible body right through the earth’s flat disk and swallows towns and villages, O my lord, then I doubt, alas, whether my flapping burnous and the bows and arrows of our hunters and guards will save us! O my lord, O my gracious, noble lord, shall I ever see Saba again, my dear country blessed by the gods!”Thus ran Caleb’s complaint; but Lucius said:“Tarrar is seeing his country again, aren’t you, Tarrar?”“Yes, my lord,” said the little slave, “but I come from the sea-coast, not from the desert, and I was not happy in my country and my parents gave me no food to eat and the country is not beautiful either, as Saba is, and I would much rather be with you, in Rome, for that is the loveliest country in the world, and in your house, which is the loveliest house in the world.”After the midday rest the journey was resumed and the sun sank slowly: the sky was like a glowing copper dome, which dulled and cooled; and the stars came out; and over the rocky crests that rose on ridges along the road appeared the flying figures of wild animals. Startling roars sounded in the night, to the great alarm of Caleb, who said that he did not mind lions or hyenas but that he was afraid of the giants and the colossal snake and the ghosts of the desert, which lured travellers to the magic cities which are nothing but hallucination, enchantment and destruction. And all the drivers and guards, sturdy Libyans and Arabs, were like him and said that they did not fear the tangible lions and would hunt them if need be, but that they did fear the intangible lions of the desert, all the haunting,shadowy visions of wrath with which Typhon lures the caravans into Hell.Then great fires were kindled, to ward off the lions and the ghosts; and they glowed in the still glowing night; and the guards and drivers danced fantastic dances round the fires; and Caleb, to forget his alarm, joined in the dance.But Thrasyllus told his master about Alexander the Great. When Alexander founded Alexandria, the oracle of Ammon was the most celebrated in Egypt; and Callisthenes and Plutarch relate how the great Macedonian started from Parætonium, on the coast, to make his way through the desert by way of the oasis. Violent south-winds attacked his retinue; but he did not give in, though sand-storms nearly swallowed him up, with his elephants and camels. Suddenly, however, kindly showers fell, at the bidding of the gods, and the winds abated and the sand-storms dropped. Two crows flew beside the great Alexander and guided him to the oasis.At the first ray of dawn, after a refreshing sleep, the journey was resumed, the monotonous journey, the endless journey. It was the last day but one; and, when the halt wascalled, it appeared that the drivers and guards had cut open the water-bags and drunk their fill of the water. Caleb grew furious and instantly drew his dagger and wanted to fling himself on the Libyans and Arabs; but they also drew their daggers and everybody shouted and screamed and yelled. Then Lucius intervened and quieted them all and gave them money; and they fell on their knees and sobbed and begged his pardon for drinking up the water, but they had been so thirsty and they accused Caleb of being too sparing with the ration. And Caleb defended himself and said that in the desert one had to be sparing and not gulp down all the water at once, without thinking of the morrow, of the animals and of the noble lord, who now had not a drop of water left. But the noble lord caused a heavy basket full of lemons to be let down from his elephant and gave each of the guards and drivers one lemon and told them that they must now hold out, by sucking this lemon, until they reached the oasis. And they kissed his hands and abased themselves before him and caressed his legs and called him Osiris and Serapis and Ammon-Râ and their life’s benefactor.Men and animals were exhausted, but they allowed themselves hardly any rest that night and no one slept and all wanted to go on, ever on, in the last spurring of their energies.Was it, after the sleepless night, because of that exhaustion and that last spurring, an atmospheric phenomenon, an hallucination, an illusion, a fata morgana? In the first rosy glimmers of the dawn, reflected from the east to the west, there rose in the west as it were a dream, a nebulous dream-vision of unsubstantial forms, the vague paradisial vision of barely-outlined, rose-tinted trees, slender, shadowy trunks and palm-crowns suffused in rosy light; and then the straight lines, no more than an azure shadow, of walls, of roofs, terraces, domes.Was it a vision, was it a dream? No, it was real; and Caleb jubilantly pointed and shouted:“Ammon-Râ! Ammon-Râ!”“Ammon-Râ! Ammon-Râ!” repeated the guards and drivers, yelling wildly and cheering like madmen, for the oasis took colour, the trees became more clearly markedand the temple, large as a town, now stretched its walls impressively.The horses sniffed the air and neighed, the elephants waved their trunks, the camels swung out their legs, the men thrust forward their throats and inhaled the fragrance of verdure and the coolness of running wells; and the inhabitants of the oasis, poor natives in the service of the priests of the temple, poured out of their huts to meet the caravan and knelt in the road, offering split coconuts, juicy oranges and scarlet fruits, of strange shapes and juicy pulp, and earthenware dishes full of water limpid as flowing crystal.

Chapter XX

Uncle Catullus lay under the awning of the thalamegus and asked Cora to come and sit by him:“Sing and play me some cheerful songs, Cora,” he said. “Be kind to me even though I be not your master. For I feel bored here, on this Nile boat, at Memphis. I have been bored ever since Lucius went to the oracle of Ammon, through the barren desert. What an idea, what a mad idea! They have been gone five days now; they will probably arrive to-morrow.... I am bored, Cora, I am horribly bored. Egypt will be the death of me! First I am saturated with new impressions, like a sponge with water, and then Lucius abandons me to unlimited boredom. He’s an egoist; he never thinks of his old uncle.... Cora, be amiable to me and sing and play me some cheerful songs, won’t you?”This was the burden of Uncle Catullus’ complaint. As he said, Lucius had gone through the desert to the oracle of Ammon, with Caleb, Thrasyllus and Tarrar, withguards and drivers, and Uncle Catullus had remained behind on the barge, under the care of Rufus the under-steward, with all the other slaves, male and female.A track led from Memphis through the desert to the oasis where the oracle of Ammon resided. It ran through the sands marked with granite posts, like small obelisks, nothing more. It was a chain of sign-posts rather than a road. The summer sun beat down implacably upon the scorching sands, which lay blown against the rocky range of mountains along the south of which the road was traced.The caravan had now been travelling five days through the sands. Lucius, on an elephant, lay in a spacious, square litter, with blue and yellow curtains to keep out the light, and had expressed a wish that Thrasyllus should sit by his side. Caleb, swathed in white muslin, which left only his gleaming eyes and flashing teeth visible, sat upon a powerful dromedary, on leather cushions, under a great parasol fixed to his saddle-gear, and occasionally swaying gently to and fro. Elephant and dromedary were surrounded with long fly-nets, from which dangled many-coloured fringes. Tarrar, alsoswathed in linens of many colours, squatted like a little monkey on a camel and defied the sun of his native land, the glare of his Libyan desert. The guards and drivers rode mules; and ponies carried the travellers’ luggage, their tents, their provisions and their still swollen water-bags.For five days now they had been marching on their monotonous journey through the desert. At break of day the caravan started; at noon a halt was made under the tents; in the evening the procession moved on again, until darkness and fatigue urged the travellers to rest. It was an endless journey. It seemed as if the goal would never be reached. It was an unrelieved alternation of gold-glittering sands, under implacable, blazing skies, and fading sands, under endless skies of nocturnal blue. It was an unrelieved alternation of rosy sunrises and orange sunsets. It was an unrelieved alternation of the peeping, the radiant awakening and the duller waning of the stars. Sometimes the south wind rose and blew for hours. Silently the caravan plodded through the rising whirls of sand. Sometimes the faint track of posts seemed to have disappeared; the obelisksstood aslant, sunk into the sands. A melancholy descended over man and beast.The midday meal, taken under a tent, Lucius shared with Thrasyllus, Caleb, and Tarrar. It consisted always of broiled mutton, dates and an unvarying ration of water, with a dash of palm-wine in it. Strange to say, Lucius was almost cheerful and declared that Uncle Catullus had done well not to accompany them to the oasis of Ammon, as such meals would certainly have been a sore trial for him. And, strange again, Caleb, usually so merry and cheerful, became despondent and sad. At least, he exclaimed, now that Lucius began to jest:“I wonder, my lord, that you can be gay in these god-forsaken Libyan sands! They weigh upon my chest, O my lord, as though I were already sinking under them, like the obelisks and sphinxes! O my noble lord, O my princely lord, what a desperate idea of your lordship’s to wish to undertake this awful journey, to wish to go to the oracle of Ammon, which is quite ruined and deserted, whither perhaps for two centuries past no noble lord like your lordship has ever travelled! O my lord, O my lord, if only this horrible journey ends well! The driversand guards are not yet complaining; there is still water in the bags for men and beasts; we have not yet experienced any other adventure beyond the appearance of one lion, who stood proudly on the point of a rock but fled when he saw my burnous flapping in the distance, while our hunters tried to shoot him with poisoned arrows. But my lord, if more lions appear, or if robbers suddenly come in sight, or if those terrible ghosts loom up: the sphinxes with the human heads and the giants with faces of animals, which, people say, fill the desert; or if we meet the giant snake, who has a forest growing on his back and who makes his nest underground and who, when hungry, bores his terrible body right through the earth’s flat disk and swallows towns and villages, O my lord, then I doubt, alas, whether my flapping burnous and the bows and arrows of our hunters and guards will save us! O my lord, O my gracious, noble lord, shall I ever see Saba again, my dear country blessed by the gods!”Thus ran Caleb’s complaint; but Lucius said:“Tarrar is seeing his country again, aren’t you, Tarrar?”“Yes, my lord,” said the little slave, “but I come from the sea-coast, not from the desert, and I was not happy in my country and my parents gave me no food to eat and the country is not beautiful either, as Saba is, and I would much rather be with you, in Rome, for that is the loveliest country in the world, and in your house, which is the loveliest house in the world.”After the midday rest the journey was resumed and the sun sank slowly: the sky was like a glowing copper dome, which dulled and cooled; and the stars came out; and over the rocky crests that rose on ridges along the road appeared the flying figures of wild animals. Startling roars sounded in the night, to the great alarm of Caleb, who said that he did not mind lions or hyenas but that he was afraid of the giants and the colossal snake and the ghosts of the desert, which lured travellers to the magic cities which are nothing but hallucination, enchantment and destruction. And all the drivers and guards, sturdy Libyans and Arabs, were like him and said that they did not fear the tangible lions and would hunt them if need be, but that they did fear the intangible lions of the desert, all the haunting,shadowy visions of wrath with which Typhon lures the caravans into Hell.Then great fires were kindled, to ward off the lions and the ghosts; and they glowed in the still glowing night; and the guards and drivers danced fantastic dances round the fires; and Caleb, to forget his alarm, joined in the dance.But Thrasyllus told his master about Alexander the Great. When Alexander founded Alexandria, the oracle of Ammon was the most celebrated in Egypt; and Callisthenes and Plutarch relate how the great Macedonian started from Parætonium, on the coast, to make his way through the desert by way of the oasis. Violent south-winds attacked his retinue; but he did not give in, though sand-storms nearly swallowed him up, with his elephants and camels. Suddenly, however, kindly showers fell, at the bidding of the gods, and the winds abated and the sand-storms dropped. Two crows flew beside the great Alexander and guided him to the oasis.At the first ray of dawn, after a refreshing sleep, the journey was resumed, the monotonous journey, the endless journey. It was the last day but one; and, when the halt wascalled, it appeared that the drivers and guards had cut open the water-bags and drunk their fill of the water. Caleb grew furious and instantly drew his dagger and wanted to fling himself on the Libyans and Arabs; but they also drew their daggers and everybody shouted and screamed and yelled. Then Lucius intervened and quieted them all and gave them money; and they fell on their knees and sobbed and begged his pardon for drinking up the water, but they had been so thirsty and they accused Caleb of being too sparing with the ration. And Caleb defended himself and said that in the desert one had to be sparing and not gulp down all the water at once, without thinking of the morrow, of the animals and of the noble lord, who now had not a drop of water left. But the noble lord caused a heavy basket full of lemons to be let down from his elephant and gave each of the guards and drivers one lemon and told them that they must now hold out, by sucking this lemon, until they reached the oasis. And they kissed his hands and abased themselves before him and caressed his legs and called him Osiris and Serapis and Ammon-Râ and their life’s benefactor.Men and animals were exhausted, but they allowed themselves hardly any rest that night and no one slept and all wanted to go on, ever on, in the last spurring of their energies.Was it, after the sleepless night, because of that exhaustion and that last spurring, an atmospheric phenomenon, an hallucination, an illusion, a fata morgana? In the first rosy glimmers of the dawn, reflected from the east to the west, there rose in the west as it were a dream, a nebulous dream-vision of unsubstantial forms, the vague paradisial vision of barely-outlined, rose-tinted trees, slender, shadowy trunks and palm-crowns suffused in rosy light; and then the straight lines, no more than an azure shadow, of walls, of roofs, terraces, domes.Was it a vision, was it a dream? No, it was real; and Caleb jubilantly pointed and shouted:“Ammon-Râ! Ammon-Râ!”“Ammon-Râ! Ammon-Râ!” repeated the guards and drivers, yelling wildly and cheering like madmen, for the oasis took colour, the trees became more clearly markedand the temple, large as a town, now stretched its walls impressively.The horses sniffed the air and neighed, the elephants waved their trunks, the camels swung out their legs, the men thrust forward their throats and inhaled the fragrance of verdure and the coolness of running wells; and the inhabitants of the oasis, poor natives in the service of the priests of the temple, poured out of their huts to meet the caravan and knelt in the road, offering split coconuts, juicy oranges and scarlet fruits, of strange shapes and juicy pulp, and earthenware dishes full of water limpid as flowing crystal.

Uncle Catullus lay under the awning of the thalamegus and asked Cora to come and sit by him:

“Sing and play me some cheerful songs, Cora,” he said. “Be kind to me even though I be not your master. For I feel bored here, on this Nile boat, at Memphis. I have been bored ever since Lucius went to the oracle of Ammon, through the barren desert. What an idea, what a mad idea! They have been gone five days now; they will probably arrive to-morrow.... I am bored, Cora, I am horribly bored. Egypt will be the death of me! First I am saturated with new impressions, like a sponge with water, and then Lucius abandons me to unlimited boredom. He’s an egoist; he never thinks of his old uncle.... Cora, be amiable to me and sing and play me some cheerful songs, won’t you?”

This was the burden of Uncle Catullus’ complaint. As he said, Lucius had gone through the desert to the oracle of Ammon, with Caleb, Thrasyllus and Tarrar, withguards and drivers, and Uncle Catullus had remained behind on the barge, under the care of Rufus the under-steward, with all the other slaves, male and female.

A track led from Memphis through the desert to the oasis where the oracle of Ammon resided. It ran through the sands marked with granite posts, like small obelisks, nothing more. It was a chain of sign-posts rather than a road. The summer sun beat down implacably upon the scorching sands, which lay blown against the rocky range of mountains along the south of which the road was traced.

The caravan had now been travelling five days through the sands. Lucius, on an elephant, lay in a spacious, square litter, with blue and yellow curtains to keep out the light, and had expressed a wish that Thrasyllus should sit by his side. Caleb, swathed in white muslin, which left only his gleaming eyes and flashing teeth visible, sat upon a powerful dromedary, on leather cushions, under a great parasol fixed to his saddle-gear, and occasionally swaying gently to and fro. Elephant and dromedary were surrounded with long fly-nets, from which dangled many-coloured fringes. Tarrar, alsoswathed in linens of many colours, squatted like a little monkey on a camel and defied the sun of his native land, the glare of his Libyan desert. The guards and drivers rode mules; and ponies carried the travellers’ luggage, their tents, their provisions and their still swollen water-bags.

For five days now they had been marching on their monotonous journey through the desert. At break of day the caravan started; at noon a halt was made under the tents; in the evening the procession moved on again, until darkness and fatigue urged the travellers to rest. It was an endless journey. It seemed as if the goal would never be reached. It was an unrelieved alternation of gold-glittering sands, under implacable, blazing skies, and fading sands, under endless skies of nocturnal blue. It was an unrelieved alternation of rosy sunrises and orange sunsets. It was an unrelieved alternation of the peeping, the radiant awakening and the duller waning of the stars. Sometimes the south wind rose and blew for hours. Silently the caravan plodded through the rising whirls of sand. Sometimes the faint track of posts seemed to have disappeared; the obelisksstood aslant, sunk into the sands. A melancholy descended over man and beast.

The midday meal, taken under a tent, Lucius shared with Thrasyllus, Caleb, and Tarrar. It consisted always of broiled mutton, dates and an unvarying ration of water, with a dash of palm-wine in it. Strange to say, Lucius was almost cheerful and declared that Uncle Catullus had done well not to accompany them to the oasis of Ammon, as such meals would certainly have been a sore trial for him. And, strange again, Caleb, usually so merry and cheerful, became despondent and sad. At least, he exclaimed, now that Lucius began to jest:

“I wonder, my lord, that you can be gay in these god-forsaken Libyan sands! They weigh upon my chest, O my lord, as though I were already sinking under them, like the obelisks and sphinxes! O my noble lord, O my princely lord, what a desperate idea of your lordship’s to wish to undertake this awful journey, to wish to go to the oracle of Ammon, which is quite ruined and deserted, whither perhaps for two centuries past no noble lord like your lordship has ever travelled! O my lord, O my lord, if only this horrible journey ends well! The driversand guards are not yet complaining; there is still water in the bags for men and beasts; we have not yet experienced any other adventure beyond the appearance of one lion, who stood proudly on the point of a rock but fled when he saw my burnous flapping in the distance, while our hunters tried to shoot him with poisoned arrows. But my lord, if more lions appear, or if robbers suddenly come in sight, or if those terrible ghosts loom up: the sphinxes with the human heads and the giants with faces of animals, which, people say, fill the desert; or if we meet the giant snake, who has a forest growing on his back and who makes his nest underground and who, when hungry, bores his terrible body right through the earth’s flat disk and swallows towns and villages, O my lord, then I doubt, alas, whether my flapping burnous and the bows and arrows of our hunters and guards will save us! O my lord, O my gracious, noble lord, shall I ever see Saba again, my dear country blessed by the gods!”

Thus ran Caleb’s complaint; but Lucius said:

“Tarrar is seeing his country again, aren’t you, Tarrar?”

“Yes, my lord,” said the little slave, “but I come from the sea-coast, not from the desert, and I was not happy in my country and my parents gave me no food to eat and the country is not beautiful either, as Saba is, and I would much rather be with you, in Rome, for that is the loveliest country in the world, and in your house, which is the loveliest house in the world.”

After the midday rest the journey was resumed and the sun sank slowly: the sky was like a glowing copper dome, which dulled and cooled; and the stars came out; and over the rocky crests that rose on ridges along the road appeared the flying figures of wild animals. Startling roars sounded in the night, to the great alarm of Caleb, who said that he did not mind lions or hyenas but that he was afraid of the giants and the colossal snake and the ghosts of the desert, which lured travellers to the magic cities which are nothing but hallucination, enchantment and destruction. And all the drivers and guards, sturdy Libyans and Arabs, were like him and said that they did not fear the tangible lions and would hunt them if need be, but that they did fear the intangible lions of the desert, all the haunting,shadowy visions of wrath with which Typhon lures the caravans into Hell.

Then great fires were kindled, to ward off the lions and the ghosts; and they glowed in the still glowing night; and the guards and drivers danced fantastic dances round the fires; and Caleb, to forget his alarm, joined in the dance.

But Thrasyllus told his master about Alexander the Great. When Alexander founded Alexandria, the oracle of Ammon was the most celebrated in Egypt; and Callisthenes and Plutarch relate how the great Macedonian started from Parætonium, on the coast, to make his way through the desert by way of the oasis. Violent south-winds attacked his retinue; but he did not give in, though sand-storms nearly swallowed him up, with his elephants and camels. Suddenly, however, kindly showers fell, at the bidding of the gods, and the winds abated and the sand-storms dropped. Two crows flew beside the great Alexander and guided him to the oasis.

At the first ray of dawn, after a refreshing sleep, the journey was resumed, the monotonous journey, the endless journey. It was the last day but one; and, when the halt wascalled, it appeared that the drivers and guards had cut open the water-bags and drunk their fill of the water. Caleb grew furious and instantly drew his dagger and wanted to fling himself on the Libyans and Arabs; but they also drew their daggers and everybody shouted and screamed and yelled. Then Lucius intervened and quieted them all and gave them money; and they fell on their knees and sobbed and begged his pardon for drinking up the water, but they had been so thirsty and they accused Caleb of being too sparing with the ration. And Caleb defended himself and said that in the desert one had to be sparing and not gulp down all the water at once, without thinking of the morrow, of the animals and of the noble lord, who now had not a drop of water left. But the noble lord caused a heavy basket full of lemons to be let down from his elephant and gave each of the guards and drivers one lemon and told them that they must now hold out, by sucking this lemon, until they reached the oasis. And they kissed his hands and abased themselves before him and caressed his legs and called him Osiris and Serapis and Ammon-Râ and their life’s benefactor.

Men and animals were exhausted, but they allowed themselves hardly any rest that night and no one slept and all wanted to go on, ever on, in the last spurring of their energies.

Was it, after the sleepless night, because of that exhaustion and that last spurring, an atmospheric phenomenon, an hallucination, an illusion, a fata morgana? In the first rosy glimmers of the dawn, reflected from the east to the west, there rose in the west as it were a dream, a nebulous dream-vision of unsubstantial forms, the vague paradisial vision of barely-outlined, rose-tinted trees, slender, shadowy trunks and palm-crowns suffused in rosy light; and then the straight lines, no more than an azure shadow, of walls, of roofs, terraces, domes.

Was it a vision, was it a dream? No, it was real; and Caleb jubilantly pointed and shouted:

“Ammon-Râ! Ammon-Râ!”

“Ammon-Râ! Ammon-Râ!” repeated the guards and drivers, yelling wildly and cheering like madmen, for the oasis took colour, the trees became more clearly markedand the temple, large as a town, now stretched its walls impressively.

The horses sniffed the air and neighed, the elephants waved their trunks, the camels swung out their legs, the men thrust forward their throats and inhaled the fragrance of verdure and the coolness of running wells; and the inhabitants of the oasis, poor natives in the service of the priests of the temple, poured out of their huts to meet the caravan and knelt in the road, offering split coconuts, juicy oranges and scarlet fruits, of strange shapes and juicy pulp, and earthenware dishes full of water limpid as flowing crystal.

Chapter XXIThere was a dense wood of palm-trees through which the travellers made their way to the temple of Ammon-Râ, whose walls lay spread like a town.“See, my lord,” said Caleb, walking ahead and pointing, “these are male palm-trees; and those more slender ones are female; and they marry one another, my lord, and feel love for one another; they grow towards one another, see, my lord, like these two; and they wave to one another and the male fructifies the female; and it is only when they love each other that the fruits are luxuriant and their honey and wine pleasant to the taste.”“It is as Caleb says,” Tarrar assented. “The palm-trees in my country marry one another and they are the most excellent in the whole world.”“They also marry in Saba,” said Caleb, in pique. “We have sweeter honey anddate-wine in Saba than you have here in Libya.”A heated discussion arose between Caleb and Tarrar upon the respective merits of the Sabæan and Libyan palm-trees. But the travellers were now entering the first gate of the temple.There was a triple row of walls round the old sanctuary, but they were falling into ruins, the obelisks were sinking away, the sphinxes were covered with luxuriant, flowering creepers, tall grasses shot up between the flag-stones of the dromos and all the doors were open. There was a deep shade from the leafy tops of the turpentine-trees, which were fragrant with heavy perfumes in the sunshine. The fleshy aloes drove their sword-like leaves over the walls; and their long stalks blossomed with huge scarlet flowers which smoked as though with incense. But it was above all the daturas whose pendant alabaster goblets poured forth a giddiness, an intoxication of heavy scents, around which the great Atlas moths flew slowly hovering.There were no door-keepers; and the travellers walked on, through the endless dromos. The monolithic colossi rose oneither hand; but they also were shelving to one side, or sinking away. Lastly, from out of the vista of the pylons, which stood in endless row after row, a group of priests approached the travellers. It was the high-priest of Ammon-Râ, accompanied by eleven other priests; and they were all very old and grey. They all had grey locks and they all wore long, grey beards. They all wore long, fiery red robes; and, when they drew near in procession, they were like gods in their placid dignity.They did not wish to betray their surprise to the travellers. The oracle of Ammon was no longer visited as it had been visited two centuries ago. It was no longer held in honour; the temple was fallen into decay; summers would pass without the advent of a single pilgrim. But Lucius had wanted to consult the oracle of Ammon just because its historic past gave it a poetic charm for him. And, when he saw the high-priest approach, he stretched out his hands in reverence to the ground and knelt and bowed his head; and Thrasyllus, Caleb and Tarrar knelt and bowed behind him.“What do you seek, my son?” asked the centenarian high-priest.“The truth,” replied Lucius.“Then enter into the House of the Sun,” the high-priest ordained.And the travellers rose; and the priests gladly led the way. They led their visitors through the pronaos and naos to the secos, to the holy of holies. And, pointing in the golden shade of midday dusk, between pillars like tree-trunks, to the enormous statue of Ammon-Râ, old as time, the sun-god with the bull’s head, the high-priest continued:“The Sun reveals the truth to him who is worthy to hear it, even as ages ago he revealed the truth to Alexander of Macedon. Before his coming, the deity uttered himself only by moving his brows and wrinkling his bull forehead between his divine horns. But the deity addressed Alexander of Macedon with the sound of his lowing voice and told him, in words plainly audible to the king and all his following, that he was the son of the Sun, the son of Jupiter Ammon-Râ.”Lucius looked up at the statue. In the golden twilight of the temple, where the noontide daylight filtered in and broke between the pillars in a shimmer of dust, he saw the supreme god, who was no longerheld in honour, wrapped in shadow, paintless wood and colourless basalt, blind and pock-pitted where his bull head and his human neck had been robbed of the jewelled eyes and the precious stones with which he had once been inlaid. And Lucius felt so deep a compassion within himself for the fading god, once all-honoured and now forgotten in his distant, sinking temple in the Libyan desert, that he bent his knees in pity and reverence.The Jewish seer, who lived in the cave of Neith, had haply seen the new god, the Son of Jahve, crowned with light for days and days. Here, in the immensity of his ruined sanctuary, Lucius beheld the fading of the god who was forgotten, but whom, centuries ago, Alexander of Macedon had travelled through whirlwinds and sand-storms to seek.When Lucius looked up, he was alone with the old high-priest:“Father,” he said, kneeling, “I would know the truth. I would know if what I believe to be the truth, revealed to me by oracle after oracle, is the truth to Jupiter Ammon-Râ.”“My son,” said the priest, “the truth does not shine forth until after meditation,after contemplation and pious prayers, after days and nights of communing with the deity. I will be your intermediary. And you shall know what you would know, if you have faith.”“Father,” said Lucius, “I lay my forehead, heavy with care and suffering and doubt, in your holy hands.”And he bowed his head towards the priest’s open palms.He remained five days and nights together with the priest. In the temple, the golden shadows of the day changed into the blue shadows of the night and the glittering of the sun into the flickering of the lamps. There was prayer and fasting and the touch of soul to soul.

Chapter XXI

There was a dense wood of palm-trees through which the travellers made their way to the temple of Ammon-Râ, whose walls lay spread like a town.“See, my lord,” said Caleb, walking ahead and pointing, “these are male palm-trees; and those more slender ones are female; and they marry one another, my lord, and feel love for one another; they grow towards one another, see, my lord, like these two; and they wave to one another and the male fructifies the female; and it is only when they love each other that the fruits are luxuriant and their honey and wine pleasant to the taste.”“It is as Caleb says,” Tarrar assented. “The palm-trees in my country marry one another and they are the most excellent in the whole world.”“They also marry in Saba,” said Caleb, in pique. “We have sweeter honey anddate-wine in Saba than you have here in Libya.”A heated discussion arose between Caleb and Tarrar upon the respective merits of the Sabæan and Libyan palm-trees. But the travellers were now entering the first gate of the temple.There was a triple row of walls round the old sanctuary, but they were falling into ruins, the obelisks were sinking away, the sphinxes were covered with luxuriant, flowering creepers, tall grasses shot up between the flag-stones of the dromos and all the doors were open. There was a deep shade from the leafy tops of the turpentine-trees, which were fragrant with heavy perfumes in the sunshine. The fleshy aloes drove their sword-like leaves over the walls; and their long stalks blossomed with huge scarlet flowers which smoked as though with incense. But it was above all the daturas whose pendant alabaster goblets poured forth a giddiness, an intoxication of heavy scents, around which the great Atlas moths flew slowly hovering.There were no door-keepers; and the travellers walked on, through the endless dromos. The monolithic colossi rose oneither hand; but they also were shelving to one side, or sinking away. Lastly, from out of the vista of the pylons, which stood in endless row after row, a group of priests approached the travellers. It was the high-priest of Ammon-Râ, accompanied by eleven other priests; and they were all very old and grey. They all had grey locks and they all wore long, grey beards. They all wore long, fiery red robes; and, when they drew near in procession, they were like gods in their placid dignity.They did not wish to betray their surprise to the travellers. The oracle of Ammon was no longer visited as it had been visited two centuries ago. It was no longer held in honour; the temple was fallen into decay; summers would pass without the advent of a single pilgrim. But Lucius had wanted to consult the oracle of Ammon just because its historic past gave it a poetic charm for him. And, when he saw the high-priest approach, he stretched out his hands in reverence to the ground and knelt and bowed his head; and Thrasyllus, Caleb and Tarrar knelt and bowed behind him.“What do you seek, my son?” asked the centenarian high-priest.“The truth,” replied Lucius.“Then enter into the House of the Sun,” the high-priest ordained.And the travellers rose; and the priests gladly led the way. They led their visitors through the pronaos and naos to the secos, to the holy of holies. And, pointing in the golden shade of midday dusk, between pillars like tree-trunks, to the enormous statue of Ammon-Râ, old as time, the sun-god with the bull’s head, the high-priest continued:“The Sun reveals the truth to him who is worthy to hear it, even as ages ago he revealed the truth to Alexander of Macedon. Before his coming, the deity uttered himself only by moving his brows and wrinkling his bull forehead between his divine horns. But the deity addressed Alexander of Macedon with the sound of his lowing voice and told him, in words plainly audible to the king and all his following, that he was the son of the Sun, the son of Jupiter Ammon-Râ.”Lucius looked up at the statue. In the golden twilight of the temple, where the noontide daylight filtered in and broke between the pillars in a shimmer of dust, he saw the supreme god, who was no longerheld in honour, wrapped in shadow, paintless wood and colourless basalt, blind and pock-pitted where his bull head and his human neck had been robbed of the jewelled eyes and the precious stones with which he had once been inlaid. And Lucius felt so deep a compassion within himself for the fading god, once all-honoured and now forgotten in his distant, sinking temple in the Libyan desert, that he bent his knees in pity and reverence.The Jewish seer, who lived in the cave of Neith, had haply seen the new god, the Son of Jahve, crowned with light for days and days. Here, in the immensity of his ruined sanctuary, Lucius beheld the fading of the god who was forgotten, but whom, centuries ago, Alexander of Macedon had travelled through whirlwinds and sand-storms to seek.When Lucius looked up, he was alone with the old high-priest:“Father,” he said, kneeling, “I would know the truth. I would know if what I believe to be the truth, revealed to me by oracle after oracle, is the truth to Jupiter Ammon-Râ.”“My son,” said the priest, “the truth does not shine forth until after meditation,after contemplation and pious prayers, after days and nights of communing with the deity. I will be your intermediary. And you shall know what you would know, if you have faith.”“Father,” said Lucius, “I lay my forehead, heavy with care and suffering and doubt, in your holy hands.”And he bowed his head towards the priest’s open palms.He remained five days and nights together with the priest. In the temple, the golden shadows of the day changed into the blue shadows of the night and the glittering of the sun into the flickering of the lamps. There was prayer and fasting and the touch of soul to soul.

There was a dense wood of palm-trees through which the travellers made their way to the temple of Ammon-Râ, whose walls lay spread like a town.

“See, my lord,” said Caleb, walking ahead and pointing, “these are male palm-trees; and those more slender ones are female; and they marry one another, my lord, and feel love for one another; they grow towards one another, see, my lord, like these two; and they wave to one another and the male fructifies the female; and it is only when they love each other that the fruits are luxuriant and their honey and wine pleasant to the taste.”

“It is as Caleb says,” Tarrar assented. “The palm-trees in my country marry one another and they are the most excellent in the whole world.”

“They also marry in Saba,” said Caleb, in pique. “We have sweeter honey anddate-wine in Saba than you have here in Libya.”

A heated discussion arose between Caleb and Tarrar upon the respective merits of the Sabæan and Libyan palm-trees. But the travellers were now entering the first gate of the temple.

There was a triple row of walls round the old sanctuary, but they were falling into ruins, the obelisks were sinking away, the sphinxes were covered with luxuriant, flowering creepers, tall grasses shot up between the flag-stones of the dromos and all the doors were open. There was a deep shade from the leafy tops of the turpentine-trees, which were fragrant with heavy perfumes in the sunshine. The fleshy aloes drove their sword-like leaves over the walls; and their long stalks blossomed with huge scarlet flowers which smoked as though with incense. But it was above all the daturas whose pendant alabaster goblets poured forth a giddiness, an intoxication of heavy scents, around which the great Atlas moths flew slowly hovering.

There were no door-keepers; and the travellers walked on, through the endless dromos. The monolithic colossi rose oneither hand; but they also were shelving to one side, or sinking away. Lastly, from out of the vista of the pylons, which stood in endless row after row, a group of priests approached the travellers. It was the high-priest of Ammon-Râ, accompanied by eleven other priests; and they were all very old and grey. They all had grey locks and they all wore long, grey beards. They all wore long, fiery red robes; and, when they drew near in procession, they were like gods in their placid dignity.

They did not wish to betray their surprise to the travellers. The oracle of Ammon was no longer visited as it had been visited two centuries ago. It was no longer held in honour; the temple was fallen into decay; summers would pass without the advent of a single pilgrim. But Lucius had wanted to consult the oracle of Ammon just because its historic past gave it a poetic charm for him. And, when he saw the high-priest approach, he stretched out his hands in reverence to the ground and knelt and bowed his head; and Thrasyllus, Caleb and Tarrar knelt and bowed behind him.

“What do you seek, my son?” asked the centenarian high-priest.

“The truth,” replied Lucius.

“Then enter into the House of the Sun,” the high-priest ordained.

And the travellers rose; and the priests gladly led the way. They led their visitors through the pronaos and naos to the secos, to the holy of holies. And, pointing in the golden shade of midday dusk, between pillars like tree-trunks, to the enormous statue of Ammon-Râ, old as time, the sun-god with the bull’s head, the high-priest continued:

“The Sun reveals the truth to him who is worthy to hear it, even as ages ago he revealed the truth to Alexander of Macedon. Before his coming, the deity uttered himself only by moving his brows and wrinkling his bull forehead between his divine horns. But the deity addressed Alexander of Macedon with the sound of his lowing voice and told him, in words plainly audible to the king and all his following, that he was the son of the Sun, the son of Jupiter Ammon-Râ.”

Lucius looked up at the statue. In the golden twilight of the temple, where the noontide daylight filtered in and broke between the pillars in a shimmer of dust, he saw the supreme god, who was no longerheld in honour, wrapped in shadow, paintless wood and colourless basalt, blind and pock-pitted where his bull head and his human neck had been robbed of the jewelled eyes and the precious stones with which he had once been inlaid. And Lucius felt so deep a compassion within himself for the fading god, once all-honoured and now forgotten in his distant, sinking temple in the Libyan desert, that he bent his knees in pity and reverence.

The Jewish seer, who lived in the cave of Neith, had haply seen the new god, the Son of Jahve, crowned with light for days and days. Here, in the immensity of his ruined sanctuary, Lucius beheld the fading of the god who was forgotten, but whom, centuries ago, Alexander of Macedon had travelled through whirlwinds and sand-storms to seek.

When Lucius looked up, he was alone with the old high-priest:

“Father,” he said, kneeling, “I would know the truth. I would know if what I believe to be the truth, revealed to me by oracle after oracle, is the truth to Jupiter Ammon-Râ.”

“My son,” said the priest, “the truth does not shine forth until after meditation,after contemplation and pious prayers, after days and nights of communing with the deity. I will be your intermediary. And you shall know what you would know, if you have faith.”

“Father,” said Lucius, “I lay my forehead, heavy with care and suffering and doubt, in your holy hands.”

And he bowed his head towards the priest’s open palms.

He remained five days and nights together with the priest. In the temple, the golden shadows of the day changed into the blue shadows of the night and the glittering of the sun into the flickering of the lamps. There was prayer and fasting and the touch of soul to soul.

Chapter XXIIAfter five days and nights, Lucius knew. Pale, tired and enlightened, he sought out his followers, Thrasyllus, Caleb and Tarrar, who were staying in the great, cavernous rooms of the temple. And he was calm, peaceful and dignified. He bathed and ate and slept. And at night, in the silence of the temple-grounds, which wove itself into one mystic atmosphere with the golden gleam of the stars, he woke Tarrar and said:“Take this sycamore box.”It was a small casket of delicate workmanship, which had always accompanied him wherever he went.Tarrar, heavy with sleep, took up the little box.“Follow me,” said Lucius.The little slave, in astonishment, followed his master. Lucius passed through the shadow-haunted temple-precincts, which stretched endlessly in every direction. He went through the parks, which were haunted with sphinxes and obelisks and thick withthe sultry heat of datura-scent. He went through the whole oasis, under the grove of palm-trees and past the huts of the natives.Tarrar followed him. The little slave felt, inquisitively, that the sycamore casket was not locked. He opened it for an instant; and by the flickering starlight Tarrar saw a small woman’s sandal, which he knew. The little slave wondered and wondered. But he continued to follow his master, faithfully; he would have followed him to the death.They came to the desert. The master entered the desert; and Tarrar continued to wonder. The starry night now spread its dome over their heads; the silvery sands lay outstretched before him.“Dig,” Lucius commanded, suddenly turning round.Tarrar gave a start. He put down the casket in the sand and dug a hole with his hands.“Deeper,” Lucius commanded. “Dig deeper.”The little slave dug; quickly, like a little monkey, he dug the hole deep with his two hands.“Put the casket in the hole,” Lucius commanded.Tarrar did so and looked at his master.“Cover the casket up with sand.”Tarrar did as his master commanded. Then Lucius said:“Now come back.”And he went back to the oasis; but Tarrar, before following him, stamped down the sand under which the casket lay buried and overwhelmed it, amid violent gestures of delight, with native curses, curses not to be averted, in the Libyan tongue.

Chapter XXII

After five days and nights, Lucius knew. Pale, tired and enlightened, he sought out his followers, Thrasyllus, Caleb and Tarrar, who were staying in the great, cavernous rooms of the temple. And he was calm, peaceful and dignified. He bathed and ate and slept. And at night, in the silence of the temple-grounds, which wove itself into one mystic atmosphere with the golden gleam of the stars, he woke Tarrar and said:“Take this sycamore box.”It was a small casket of delicate workmanship, which had always accompanied him wherever he went.Tarrar, heavy with sleep, took up the little box.“Follow me,” said Lucius.The little slave, in astonishment, followed his master. Lucius passed through the shadow-haunted temple-precincts, which stretched endlessly in every direction. He went through the parks, which were haunted with sphinxes and obelisks and thick withthe sultry heat of datura-scent. He went through the whole oasis, under the grove of palm-trees and past the huts of the natives.Tarrar followed him. The little slave felt, inquisitively, that the sycamore casket was not locked. He opened it for an instant; and by the flickering starlight Tarrar saw a small woman’s sandal, which he knew. The little slave wondered and wondered. But he continued to follow his master, faithfully; he would have followed him to the death.They came to the desert. The master entered the desert; and Tarrar continued to wonder. The starry night now spread its dome over their heads; the silvery sands lay outstretched before him.“Dig,” Lucius commanded, suddenly turning round.Tarrar gave a start. He put down the casket in the sand and dug a hole with his hands.“Deeper,” Lucius commanded. “Dig deeper.”The little slave dug; quickly, like a little monkey, he dug the hole deep with his two hands.“Put the casket in the hole,” Lucius commanded.Tarrar did so and looked at his master.“Cover the casket up with sand.”Tarrar did as his master commanded. Then Lucius said:“Now come back.”And he went back to the oasis; but Tarrar, before following him, stamped down the sand under which the casket lay buried and overwhelmed it, amid violent gestures of delight, with native curses, curses not to be averted, in the Libyan tongue.

After five days and nights, Lucius knew. Pale, tired and enlightened, he sought out his followers, Thrasyllus, Caleb and Tarrar, who were staying in the great, cavernous rooms of the temple. And he was calm, peaceful and dignified. He bathed and ate and slept. And at night, in the silence of the temple-grounds, which wove itself into one mystic atmosphere with the golden gleam of the stars, he woke Tarrar and said:

“Take this sycamore box.”

It was a small casket of delicate workmanship, which had always accompanied him wherever he went.

Tarrar, heavy with sleep, took up the little box.

“Follow me,” said Lucius.

The little slave, in astonishment, followed his master. Lucius passed through the shadow-haunted temple-precincts, which stretched endlessly in every direction. He went through the parks, which were haunted with sphinxes and obelisks and thick withthe sultry heat of datura-scent. He went through the whole oasis, under the grove of palm-trees and past the huts of the natives.

Tarrar followed him. The little slave felt, inquisitively, that the sycamore casket was not locked. He opened it for an instant; and by the flickering starlight Tarrar saw a small woman’s sandal, which he knew. The little slave wondered and wondered. But he continued to follow his master, faithfully; he would have followed him to the death.

They came to the desert. The master entered the desert; and Tarrar continued to wonder. The starry night now spread its dome over their heads; the silvery sands lay outstretched before him.

“Dig,” Lucius commanded, suddenly turning round.

Tarrar gave a start. He put down the casket in the sand and dug a hole with his hands.

“Deeper,” Lucius commanded. “Dig deeper.”

The little slave dug; quickly, like a little monkey, he dug the hole deep with his two hands.

“Put the casket in the hole,” Lucius commanded.

Tarrar did so and looked at his master.

“Cover the casket up with sand.”

Tarrar did as his master commanded. Then Lucius said:

“Now come back.”

And he went back to the oasis; but Tarrar, before following him, stamped down the sand under which the casket lay buried and overwhelmed it, amid violent gestures of delight, with native curses, curses not to be averted, in the Libyan tongue.

Chapter XXIIIThe travellers had returned to Memphis and Caleb displayed the skin of a lion which had been shot in the desert and told the people in the thalamegus terrible tales of desert ghosts and dread visions. The barge was now gliding up the Nile in the night; the sky was softly blue, like dark byssus; the water was a pale blue, like rippling silk; and the waning moon hung above the palm-clusters and country-mansions on the river-bank like a great, overripe fruit which threatened to burst in the sky and whose juice was already trickling in thick orange drops that flowed far over the Nile.And, while the rowers’ monotonous chant resounded with the regular beat of the oars, Thrasyllus, sitting beside Lucius, gave way to melancholy and said:“Egypt is Egypt no longer. Alexandria is a commercial town; Memphis is a decaying greatness; and the priests are venal and no longer know the Hermetic wisdom. I have sought for five days among the dusty papyriof the neglected library in the temple of Ammon; it is as though all that is worth knowing were hiding itself.”“The priests must be hiding the Hermetic wisdom on purpose,” said Lucius.“They used to do so in other days for Plato and Pythagoras, when their souls were lofty and incorruptible. Nowadays they show what they have and tell what they know for money. But what they have is not more than we in Rome possess in the temple of Isis; and what they know is not the key to happiness. And yet ... and yet I believe in a sacred word, handed down in the wisdom of the Kabbala by word of mouth, from father to son. But I have not yet received it from any priest, neither at Memphis nor in the oasis. And yet I have hopes. There is Thebes; and there are the secrets of Ethiopia ... down to the pillars of Sesostris.”Lucius smiled gently:“The word,” he said, “the secret of happiness ... Thrasyllus, is happiness not an illusion of the brain? Does happiness not lie in resigning one’s self piously to one’s fate and is the secret word not the proud ‘Be a god unto yourself’?”The old man started. And he whispered:“You also? Have you also heard that word, asIheard it at Sais? I took no account of it, it did not satisfy me.”“It satisfied me in the oasis, because it is a proud, strong word and I have needed pride and strength ... since I haveknown, Thrasyllus.”“Known what, Lucius?”“That Carus stole Ilia from me.”The old man started violently:“You know?” he exclaimed. “You know?Whotold you?Whobetrayed the secret?”“The voice itself within my own soul, which the oracles caused to speak to me. My own thoughts, tossing this way and that, which the oracles guided. From the sibyl of Rhacotis, who merely guessed my own thoughts, down to the old high-priest of Ammon-Râ, who spoke to me like a father ... and who said to me the word, ‘Be a god unto yourself!’”“As Nemu-Pha said to me, at Sais. I paid for it in gold.”“I paid for it in gold in the oasis. But what does that matter, Thrasyllus? The word gave me strength and pride.”“O my son, if you could be cured of your sorrow, of your grief!”“They are no longer in me. I no longer have any grief, no longer any sorrow. I am a god unto myself.”“The gods suffer. Isis suffered because of Osiris. All the gods suffer.”“I suffer no longer. My grief has departed from me. The world and life are beautiful. See, the colours and the light are beautiful. The sky is softly blue, like dark byssus; the water ripples like blue silk; and the moon is like a great, overripe fruit which bursts in the sky and whose juice trickles over the Nile. To-morrow the day will bring another beauty. In these successive beauties, Thrasyllus, I will be a god unto myself.”“O my son, though I did not tell you the word myself, I am so happy that you yourself found the word!”In the night there sounded the high, rising tones of a harp, followed by Cora’s crystal-clear voice, which was accompanied by other harps and other voices.“The word of pride, the word of strength,Thrasyllus,” said Lucius, calmly; and the old tutor saw a tranquil smile on his young master’s face as he added, “The word that almost makes me happy.”

Chapter XXIII

The travellers had returned to Memphis and Caleb displayed the skin of a lion which had been shot in the desert and told the people in the thalamegus terrible tales of desert ghosts and dread visions. The barge was now gliding up the Nile in the night; the sky was softly blue, like dark byssus; the water was a pale blue, like rippling silk; and the waning moon hung above the palm-clusters and country-mansions on the river-bank like a great, overripe fruit which threatened to burst in the sky and whose juice was already trickling in thick orange drops that flowed far over the Nile.And, while the rowers’ monotonous chant resounded with the regular beat of the oars, Thrasyllus, sitting beside Lucius, gave way to melancholy and said:“Egypt is Egypt no longer. Alexandria is a commercial town; Memphis is a decaying greatness; and the priests are venal and no longer know the Hermetic wisdom. I have sought for five days among the dusty papyriof the neglected library in the temple of Ammon; it is as though all that is worth knowing were hiding itself.”“The priests must be hiding the Hermetic wisdom on purpose,” said Lucius.“They used to do so in other days for Plato and Pythagoras, when their souls were lofty and incorruptible. Nowadays they show what they have and tell what they know for money. But what they have is not more than we in Rome possess in the temple of Isis; and what they know is not the key to happiness. And yet ... and yet I believe in a sacred word, handed down in the wisdom of the Kabbala by word of mouth, from father to son. But I have not yet received it from any priest, neither at Memphis nor in the oasis. And yet I have hopes. There is Thebes; and there are the secrets of Ethiopia ... down to the pillars of Sesostris.”Lucius smiled gently:“The word,” he said, “the secret of happiness ... Thrasyllus, is happiness not an illusion of the brain? Does happiness not lie in resigning one’s self piously to one’s fate and is the secret word not the proud ‘Be a god unto yourself’?”The old man started. And he whispered:“You also? Have you also heard that word, asIheard it at Sais? I took no account of it, it did not satisfy me.”“It satisfied me in the oasis, because it is a proud, strong word and I have needed pride and strength ... since I haveknown, Thrasyllus.”“Known what, Lucius?”“That Carus stole Ilia from me.”The old man started violently:“You know?” he exclaimed. “You know?Whotold you?Whobetrayed the secret?”“The voice itself within my own soul, which the oracles caused to speak to me. My own thoughts, tossing this way and that, which the oracles guided. From the sibyl of Rhacotis, who merely guessed my own thoughts, down to the old high-priest of Ammon-Râ, who spoke to me like a father ... and who said to me the word, ‘Be a god unto yourself!’”“As Nemu-Pha said to me, at Sais. I paid for it in gold.”“I paid for it in gold in the oasis. But what does that matter, Thrasyllus? The word gave me strength and pride.”“O my son, if you could be cured of your sorrow, of your grief!”“They are no longer in me. I no longer have any grief, no longer any sorrow. I am a god unto myself.”“The gods suffer. Isis suffered because of Osiris. All the gods suffer.”“I suffer no longer. My grief has departed from me. The world and life are beautiful. See, the colours and the light are beautiful. The sky is softly blue, like dark byssus; the water ripples like blue silk; and the moon is like a great, overripe fruit which bursts in the sky and whose juice trickles over the Nile. To-morrow the day will bring another beauty. In these successive beauties, Thrasyllus, I will be a god unto myself.”“O my son, though I did not tell you the word myself, I am so happy that you yourself found the word!”In the night there sounded the high, rising tones of a harp, followed by Cora’s crystal-clear voice, which was accompanied by other harps and other voices.“The word of pride, the word of strength,Thrasyllus,” said Lucius, calmly; and the old tutor saw a tranquil smile on his young master’s face as he added, “The word that almost makes me happy.”

The travellers had returned to Memphis and Caleb displayed the skin of a lion which had been shot in the desert and told the people in the thalamegus terrible tales of desert ghosts and dread visions. The barge was now gliding up the Nile in the night; the sky was softly blue, like dark byssus; the water was a pale blue, like rippling silk; and the waning moon hung above the palm-clusters and country-mansions on the river-bank like a great, overripe fruit which threatened to burst in the sky and whose juice was already trickling in thick orange drops that flowed far over the Nile.

And, while the rowers’ monotonous chant resounded with the regular beat of the oars, Thrasyllus, sitting beside Lucius, gave way to melancholy and said:

“Egypt is Egypt no longer. Alexandria is a commercial town; Memphis is a decaying greatness; and the priests are venal and no longer know the Hermetic wisdom. I have sought for five days among the dusty papyriof the neglected library in the temple of Ammon; it is as though all that is worth knowing were hiding itself.”

“The priests must be hiding the Hermetic wisdom on purpose,” said Lucius.

“They used to do so in other days for Plato and Pythagoras, when their souls were lofty and incorruptible. Nowadays they show what they have and tell what they know for money. But what they have is not more than we in Rome possess in the temple of Isis; and what they know is not the key to happiness. And yet ... and yet I believe in a sacred word, handed down in the wisdom of the Kabbala by word of mouth, from father to son. But I have not yet received it from any priest, neither at Memphis nor in the oasis. And yet I have hopes. There is Thebes; and there are the secrets of Ethiopia ... down to the pillars of Sesostris.”

Lucius smiled gently:

“The word,” he said, “the secret of happiness ... Thrasyllus, is happiness not an illusion of the brain? Does happiness not lie in resigning one’s self piously to one’s fate and is the secret word not the proud ‘Be a god unto yourself’?”

The old man started. And he whispered:

“You also? Have you also heard that word, asIheard it at Sais? I took no account of it, it did not satisfy me.”

“It satisfied me in the oasis, because it is a proud, strong word and I have needed pride and strength ... since I haveknown, Thrasyllus.”

“Known what, Lucius?”

“That Carus stole Ilia from me.”

The old man started violently:

“You know?” he exclaimed. “You know?Whotold you?Whobetrayed the secret?”

“The voice itself within my own soul, which the oracles caused to speak to me. My own thoughts, tossing this way and that, which the oracles guided. From the sibyl of Rhacotis, who merely guessed my own thoughts, down to the old high-priest of Ammon-Râ, who spoke to me like a father ... and who said to me the word, ‘Be a god unto yourself!’”

“As Nemu-Pha said to me, at Sais. I paid for it in gold.”

“I paid for it in gold in the oasis. But what does that matter, Thrasyllus? The word gave me strength and pride.”

“O my son, if you could be cured of your sorrow, of your grief!”

“They are no longer in me. I no longer have any grief, no longer any sorrow. I am a god unto myself.”

“The gods suffer. Isis suffered because of Osiris. All the gods suffer.”

“I suffer no longer. My grief has departed from me. The world and life are beautiful. See, the colours and the light are beautiful. The sky is softly blue, like dark byssus; the water ripples like blue silk; and the moon is like a great, overripe fruit which bursts in the sky and whose juice trickles over the Nile. To-morrow the day will bring another beauty. In these successive beauties, Thrasyllus, I will be a god unto myself.”

“O my son, though I did not tell you the word myself, I am so happy that you yourself found the word!”

In the night there sounded the high, rising tones of a harp, followed by Cora’s crystal-clear voice, which was accompanied by other harps and other voices.

“The word of pride, the word of strength,Thrasyllus,” said Lucius, calmly; and the old tutor saw a tranquil smile on his young master’s face as he added, “The word that almost makes me happy.”

Chapter XXIVAfter the abundant dews of the night came the delight of the cool-warm summer day. The clustering trees now pressed their way forward more richly and luxuriously along the banks of the Nile. Here, on the Libyan side, lay the town of Acanthus, with its temple of Osiris in a spreading wood of Theban acanthus-trees, of which the natives tap the fragrant gums. Next, on the Arabian bank, came Aphroditopolis, the second town of the name, with the temple of the White Cow; and then the travellers reached the Heracleotic nome, a big island in the Nile, from which a canal cuts through the Arsinoic nome, the most fertile in the whole country. Here and here alone the olive-tree flourished in dense, silvery woods; but here also there twisted and twined, in close festoons, the vine-branches, on which the grapes were beginning to swell; here the fruit-trees bent under their heavy load and the orchards stretched; here the sickles of the husbandmen waved through the abundant ears ofcorn. Here the fat soil yielded wealth and prosperity; here the innumerable sheep spread in a wave of wool over the hills, like a shadowy white sea. Here, between margins of sands, Lake Mœris stretched exquisite and crystal blue to the horizon, as it were a fresh-water inland sea. In earlier ages, the ocean must have extended to those margins and stolen the whole northern land of Lower Egypt, that gift of the Nile, as Herodotus had called it long ago. Here the double lotus-flowers were trained to blossom in the waters; and here the sacred scarabs were bred and worshipped upon the white flowers.Lucius would wander alone of a morning, strolling along the banks of the lake. It was so strangely calm here and so divinely beautiful; and a heaven-sent consolation filled the air. These were the regions blest by the gods; and it pleased Lucius to linger here. The thalamegus lay moored under acanthus-trees; the flowering reeds shot up to a man’s height around her. And every afternoon, at sunset, Lucius, sometimes accompanied by Thrasyllus, sometimes alone, walked to the labyrinth.The road lay along the waterworks of the canal, where daily, under the supervisionof the engineers, the quantity of water that flowed in and out of the lake through the canal was closely gauged. The tilled and inhabited lands around Lake Mœris, large as a sea, were never flooded. If the Nile increased, all that happened was that the blue crystal mirror of the lake rose. If the waters of the river fell, then those of the lake filled them up, by careful management of the sluices. The water was never other than a benevolent deity.Along the waterworks ran the road to the labyrinth. In the sinking glory of the sun, in blood-red and orange splendours, Lucius saw it daily, the strange Titanic town of monoliths, the linked rows of palaces and courts, projecting their columns endlessly, endlessly, towards the sunlit horizon. Orange and blood-red gleams glowed over the flat stone tables of the roofs, which were not higher than a single pillared storey and which spread out their immense terrace like a paved desert. There were twenty palaces, each surrounded by twenty-seven monolithic columns; and all this wondrous architecture of past centuries was without a beam of wood, was without cement or masonry, was simply stone laid upon stone withfaultless precision and column hewn beside column, absolutely circular, each column a single stone. At the end of the palaces, which were a stadium long, rose the square pyramid, the tomb of the builder, King Amenemha.The holy place was guarded by priests, who led Lucius through the halls and crypts. The twenty palaces represented the former twenty Egyptian nomes, or provinces; and the emissaries of each province used to gather with their priests and priestesses in their palace or court and offer up sacrifices and discuss great questions of policy or local welfare. But nowadays the palaces were deserted, the crypts were deserted, and the priests led Lucius along endless, deserted, winding corridors which meandered from palace to palace. The torches smeared the walls with blood-red light, smeared the smooth stone walls of the corridors and halls and floors and ceilings, stone after stone upon stone of wonderful dimensions all resting one upon another without cement. And to Lucius it was one of the marvels of the world, even more marvellous, because of its sublime human architecture, than the pyramids had been.Travelling on camels with Uncle Catullus and a great retinue, Lucius went a hundred stadia farther, to Arsinoe-Crocodilopolis. The trees flourished more richly, more luxuriantly, like a richly-wooded park around the travellers, till they came to the sacred lake where the sacred crocodile, named Such, was held in veneration.“Well,” said Uncle Catullus, “here’s another of these little pets which are kept for the edification of foreigners!”And in fact the priests who came to meet the travellers in front of the dromos of the sacred lake, surrounded on every side with pillars, first amiably demanded a stater a head as entrance-fee, while Caleb, of course, had seen to a supply of rich provisions, as an offering to the deity. The slaves carried baskets with cakes, roast meats and jars of hydromel.In the lake lay Such, the huge monster; but the priests had tamed the terrible deity: they were luring him from the middle of the lake, where his temple was, to the bank, because some Persian visitors happened to have arrived before Lucius and wished to present their offerings. On the edge of the lake the priests took Such fearlessly by histerrible jaws and made him swallow the cakes and meat and wine of the Persian grandees, who were greatly diverted and laughed aloud.“They must be great noblemen,” said Caleb, “and are going from the pillars of Sesostris to Alexandria, even as you, my noble lords, are going from Alexandria to the pillars of Sesostris. My lord, if you permit me, I should much like to exchange a few words with the guide of the Persian lords.”Lucius gave his permission; and the crocodile, who had swallowed his Persian presents, swam back to the middle of the lake. But the priests now quickly lured him to the other side, where Lucius was waiting; and the ever greedy crocodile approached; and the priests again took him fearlessly by his terrible jaws and the monster now swallowed Lucius’ gifts, the cakes, the roast meat, as though insatiable; and the priests, laughing, emptied a jar of hydromel into his maw.Meanwhile, Caleb, after a few words with the guide, had sunk in salaams before the Persian lords.“He’s offering the Persians his diversorium,” said Uncle Catullus, jestingly.And in fact Caleb, in a few minutes, came back happy and swaggering to his own travellers and said, in a mysterious whisper:“I have recommended their Persian lordships to be sure to stop at the Hermes House at Alexandria; and I slipped a gold ptolemy into their guide’s hand. Yes, my lords, business is business; and, if we did no business at Alexandria, I could never hope to see my beloved Saba again. For there you must havedonebusiness, if you want to live in the country; there’s no business to be donethere, my lords.”By way of Heracleopolis, where divine honours were paid to the ichneumon, the spotted rat that devours the eggs of the adders and attacks the adders themselves, after first rolling itself in the mud, which dries round its body and forms an armour, the travellers reached Cynopolis, where the dog is worshipped as Anubis, and Oxyrynchus, where the fish of the name is venerated. And it now appeared that, in this region of Heptanomis, where, on the Arabian side of the Nile, the strange battlements of the blinding white Alabastrites Mountains blaze against the sky, all animals received divine honours, as though the priests had institutedthese popular forms of worship in great numbers everywhere, so that they might the more carefully keep to themselves the secret Hermetic wisdom. Cats and falcons, sheep and wolves, baboons and zebus, eagles and lions, goats and spiders: all the animals were worshipped in one or other town or village; all the animals had their temples and priests; and Uncle Catullus said that he grew weary of having to admire so many sacred animals, especially as Apis, the little bull, and Such, the crocodile, were after all the only ones that were really interesting to see. But all these cattle, all these birds and fishes, all these creatures, from carnivora down to insects, were worshipped, tended, fed and shown in the temples to strangers, each time at a piece of gold a head. No, it was really too silly, especially when, after the first Crocodilopolis, on the left, the second Crocodilopolis appeared on the right, on the bank of the Nile, with another Such!“Lucius,” said Uncle Catullus, “honestly, I’m not going to feed any more sacred crocodiles, nor any sacred goats or cats or beetles either. I’ve seen enough of all those pests, do you hear, nephew?”And Lucius and Thrasyllus were inclined to agree with Uncle Catullus; and the barge sped past the wondrous purple of the Porphyrites Mountains, gold-ruddy crests in the orange evening sky, up to Ptolemais, the greatest town in the Thebais.Ptolemais was a prosperous city, ruled like Alexandria by a municipal government founded on the Greek model; but after Ptolemais the travellers were especially charmed with Abydos. Here they saw the Memnonium, which was not so gigantic as the labyrinth, but which still was built of great single blocks of stone, according to that same marvellous system of lost ancient architecture. They also saw the underground well, which is reached by vaults and galleries, a subterranean miracle of monoliths, always fitted to one another and upon one another, without masonry. The temple of Apollo rose in a flowering acacia-wood, as in a sudden dream of swarming white, fragrant blossoms.LesserDiospolisand Tentyra followed. The Tentyrians worship Aphrodite and hunt the crocodile, which they destroy wherever they can; and Uncle Catullus said that they showed good taste in this civilized choice.After the half-Arabian Coptos and Apollonopolis, Thebes loomed into view, with its hundred gates, the gates which Homer sang, the gates through which two hundred warriors, with all their horses and chariots, could pass. And, as the travellers drew near, in the rosy dawn behind Thebes, the Smaragdis Hills appeared in green outline, transparent and far-away as a dream, through the misty light of the horizon.Thebes was already called Greater Diospolis and worshipped Zeus-Jupiter.“Heaven be praised!” said Uncle Catullus. “The Upper Egyptians are become sensible. Venus and Jupiter are once more held in honour! Every conceivable sort of crocodile, goat, dog, rat, falcon and beetle is done with. It was high time!”Like Memphis, Thebes spread itself as an immense, ancient, but dying city. For eighty stadia along the Nile its ancient palaces and temples stood in an endless row, forsaken, ruined, cracking, slanting and sinking, with their pillars and walls, their mutilated colossi and sphinxes, their obelisks already fallen to the ground. Even in the sun, a grey melancholy spread over the great city, whose streets, indeed, werecrowded with numbers of pedestrians, camels and litters, but without the feverish, metropolitan bustle which had reigned at Alexandria. The gloom of a fatally waning glory lay like a haze over all this architectural immensity, which Cambyses, with his Persian hordes, had in past ages destroyed beyond repair, as with gigantic hammer-strokes.In the moonlit night the city, with its vast outlines, with its endless row of Titanic palaces, rose beside the Nile like a Titanic citadel, mysteriously chilling to the heart. In these abandoned temples the lost wisdom especially had been cultivated by the omniscient priests, the heirs of Moses and of Hermes Trismegistus. Here the utmost wisdom of philosophy and astronomy and astrology was known. Here the year and the day were calculated by the sun and no longer, as of yore, by the moon; here the year was divided into twelve months of thirty days, with five intercalary days; and here was calculated the time that must be added to the three hundred and sixty-five days in order to arrive at the exact length of the year. The kings who reigned here reigned, according to the hieroglyphs on theobelisks, over Scythia, Bactria, Ionia and India! They had ruled the world, in the deep-sunk centuries! In the measureless spaces of their immense palaces and temples, from which the Nile, flowing silver in the moonlight, could be seen through the rows of pylons gleaming as it had gleamed centuries ago, not an atom remained of the material or immaterial life of this long, long array of monarchs. Their names alone were still extant, written on cracking or mutilated obelisks, but their history lingered only in a few disputed legends. The unplumbed depth of the past made Lucius’ sensitive mind turn giddy. Yet, as he wandered by Thrasyllus’ side through the endless forsaken halls and rooms and courts, here dark with shadow, there lighted by the spectral moon, he was charmed by the sombre beauty and grandeur of that giddy depth.Here, too, stood a monolithic memnonium. Next came, linked together, the forty royal tombs hewn in the rock. And, in front of this Titanic ruin, in which not a mummy remained, the travellers saw, in the moonlit night, the two seated colossi, themselves carved out of monoliths; but one, with the trunk broken off—by what power?—hadfallen in the high grass, while the other still stared towards the east, in the hieratic attitude, the long hands upon the knees, the pschent crowning the vast, ecstatic head, with its huge, staring, sightless eyes, from which the enamel had disappeared and the jewelled pupils.The travellers stood in silence before the statue in the moonlight; and even Uncle Catullus refrained from jesting. The atmosphere at this spot was woven of shimmering divinity. The moon was waning, the dawn was rising rose-red. And, as though with a human voice, a single note sounded from the statue. The note was intoned clearly and almost plaintively; it developed into the powerful sound of a man’s high voice, swelled into something terribly human and almost divine and broke off short and hard. They all heard it in the uncertain light: Lucius, Thrasyllus, Catullus, Caleb, Cora, all the slaves, male and female, who had accompanied the travellers. Caleb turned very pale and time after time pressed his lips to his amulets.And, motionless and now silent, the blind colossus stared towards the sun, which wasrising out of a sea of rosy beams and gold-dust cloud.That evening, in the temple of Zeus-Jupiter-Râ, the travellers saw the strange ceremony of the wedding of the Pallade, or Pallachide. She was the daughter of one of the greatest families of Diospolis and was chosen a month ago, for her birth and beauty, as the priestess of the god. She had served the god that month by giving her beauty to whomsoever she would. Now that the period of her service was past, she was marrying her bridegroom, a young man, like herself a member of one of the greatest and oldest Theban families. There was a ceremony of mourning and dirge because the service of so fair and famed a maiden was at an end; there was the presentation of gifts by all whom she had embraced that month; there was glad gaiety now because of her wedding. She was attired and anointed as a goddess and received great honour from the close-packed multitude; and after her wedding she kissed the priestess who succeeded her, likewise a virgin from one of the leading families of the town, and who was shown naked before the altar and was exquisitely beautiful as a child.“Every country has its customs,” said Uncle Catullus, with a shrug. “I don’t envy the bridegroom; but no one seems to consider it odd; and the polite thing for us foreigners to do will be just to act as though we thought it all quite natural.”And with Lucius, Thrasyllus and Caleb he approached the bride, who was now sparkling with jewels beside her bridegroom; and their slaves threw roses and lilies and lotus-flowers before her feet; and she thanked him with a silent, winning dignity, standing amid the circle of her kinsmen in a queenly attitude.But, after Thebes, to Uncle Catullus’ despair, there reappeared on the banks of the Nile the towns at which crocodiles, fishes and falcons were worshipped.“Lucius,” said Uncle Catullus to his nephew, seriously, one morning, while the barge was approaching Apollonopolis Magna, “Lucius, my dear boy, I have a confession to make to you. I think I’ve had enough of it. I’m sick of falcons, fishes and crocodiles which are gods, not to mention dogs, wolves, beetles, bulls and other cattle. And, in addition to being sick of all these sacred animals, I’m sick of all those strangeEgyptian foodstuffs, while, moreover, I suspect Caleb of fortifying with barley-spirit the wines with which he supplies us out of his store; and this applies not only to the thick-as-ink Mareotis wine, but also to the topaz-yellow liqueurs of Napata.... Lucius, my dear boy, I am old and I feel ill. My head is like a sponge saturated not with water but with impressions of strange ceremonies and immoral customs. Also my stomach is overloaded and my palate over-excited. I have a craving for a few succulent oysters and a young roast peacock. I understand that one can’t get those here, on the Nile; but still I should like to learn what your plans really are ... I’ve heard something about hunting-expeditions and the pillars of Sesostris....”“Yes, uncle,” said Lucius, with a smile, “Caleb did suggest that we should leave the barge at Philæ, where we shall soon be arriving, and go through Ethiopia with carts, camels, elephants and tents, go hunting on elephants and ostriches and travel over Napata and Meroe, through forest and wilderness, to Cape Dire and the pillars of Sesostris, where we shall find the quadrireme waiting for the homeward journey.”“Well, my dear boy, I think that this programme, together with my spongy brain and overloaded stomach, would be too much for me. If I were to accomplish it by your side, then Egypt would certainly be the death of me, a contingency which I am dreading as it is. I think, don’t you, that I had better go down the Nile again in the barge, past all the sacred wolves and falcons and cats and beetles?”But Caleb had approached:“In that case, my noble Lord Catullus,” he said, “I have a much better plan. In fact, I, your humble, obedient servant, agree with you that the journey through Ethiopia would perhaps be very tiring for you. That is why I would propose that the thalamegus take you from Apollonopolis Magna, by the canal, to Berenice, on the Bay of Acathantus, in the Arabian Gulf.1At Berenice you will meet the quadrireme, which has gone by Pelusium and the Nechao Canal2and is ascending the Arabian Gulf to fetch us at the pillars of Sesostris. In this way you will do the journey without inconvenience and yet with enjoyment, for the Berenice Canal passes along the Smaragdis Mountains and they are a dream,my lord; my lord, they’re adream!...”Thus did Caleb advise him, reflecting that, if Uncle Catullus adopted this programme, instead of going back to Alexandria, the princely apartments at the Hermes House would remain unoccupied and could be let to the Persian grandees who had fed the sacred Such on Lake Mœris and who were travelling in the opposite direction to his own noble clients....1The Red Sea.2The old canal through the Isthmus of Suez.

Chapter XXIV

After the abundant dews of the night came the delight of the cool-warm summer day. The clustering trees now pressed their way forward more richly and luxuriously along the banks of the Nile. Here, on the Libyan side, lay the town of Acanthus, with its temple of Osiris in a spreading wood of Theban acanthus-trees, of which the natives tap the fragrant gums. Next, on the Arabian bank, came Aphroditopolis, the second town of the name, with the temple of the White Cow; and then the travellers reached the Heracleotic nome, a big island in the Nile, from which a canal cuts through the Arsinoic nome, the most fertile in the whole country. Here and here alone the olive-tree flourished in dense, silvery woods; but here also there twisted and twined, in close festoons, the vine-branches, on which the grapes were beginning to swell; here the fruit-trees bent under their heavy load and the orchards stretched; here the sickles of the husbandmen waved through the abundant ears ofcorn. Here the fat soil yielded wealth and prosperity; here the innumerable sheep spread in a wave of wool over the hills, like a shadowy white sea. Here, between margins of sands, Lake Mœris stretched exquisite and crystal blue to the horizon, as it were a fresh-water inland sea. In earlier ages, the ocean must have extended to those margins and stolen the whole northern land of Lower Egypt, that gift of the Nile, as Herodotus had called it long ago. Here the double lotus-flowers were trained to blossom in the waters; and here the sacred scarabs were bred and worshipped upon the white flowers.Lucius would wander alone of a morning, strolling along the banks of the lake. It was so strangely calm here and so divinely beautiful; and a heaven-sent consolation filled the air. These were the regions blest by the gods; and it pleased Lucius to linger here. The thalamegus lay moored under acanthus-trees; the flowering reeds shot up to a man’s height around her. And every afternoon, at sunset, Lucius, sometimes accompanied by Thrasyllus, sometimes alone, walked to the labyrinth.The road lay along the waterworks of the canal, where daily, under the supervisionof the engineers, the quantity of water that flowed in and out of the lake through the canal was closely gauged. The tilled and inhabited lands around Lake Mœris, large as a sea, were never flooded. If the Nile increased, all that happened was that the blue crystal mirror of the lake rose. If the waters of the river fell, then those of the lake filled them up, by careful management of the sluices. The water was never other than a benevolent deity.Along the waterworks ran the road to the labyrinth. In the sinking glory of the sun, in blood-red and orange splendours, Lucius saw it daily, the strange Titanic town of monoliths, the linked rows of palaces and courts, projecting their columns endlessly, endlessly, towards the sunlit horizon. Orange and blood-red gleams glowed over the flat stone tables of the roofs, which were not higher than a single pillared storey and which spread out their immense terrace like a paved desert. There were twenty palaces, each surrounded by twenty-seven monolithic columns; and all this wondrous architecture of past centuries was without a beam of wood, was without cement or masonry, was simply stone laid upon stone withfaultless precision and column hewn beside column, absolutely circular, each column a single stone. At the end of the palaces, which were a stadium long, rose the square pyramid, the tomb of the builder, King Amenemha.The holy place was guarded by priests, who led Lucius through the halls and crypts. The twenty palaces represented the former twenty Egyptian nomes, or provinces; and the emissaries of each province used to gather with their priests and priestesses in their palace or court and offer up sacrifices and discuss great questions of policy or local welfare. But nowadays the palaces were deserted, the crypts were deserted, and the priests led Lucius along endless, deserted, winding corridors which meandered from palace to palace. The torches smeared the walls with blood-red light, smeared the smooth stone walls of the corridors and halls and floors and ceilings, stone after stone upon stone of wonderful dimensions all resting one upon another without cement. And to Lucius it was one of the marvels of the world, even more marvellous, because of its sublime human architecture, than the pyramids had been.Travelling on camels with Uncle Catullus and a great retinue, Lucius went a hundred stadia farther, to Arsinoe-Crocodilopolis. The trees flourished more richly, more luxuriantly, like a richly-wooded park around the travellers, till they came to the sacred lake where the sacred crocodile, named Such, was held in veneration.“Well,” said Uncle Catullus, “here’s another of these little pets which are kept for the edification of foreigners!”And in fact the priests who came to meet the travellers in front of the dromos of the sacred lake, surrounded on every side with pillars, first amiably demanded a stater a head as entrance-fee, while Caleb, of course, had seen to a supply of rich provisions, as an offering to the deity. The slaves carried baskets with cakes, roast meats and jars of hydromel.In the lake lay Such, the huge monster; but the priests had tamed the terrible deity: they were luring him from the middle of the lake, where his temple was, to the bank, because some Persian visitors happened to have arrived before Lucius and wished to present their offerings. On the edge of the lake the priests took Such fearlessly by histerrible jaws and made him swallow the cakes and meat and wine of the Persian grandees, who were greatly diverted and laughed aloud.“They must be great noblemen,” said Caleb, “and are going from the pillars of Sesostris to Alexandria, even as you, my noble lords, are going from Alexandria to the pillars of Sesostris. My lord, if you permit me, I should much like to exchange a few words with the guide of the Persian lords.”Lucius gave his permission; and the crocodile, who had swallowed his Persian presents, swam back to the middle of the lake. But the priests now quickly lured him to the other side, where Lucius was waiting; and the ever greedy crocodile approached; and the priests again took him fearlessly by his terrible jaws and the monster now swallowed Lucius’ gifts, the cakes, the roast meat, as though insatiable; and the priests, laughing, emptied a jar of hydromel into his maw.Meanwhile, Caleb, after a few words with the guide, had sunk in salaams before the Persian lords.“He’s offering the Persians his diversorium,” said Uncle Catullus, jestingly.And in fact Caleb, in a few minutes, came back happy and swaggering to his own travellers and said, in a mysterious whisper:“I have recommended their Persian lordships to be sure to stop at the Hermes House at Alexandria; and I slipped a gold ptolemy into their guide’s hand. Yes, my lords, business is business; and, if we did no business at Alexandria, I could never hope to see my beloved Saba again. For there you must havedonebusiness, if you want to live in the country; there’s no business to be donethere, my lords.”By way of Heracleopolis, where divine honours were paid to the ichneumon, the spotted rat that devours the eggs of the adders and attacks the adders themselves, after first rolling itself in the mud, which dries round its body and forms an armour, the travellers reached Cynopolis, where the dog is worshipped as Anubis, and Oxyrynchus, where the fish of the name is venerated. And it now appeared that, in this region of Heptanomis, where, on the Arabian side of the Nile, the strange battlements of the blinding white Alabastrites Mountains blaze against the sky, all animals received divine honours, as though the priests had institutedthese popular forms of worship in great numbers everywhere, so that they might the more carefully keep to themselves the secret Hermetic wisdom. Cats and falcons, sheep and wolves, baboons and zebus, eagles and lions, goats and spiders: all the animals were worshipped in one or other town or village; all the animals had their temples and priests; and Uncle Catullus said that he grew weary of having to admire so many sacred animals, especially as Apis, the little bull, and Such, the crocodile, were after all the only ones that were really interesting to see. But all these cattle, all these birds and fishes, all these creatures, from carnivora down to insects, were worshipped, tended, fed and shown in the temples to strangers, each time at a piece of gold a head. No, it was really too silly, especially when, after the first Crocodilopolis, on the left, the second Crocodilopolis appeared on the right, on the bank of the Nile, with another Such!“Lucius,” said Uncle Catullus, “honestly, I’m not going to feed any more sacred crocodiles, nor any sacred goats or cats or beetles either. I’ve seen enough of all those pests, do you hear, nephew?”And Lucius and Thrasyllus were inclined to agree with Uncle Catullus; and the barge sped past the wondrous purple of the Porphyrites Mountains, gold-ruddy crests in the orange evening sky, up to Ptolemais, the greatest town in the Thebais.Ptolemais was a prosperous city, ruled like Alexandria by a municipal government founded on the Greek model; but after Ptolemais the travellers were especially charmed with Abydos. Here they saw the Memnonium, which was not so gigantic as the labyrinth, but which still was built of great single blocks of stone, according to that same marvellous system of lost ancient architecture. They also saw the underground well, which is reached by vaults and galleries, a subterranean miracle of monoliths, always fitted to one another and upon one another, without masonry. The temple of Apollo rose in a flowering acacia-wood, as in a sudden dream of swarming white, fragrant blossoms.LesserDiospolisand Tentyra followed. The Tentyrians worship Aphrodite and hunt the crocodile, which they destroy wherever they can; and Uncle Catullus said that they showed good taste in this civilized choice.After the half-Arabian Coptos and Apollonopolis, Thebes loomed into view, with its hundred gates, the gates which Homer sang, the gates through which two hundred warriors, with all their horses and chariots, could pass. And, as the travellers drew near, in the rosy dawn behind Thebes, the Smaragdis Hills appeared in green outline, transparent and far-away as a dream, through the misty light of the horizon.Thebes was already called Greater Diospolis and worshipped Zeus-Jupiter.“Heaven be praised!” said Uncle Catullus. “The Upper Egyptians are become sensible. Venus and Jupiter are once more held in honour! Every conceivable sort of crocodile, goat, dog, rat, falcon and beetle is done with. It was high time!”Like Memphis, Thebes spread itself as an immense, ancient, but dying city. For eighty stadia along the Nile its ancient palaces and temples stood in an endless row, forsaken, ruined, cracking, slanting and sinking, with their pillars and walls, their mutilated colossi and sphinxes, their obelisks already fallen to the ground. Even in the sun, a grey melancholy spread over the great city, whose streets, indeed, werecrowded with numbers of pedestrians, camels and litters, but without the feverish, metropolitan bustle which had reigned at Alexandria. The gloom of a fatally waning glory lay like a haze over all this architectural immensity, which Cambyses, with his Persian hordes, had in past ages destroyed beyond repair, as with gigantic hammer-strokes.In the moonlit night the city, with its vast outlines, with its endless row of Titanic palaces, rose beside the Nile like a Titanic citadel, mysteriously chilling to the heart. In these abandoned temples the lost wisdom especially had been cultivated by the omniscient priests, the heirs of Moses and of Hermes Trismegistus. Here the utmost wisdom of philosophy and astronomy and astrology was known. Here the year and the day were calculated by the sun and no longer, as of yore, by the moon; here the year was divided into twelve months of thirty days, with five intercalary days; and here was calculated the time that must be added to the three hundred and sixty-five days in order to arrive at the exact length of the year. The kings who reigned here reigned, according to the hieroglyphs on theobelisks, over Scythia, Bactria, Ionia and India! They had ruled the world, in the deep-sunk centuries! In the measureless spaces of their immense palaces and temples, from which the Nile, flowing silver in the moonlight, could be seen through the rows of pylons gleaming as it had gleamed centuries ago, not an atom remained of the material or immaterial life of this long, long array of monarchs. Their names alone were still extant, written on cracking or mutilated obelisks, but their history lingered only in a few disputed legends. The unplumbed depth of the past made Lucius’ sensitive mind turn giddy. Yet, as he wandered by Thrasyllus’ side through the endless forsaken halls and rooms and courts, here dark with shadow, there lighted by the spectral moon, he was charmed by the sombre beauty and grandeur of that giddy depth.Here, too, stood a monolithic memnonium. Next came, linked together, the forty royal tombs hewn in the rock. And, in front of this Titanic ruin, in which not a mummy remained, the travellers saw, in the moonlit night, the two seated colossi, themselves carved out of monoliths; but one, with the trunk broken off—by what power?—hadfallen in the high grass, while the other still stared towards the east, in the hieratic attitude, the long hands upon the knees, the pschent crowning the vast, ecstatic head, with its huge, staring, sightless eyes, from which the enamel had disappeared and the jewelled pupils.The travellers stood in silence before the statue in the moonlight; and even Uncle Catullus refrained from jesting. The atmosphere at this spot was woven of shimmering divinity. The moon was waning, the dawn was rising rose-red. And, as though with a human voice, a single note sounded from the statue. The note was intoned clearly and almost plaintively; it developed into the powerful sound of a man’s high voice, swelled into something terribly human and almost divine and broke off short and hard. They all heard it in the uncertain light: Lucius, Thrasyllus, Catullus, Caleb, Cora, all the slaves, male and female, who had accompanied the travellers. Caleb turned very pale and time after time pressed his lips to his amulets.And, motionless and now silent, the blind colossus stared towards the sun, which wasrising out of a sea of rosy beams and gold-dust cloud.That evening, in the temple of Zeus-Jupiter-Râ, the travellers saw the strange ceremony of the wedding of the Pallade, or Pallachide. She was the daughter of one of the greatest families of Diospolis and was chosen a month ago, for her birth and beauty, as the priestess of the god. She had served the god that month by giving her beauty to whomsoever she would. Now that the period of her service was past, she was marrying her bridegroom, a young man, like herself a member of one of the greatest and oldest Theban families. There was a ceremony of mourning and dirge because the service of so fair and famed a maiden was at an end; there was the presentation of gifts by all whom she had embraced that month; there was glad gaiety now because of her wedding. She was attired and anointed as a goddess and received great honour from the close-packed multitude; and after her wedding she kissed the priestess who succeeded her, likewise a virgin from one of the leading families of the town, and who was shown naked before the altar and was exquisitely beautiful as a child.“Every country has its customs,” said Uncle Catullus, with a shrug. “I don’t envy the bridegroom; but no one seems to consider it odd; and the polite thing for us foreigners to do will be just to act as though we thought it all quite natural.”And with Lucius, Thrasyllus and Caleb he approached the bride, who was now sparkling with jewels beside her bridegroom; and their slaves threw roses and lilies and lotus-flowers before her feet; and she thanked him with a silent, winning dignity, standing amid the circle of her kinsmen in a queenly attitude.But, after Thebes, to Uncle Catullus’ despair, there reappeared on the banks of the Nile the towns at which crocodiles, fishes and falcons were worshipped.“Lucius,” said Uncle Catullus to his nephew, seriously, one morning, while the barge was approaching Apollonopolis Magna, “Lucius, my dear boy, I have a confession to make to you. I think I’ve had enough of it. I’m sick of falcons, fishes and crocodiles which are gods, not to mention dogs, wolves, beetles, bulls and other cattle. And, in addition to being sick of all these sacred animals, I’m sick of all those strangeEgyptian foodstuffs, while, moreover, I suspect Caleb of fortifying with barley-spirit the wines with which he supplies us out of his store; and this applies not only to the thick-as-ink Mareotis wine, but also to the topaz-yellow liqueurs of Napata.... Lucius, my dear boy, I am old and I feel ill. My head is like a sponge saturated not with water but with impressions of strange ceremonies and immoral customs. Also my stomach is overloaded and my palate over-excited. I have a craving for a few succulent oysters and a young roast peacock. I understand that one can’t get those here, on the Nile; but still I should like to learn what your plans really are ... I’ve heard something about hunting-expeditions and the pillars of Sesostris....”“Yes, uncle,” said Lucius, with a smile, “Caleb did suggest that we should leave the barge at Philæ, where we shall soon be arriving, and go through Ethiopia with carts, camels, elephants and tents, go hunting on elephants and ostriches and travel over Napata and Meroe, through forest and wilderness, to Cape Dire and the pillars of Sesostris, where we shall find the quadrireme waiting for the homeward journey.”“Well, my dear boy, I think that this programme, together with my spongy brain and overloaded stomach, would be too much for me. If I were to accomplish it by your side, then Egypt would certainly be the death of me, a contingency which I am dreading as it is. I think, don’t you, that I had better go down the Nile again in the barge, past all the sacred wolves and falcons and cats and beetles?”But Caleb had approached:“In that case, my noble Lord Catullus,” he said, “I have a much better plan. In fact, I, your humble, obedient servant, agree with you that the journey through Ethiopia would perhaps be very tiring for you. That is why I would propose that the thalamegus take you from Apollonopolis Magna, by the canal, to Berenice, on the Bay of Acathantus, in the Arabian Gulf.1At Berenice you will meet the quadrireme, which has gone by Pelusium and the Nechao Canal2and is ascending the Arabian Gulf to fetch us at the pillars of Sesostris. In this way you will do the journey without inconvenience and yet with enjoyment, for the Berenice Canal passes along the Smaragdis Mountains and they are a dream,my lord; my lord, they’re adream!...”Thus did Caleb advise him, reflecting that, if Uncle Catullus adopted this programme, instead of going back to Alexandria, the princely apartments at the Hermes House would remain unoccupied and could be let to the Persian grandees who had fed the sacred Such on Lake Mœris and who were travelling in the opposite direction to his own noble clients....

After the abundant dews of the night came the delight of the cool-warm summer day. The clustering trees now pressed their way forward more richly and luxuriously along the banks of the Nile. Here, on the Libyan side, lay the town of Acanthus, with its temple of Osiris in a spreading wood of Theban acanthus-trees, of which the natives tap the fragrant gums. Next, on the Arabian bank, came Aphroditopolis, the second town of the name, with the temple of the White Cow; and then the travellers reached the Heracleotic nome, a big island in the Nile, from which a canal cuts through the Arsinoic nome, the most fertile in the whole country. Here and here alone the olive-tree flourished in dense, silvery woods; but here also there twisted and twined, in close festoons, the vine-branches, on which the grapes were beginning to swell; here the fruit-trees bent under their heavy load and the orchards stretched; here the sickles of the husbandmen waved through the abundant ears ofcorn. Here the fat soil yielded wealth and prosperity; here the innumerable sheep spread in a wave of wool over the hills, like a shadowy white sea. Here, between margins of sands, Lake Mœris stretched exquisite and crystal blue to the horizon, as it were a fresh-water inland sea. In earlier ages, the ocean must have extended to those margins and stolen the whole northern land of Lower Egypt, that gift of the Nile, as Herodotus had called it long ago. Here the double lotus-flowers were trained to blossom in the waters; and here the sacred scarabs were bred and worshipped upon the white flowers.

Lucius would wander alone of a morning, strolling along the banks of the lake. It was so strangely calm here and so divinely beautiful; and a heaven-sent consolation filled the air. These were the regions blest by the gods; and it pleased Lucius to linger here. The thalamegus lay moored under acanthus-trees; the flowering reeds shot up to a man’s height around her. And every afternoon, at sunset, Lucius, sometimes accompanied by Thrasyllus, sometimes alone, walked to the labyrinth.

The road lay along the waterworks of the canal, where daily, under the supervisionof the engineers, the quantity of water that flowed in and out of the lake through the canal was closely gauged. The tilled and inhabited lands around Lake Mœris, large as a sea, were never flooded. If the Nile increased, all that happened was that the blue crystal mirror of the lake rose. If the waters of the river fell, then those of the lake filled them up, by careful management of the sluices. The water was never other than a benevolent deity.

Along the waterworks ran the road to the labyrinth. In the sinking glory of the sun, in blood-red and orange splendours, Lucius saw it daily, the strange Titanic town of monoliths, the linked rows of palaces and courts, projecting their columns endlessly, endlessly, towards the sunlit horizon. Orange and blood-red gleams glowed over the flat stone tables of the roofs, which were not higher than a single pillared storey and which spread out their immense terrace like a paved desert. There were twenty palaces, each surrounded by twenty-seven monolithic columns; and all this wondrous architecture of past centuries was without a beam of wood, was without cement or masonry, was simply stone laid upon stone withfaultless precision and column hewn beside column, absolutely circular, each column a single stone. At the end of the palaces, which were a stadium long, rose the square pyramid, the tomb of the builder, King Amenemha.

The holy place was guarded by priests, who led Lucius through the halls and crypts. The twenty palaces represented the former twenty Egyptian nomes, or provinces; and the emissaries of each province used to gather with their priests and priestesses in their palace or court and offer up sacrifices and discuss great questions of policy or local welfare. But nowadays the palaces were deserted, the crypts were deserted, and the priests led Lucius along endless, deserted, winding corridors which meandered from palace to palace. The torches smeared the walls with blood-red light, smeared the smooth stone walls of the corridors and halls and floors and ceilings, stone after stone upon stone of wonderful dimensions all resting one upon another without cement. And to Lucius it was one of the marvels of the world, even more marvellous, because of its sublime human architecture, than the pyramids had been.

Travelling on camels with Uncle Catullus and a great retinue, Lucius went a hundred stadia farther, to Arsinoe-Crocodilopolis. The trees flourished more richly, more luxuriantly, like a richly-wooded park around the travellers, till they came to the sacred lake where the sacred crocodile, named Such, was held in veneration.

“Well,” said Uncle Catullus, “here’s another of these little pets which are kept for the edification of foreigners!”

And in fact the priests who came to meet the travellers in front of the dromos of the sacred lake, surrounded on every side with pillars, first amiably demanded a stater a head as entrance-fee, while Caleb, of course, had seen to a supply of rich provisions, as an offering to the deity. The slaves carried baskets with cakes, roast meats and jars of hydromel.

In the lake lay Such, the huge monster; but the priests had tamed the terrible deity: they were luring him from the middle of the lake, where his temple was, to the bank, because some Persian visitors happened to have arrived before Lucius and wished to present their offerings. On the edge of the lake the priests took Such fearlessly by histerrible jaws and made him swallow the cakes and meat and wine of the Persian grandees, who were greatly diverted and laughed aloud.

“They must be great noblemen,” said Caleb, “and are going from the pillars of Sesostris to Alexandria, even as you, my noble lords, are going from Alexandria to the pillars of Sesostris. My lord, if you permit me, I should much like to exchange a few words with the guide of the Persian lords.”

Lucius gave his permission; and the crocodile, who had swallowed his Persian presents, swam back to the middle of the lake. But the priests now quickly lured him to the other side, where Lucius was waiting; and the ever greedy crocodile approached; and the priests again took him fearlessly by his terrible jaws and the monster now swallowed Lucius’ gifts, the cakes, the roast meat, as though insatiable; and the priests, laughing, emptied a jar of hydromel into his maw.

Meanwhile, Caleb, after a few words with the guide, had sunk in salaams before the Persian lords.

“He’s offering the Persians his diversorium,” said Uncle Catullus, jestingly.

And in fact Caleb, in a few minutes, came back happy and swaggering to his own travellers and said, in a mysterious whisper:

“I have recommended their Persian lordships to be sure to stop at the Hermes House at Alexandria; and I slipped a gold ptolemy into their guide’s hand. Yes, my lords, business is business; and, if we did no business at Alexandria, I could never hope to see my beloved Saba again. For there you must havedonebusiness, if you want to live in the country; there’s no business to be donethere, my lords.”

By way of Heracleopolis, where divine honours were paid to the ichneumon, the spotted rat that devours the eggs of the adders and attacks the adders themselves, after first rolling itself in the mud, which dries round its body and forms an armour, the travellers reached Cynopolis, where the dog is worshipped as Anubis, and Oxyrynchus, where the fish of the name is venerated. And it now appeared that, in this region of Heptanomis, where, on the Arabian side of the Nile, the strange battlements of the blinding white Alabastrites Mountains blaze against the sky, all animals received divine honours, as though the priests had institutedthese popular forms of worship in great numbers everywhere, so that they might the more carefully keep to themselves the secret Hermetic wisdom. Cats and falcons, sheep and wolves, baboons and zebus, eagles and lions, goats and spiders: all the animals were worshipped in one or other town or village; all the animals had their temples and priests; and Uncle Catullus said that he grew weary of having to admire so many sacred animals, especially as Apis, the little bull, and Such, the crocodile, were after all the only ones that were really interesting to see. But all these cattle, all these birds and fishes, all these creatures, from carnivora down to insects, were worshipped, tended, fed and shown in the temples to strangers, each time at a piece of gold a head. No, it was really too silly, especially when, after the first Crocodilopolis, on the left, the second Crocodilopolis appeared on the right, on the bank of the Nile, with another Such!

“Lucius,” said Uncle Catullus, “honestly, I’m not going to feed any more sacred crocodiles, nor any sacred goats or cats or beetles either. I’ve seen enough of all those pests, do you hear, nephew?”

And Lucius and Thrasyllus were inclined to agree with Uncle Catullus; and the barge sped past the wondrous purple of the Porphyrites Mountains, gold-ruddy crests in the orange evening sky, up to Ptolemais, the greatest town in the Thebais.

Ptolemais was a prosperous city, ruled like Alexandria by a municipal government founded on the Greek model; but after Ptolemais the travellers were especially charmed with Abydos. Here they saw the Memnonium, which was not so gigantic as the labyrinth, but which still was built of great single blocks of stone, according to that same marvellous system of lost ancient architecture. They also saw the underground well, which is reached by vaults and galleries, a subterranean miracle of monoliths, always fitted to one another and upon one another, without masonry. The temple of Apollo rose in a flowering acacia-wood, as in a sudden dream of swarming white, fragrant blossoms.

LesserDiospolisand Tentyra followed. The Tentyrians worship Aphrodite and hunt the crocodile, which they destroy wherever they can; and Uncle Catullus said that they showed good taste in this civilized choice.After the half-Arabian Coptos and Apollonopolis, Thebes loomed into view, with its hundred gates, the gates which Homer sang, the gates through which two hundred warriors, with all their horses and chariots, could pass. And, as the travellers drew near, in the rosy dawn behind Thebes, the Smaragdis Hills appeared in green outline, transparent and far-away as a dream, through the misty light of the horizon.

Thebes was already called Greater Diospolis and worshipped Zeus-Jupiter.

“Heaven be praised!” said Uncle Catullus. “The Upper Egyptians are become sensible. Venus and Jupiter are once more held in honour! Every conceivable sort of crocodile, goat, dog, rat, falcon and beetle is done with. It was high time!”

Like Memphis, Thebes spread itself as an immense, ancient, but dying city. For eighty stadia along the Nile its ancient palaces and temples stood in an endless row, forsaken, ruined, cracking, slanting and sinking, with their pillars and walls, their mutilated colossi and sphinxes, their obelisks already fallen to the ground. Even in the sun, a grey melancholy spread over the great city, whose streets, indeed, werecrowded with numbers of pedestrians, camels and litters, but without the feverish, metropolitan bustle which had reigned at Alexandria. The gloom of a fatally waning glory lay like a haze over all this architectural immensity, which Cambyses, with his Persian hordes, had in past ages destroyed beyond repair, as with gigantic hammer-strokes.

In the moonlit night the city, with its vast outlines, with its endless row of Titanic palaces, rose beside the Nile like a Titanic citadel, mysteriously chilling to the heart. In these abandoned temples the lost wisdom especially had been cultivated by the omniscient priests, the heirs of Moses and of Hermes Trismegistus. Here the utmost wisdom of philosophy and astronomy and astrology was known. Here the year and the day were calculated by the sun and no longer, as of yore, by the moon; here the year was divided into twelve months of thirty days, with five intercalary days; and here was calculated the time that must be added to the three hundred and sixty-five days in order to arrive at the exact length of the year. The kings who reigned here reigned, according to the hieroglyphs on theobelisks, over Scythia, Bactria, Ionia and India! They had ruled the world, in the deep-sunk centuries! In the measureless spaces of their immense palaces and temples, from which the Nile, flowing silver in the moonlight, could be seen through the rows of pylons gleaming as it had gleamed centuries ago, not an atom remained of the material or immaterial life of this long, long array of monarchs. Their names alone were still extant, written on cracking or mutilated obelisks, but their history lingered only in a few disputed legends. The unplumbed depth of the past made Lucius’ sensitive mind turn giddy. Yet, as he wandered by Thrasyllus’ side through the endless forsaken halls and rooms and courts, here dark with shadow, there lighted by the spectral moon, he was charmed by the sombre beauty and grandeur of that giddy depth.

Here, too, stood a monolithic memnonium. Next came, linked together, the forty royal tombs hewn in the rock. And, in front of this Titanic ruin, in which not a mummy remained, the travellers saw, in the moonlit night, the two seated colossi, themselves carved out of monoliths; but one, with the trunk broken off—by what power?—hadfallen in the high grass, while the other still stared towards the east, in the hieratic attitude, the long hands upon the knees, the pschent crowning the vast, ecstatic head, with its huge, staring, sightless eyes, from which the enamel had disappeared and the jewelled pupils.

The travellers stood in silence before the statue in the moonlight; and even Uncle Catullus refrained from jesting. The atmosphere at this spot was woven of shimmering divinity. The moon was waning, the dawn was rising rose-red. And, as though with a human voice, a single note sounded from the statue. The note was intoned clearly and almost plaintively; it developed into the powerful sound of a man’s high voice, swelled into something terribly human and almost divine and broke off short and hard. They all heard it in the uncertain light: Lucius, Thrasyllus, Catullus, Caleb, Cora, all the slaves, male and female, who had accompanied the travellers. Caleb turned very pale and time after time pressed his lips to his amulets.

And, motionless and now silent, the blind colossus stared towards the sun, which wasrising out of a sea of rosy beams and gold-dust cloud.

That evening, in the temple of Zeus-Jupiter-Râ, the travellers saw the strange ceremony of the wedding of the Pallade, or Pallachide. She was the daughter of one of the greatest families of Diospolis and was chosen a month ago, for her birth and beauty, as the priestess of the god. She had served the god that month by giving her beauty to whomsoever she would. Now that the period of her service was past, she was marrying her bridegroom, a young man, like herself a member of one of the greatest and oldest Theban families. There was a ceremony of mourning and dirge because the service of so fair and famed a maiden was at an end; there was the presentation of gifts by all whom she had embraced that month; there was glad gaiety now because of her wedding. She was attired and anointed as a goddess and received great honour from the close-packed multitude; and after her wedding she kissed the priestess who succeeded her, likewise a virgin from one of the leading families of the town, and who was shown naked before the altar and was exquisitely beautiful as a child.

“Every country has its customs,” said Uncle Catullus, with a shrug. “I don’t envy the bridegroom; but no one seems to consider it odd; and the polite thing for us foreigners to do will be just to act as though we thought it all quite natural.”

And with Lucius, Thrasyllus and Caleb he approached the bride, who was now sparkling with jewels beside her bridegroom; and their slaves threw roses and lilies and lotus-flowers before her feet; and she thanked him with a silent, winning dignity, standing amid the circle of her kinsmen in a queenly attitude.

But, after Thebes, to Uncle Catullus’ despair, there reappeared on the banks of the Nile the towns at which crocodiles, fishes and falcons were worshipped.

“Lucius,” said Uncle Catullus to his nephew, seriously, one morning, while the barge was approaching Apollonopolis Magna, “Lucius, my dear boy, I have a confession to make to you. I think I’ve had enough of it. I’m sick of falcons, fishes and crocodiles which are gods, not to mention dogs, wolves, beetles, bulls and other cattle. And, in addition to being sick of all these sacred animals, I’m sick of all those strangeEgyptian foodstuffs, while, moreover, I suspect Caleb of fortifying with barley-spirit the wines with which he supplies us out of his store; and this applies not only to the thick-as-ink Mareotis wine, but also to the topaz-yellow liqueurs of Napata.... Lucius, my dear boy, I am old and I feel ill. My head is like a sponge saturated not with water but with impressions of strange ceremonies and immoral customs. Also my stomach is overloaded and my palate over-excited. I have a craving for a few succulent oysters and a young roast peacock. I understand that one can’t get those here, on the Nile; but still I should like to learn what your plans really are ... I’ve heard something about hunting-expeditions and the pillars of Sesostris....”

“Yes, uncle,” said Lucius, with a smile, “Caleb did suggest that we should leave the barge at Philæ, where we shall soon be arriving, and go through Ethiopia with carts, camels, elephants and tents, go hunting on elephants and ostriches and travel over Napata and Meroe, through forest and wilderness, to Cape Dire and the pillars of Sesostris, where we shall find the quadrireme waiting for the homeward journey.”

“Well, my dear boy, I think that this programme, together with my spongy brain and overloaded stomach, would be too much for me. If I were to accomplish it by your side, then Egypt would certainly be the death of me, a contingency which I am dreading as it is. I think, don’t you, that I had better go down the Nile again in the barge, past all the sacred wolves and falcons and cats and beetles?”

But Caleb had approached:

“In that case, my noble Lord Catullus,” he said, “I have a much better plan. In fact, I, your humble, obedient servant, agree with you that the journey through Ethiopia would perhaps be very tiring for you. That is why I would propose that the thalamegus take you from Apollonopolis Magna, by the canal, to Berenice, on the Bay of Acathantus, in the Arabian Gulf.1At Berenice you will meet the quadrireme, which has gone by Pelusium and the Nechao Canal2and is ascending the Arabian Gulf to fetch us at the pillars of Sesostris. In this way you will do the journey without inconvenience and yet with enjoyment, for the Berenice Canal passes along the Smaragdis Mountains and they are a dream,my lord; my lord, they’re adream!...”

Thus did Caleb advise him, reflecting that, if Uncle Catullus adopted this programme, instead of going back to Alexandria, the princely apartments at the Hermes House would remain unoccupied and could be let to the Persian grandees who had fed the sacred Such on Lake Mœris and who were travelling in the opposite direction to his own noble clients....

1The Red Sea.2The old canal through the Isthmus of Suez.

1The Red Sea.

2The old canal through the Isthmus of Suez.

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