ARRIVAL AT LUXOR.—THE GREAT TEMPLE OF KARNAK.
Frank and Fred were impatient to get away from Keneh, as their next halt was to be at Luxor, the ancient Thebes, where the steamer would remain three days, to enable them to see the monuments of ancient Egypt in that vicinity.
As the boat wound along the river in the direction of Thebes, the youths were watching from the deck for the first indications of their proximity to that wonderful city. Suddenly the sharp eyes of Fred caught sight of a sort of tower in the distance, and he at once called his cousin's attention to his discovery.
"Yes, and there's another, and another!" shouted Frank; "and the walls of a great building, too."
"That must be Karnak," said Fred. "You know they told us Karnak was a mile or more below Thebes, and its ruins were the first we would see."
"You are quite right," said the Doctor, who just then came up. "That is Karnak, or rather it is what remains of the great temple which, even in its ruin, is one of the wonders of the world."
"What a pity it is in ruins," one of the youths remarked. "Wouldn't it be nice if some rich man would amuse himself and spend his money by building a temple like what this once was? It would be so interesting and instructive."
"I'm afraid you are not likely to find the rich man who will do it," said the Doctor, with a smile. "It would take a vast amount of money, and he would be open to the charge of trying to revive the heathenism of the ancient Egyptians, and instructing the people of our time in idolatrous practices."
"I never thought of that," was the reply; "but any way I would like to see an Egyptian temple just as it was finished, and before it began to go to ruin."
"If a picture will satisfy you," the Doctor answered, "you have only to refer to Sir Gardner Wilkinson. He has made a drawing of an ancient temple, and reproduced it as exactly as he could from the materials in his possession, and from a personal visit to the best preserved temples to be found in the country."
A COMPLETE EGYPTIAN TEMPLE.
Frank ran below for a copy of the book, and soon returned with it. As they neared the ruins of Karnak the youths compared the scene before them with the printed picture, and tried to imagine themselves carried back to the time of Rameses and Sethi, when the temple was perfect, and not a stone of the vast mass had been displaced from its proper position.
A "BARIS," OR FUNERAL-BOAT.
"A procession is approaching the temple," said the Doctor, "in one of the celebrations for which the ancient Egyptians were famous. You see it passing along a raised causeway to the gate which admits to the grand enclosure; it carries banners with the devices of the King, and midway between the gate and the building at the end of the causeway you see one of the sacred boats in which the souls of the dead are ferried over the lake that separates this world from the next. This lake is symbolized by a small lake, or basin, in the enclosure of the temple; you see it in the fore-ground of the picture, and if it had not usually become filled with sand you would find it in all our visits to the ruins of these temples. A part of the funeral ceremony consisted of ferrying the mummy over the sacred lake in a baris, or funeral-boat; there were generally several boats in a procession, and that containing the mummy was usually towed by one of the others.
"The wall of the enclosure was made high enough to prevent those on the outside from seeing what went on within. It is supposed that the priests wished to keep their rites and ceremonials to themselves, and were only willing to be seen when they had made proper preparations. Sometimes there were two and sometimes four gates, but generally there was only one point of entrance, which was always carefully guarded.
"The procession is just passing the outer gate-way, and leaving the paved road which leads to it. The gate-way consists of two massive towers, or propylæ connected at the top by a broad platform, and the passage beneath is amply large enough for all the wants of the processions that enter the place. Beyond the gate-way is another paved road, guarded on each side by a row of sphinxes, with their faces turned toward the causeway, and never deserting it for an instant, with their solemn stare. Sometimes the outer causeway was protected by sphinxes the same as the inner one, but this was the case only with the most important temples. At the end of this road we generally find a couple of obelisks, and close beyond them is a second propylon, more massive and much taller than the one at the entrance. Passing this propylon we enter an open court surrounded with a columned portico, and having a third propylon extending across its centre. Passing this court-yard we reach the great hall, whose roof, supported by many columns hewn from solid stone, admits only a dim and sombre light. Here the procession halts while the ceremonies for which it came are completed.
"Bear in mind," the Doctor continued, "that the temple among the ancient Egyptians was not strictly a place of religious worship, like the temples of the Greeks and Romans and the churches of modern days; it was a building erected by a king in honor of the divinities who were believed to have brought him prosperity in conquering his enemies or whose favor he sought. For this reason we always know by what king a temple was built, as he is always represented in the first place in the processions, and all the sacrifices and other ceremonies are in his name.
"You observe that there is a grove on both sides of the temple; the Egyptians always surrounded their temples with groves, and generally the trees were set out in rows. The divinities were supposed to linger about the trees, and certain deities were believed to shun a treeless spot. Perhaps some of the respect for trees was due to the difficulty of keeping them alive. Egypt is not a land of forests, and trees do not flourish here except with much care and attention."
During this conversation about Egyptian temples the steamer steadily made her way toward Karnak and Luxor; she passed the ruins of Karnak, and soon drew up to the landing at the modern town. Luxor is a wretched place of about four thousand inhabitants, and if it were not for the reputation of the spot, and the number of strangers visiting it every winter, the town would soon cease to exist. The inhabitants live almost entirely on what they obtain from visitors, and they drive quite a prosperous trade in mummies and other antiquities, besides finding a good market for the few things raised in their gardens.
As soon as the boat was made fast to the bank the passengers hurried to land. The natives met them with donkeys for hire, and with all sorts of antiquities for sale. Frank and Fred were rather puzzled with the way in which the natives pressed their wares upon the strangers, and Frank made an entry in his note-book as follows:
"They are a silent people here, and when they have anything to sell they come in front of you, without saying a word, and hold the article directly before your eyes. If you wish to examine it you do so, and if desirous of buying you ask the price.
AN EGYPTIAN WAR-CHARIOT OF ANCIENT TIMES.
"The figure named is in no way a criterion of the value of the goods; a native will ask fifty dollars for something he would gladly sell for as many cents; you must judge for yourself how much you are willing to pay, and then make your offer. Most likely it will be refused, and the refusal is almost as silent as was the exhibition of the article. The man lowers it and walks away, but in five minutes he will come around again and repeat his performance. He asks less this time, perhaps, and you offer a little more, and he again goes away. You may come to terms after a time, but it seems to make no difference to him whether you do or not."
LUXOR FROM THE WATER.
Doctor Bronson said that possibly the silence of the natives was due to the fact that nearly all their antiquities were false, and they wanted the articles to do as much of the lying as they could. "There are," he remarked, "very few chances of getting anything genuine at Luxor; at present no excavations are in progress, and even if there were any, everything they bring to light should go to the government. They do a large business here in antiquities, and there certainly is no way of supplying the demand except by manufacture. It is currently reported that many of these things are made in England and France, and sent out here for sale; and it is also believed that there are factories here where false scarabæi are manufactured. Let me tell you something that happened when I was here some years ago:
"A man offered some scarabæi for sale, and declared they were genuine; to satisfy any doubts on that point, he offered to bring the certificate of the English consul, or we might go with him to the Consulate and hear for ourselves. But it was whispered that the consul and the native were in partnership, and when we became satisfied that such was the case we suspended negotiations.
"Next it was whispered that the native had a factory where he manufactured the articles he offered for sale; we had a curiosity to see the inside of a factory of antiquities, and, on the theory that backsheesh will do anything in this country, we offered the man five francs to show it to us.
"He denied having any factory, and we increased our offer; he still denied, and we increased again till we reached twenty francs, where we stopped.
"He again denied having a factory, and we made him a last offer of twenty-five francs, and then walked away.
"He became indignant, and as we retreated he said to us, with great emphasis, 'Not for ten napoleons will I let you see it.'
"He thus virtually admitted the existence of the factory, but of course it was not policy for him to allow foreigners to enter it. The story would be sure to leak out and ruin his business.
"The fabrications are very cleverly executed, and sometimes the experts are deceived by them. The consuls are safer to deal with than the ordinary peddlers, but even they are frequently as bad as the rest. The best rule is to buy nothing, except at a very low price, or wait till your return to Cairo, where you can purchase in the shops, and have the opinion of the experts."
The Doctor called on the American vice-consul, as he had been told that that worthy had some superior donkeys which he kept for hire; the rumor proved correct, and for a price a little above that demanded by the owners of ordinary beasts, the Doctor and his young companions were provided with "consular donkeys" during their stay at Luxor.
An hour or two were devoted to an inspection of Luxor and its temple, and then the party set out for Karnak. The Temple of Luxor is greatly dilapidated; much of the building is in ruins, and portions of it are covered with the wretched huts of the Arabs. The English Consulate is built in one part of it, and the rubbish and sand around the rest are greatly to its detriment. At the side of the principal entrance there are two statues of enormous size, but only a small part of them can be seen, as the most of the figures are buried in the sand.
We will read the account of the visit to Karnak as it was given by Frank and Fred in their letters and journals. Lest they should forget something, they wrote until a late hour in the evening, and declined the invitation of one of the consuls to attend a native dance at his house. They had quite enough of the dance at Keneh.
"We rode from Luxor to Karnak along a path through fields and across open spaces of uncultivated ground. There did not seem to be much of a road, and we were rather taken aback when told that there was once an avenue of sphinxes, six thousand feet long (the avenue, not the sphinxes), all the way from Luxor to Karnak. What a magnificent avenue it must have been, and wouldn't it have been fun to ride along it from one end to the other! As we approached Karnak we came upon a few of the sphinxes still in their places; there were just enough of them to show what the avenue might have been in the days of its glory, and we wondered if the like would ever be seen again. All the sphinxes are much broken, and those that we saw had the heads of rams. Frank suggests that you could hardly expect anything else when the temple was built to celebrate the exploits of Rameses the Great. (He worked hard on that joke, although it is so poor.)
ENTRANCE TO THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR.
"We came to the propylon, or gate-way, which consisted of two enormous towers, each of them large enough to make a temple. There were six of these entrances; and to show you on what a scale this temple was, please look at the figures. One of the peristyles was 370 feet long, 50 feet deep, and 140 feet high. Some of them have partly fallen, but the others are very well preserved.
"As we have said, when talking of the Pyramids and other things, if you don't like figures you can look them over, and then skip. We are going to pelt you with a few handfuls of them, as it is impossible to give even a faint idea of the extent of this Temple of Karnak without them.
APPROACH TO KARNAK FROM LUXOR.
"Here are the dimensions of this enormous work: From one end of the space where the temple stands to the other is 1180 feet, and it is about 600 feet from one side to the other. The enclosing wall is 25 feet thick and from 60 to 100 feet high, so that it formed quite a fortification in the days before the invention of gunpowder. A small army could find plenty of room inside the walls of Karnak, and be able to repel a force of ten times its strength.
"All the space included within the walls is covered with ruins of a most magnificent architecture, and it is not difficult to imagine that you are in the heart of a great city of past ages, rather than in the ruins of a single building. In one place there are the fragments of a fallen obelisk, and close by it is an obelisk, upright and uninjured, 92 feet high and 8 feet square at the base. It is said to be the largest existing obelisk, and the inscriptions show that it was made and set up in its place inside of seven months. Remember that it was hewn from the quarries at Assouan, and brought here in a single block. If you want to know how the ancient Egyptians did it, we give up the conundrum at once.
"Never mind the obelisk just now; we want to show you into the great hall of the temple. And such a hall as it is!
"Stop and think of it as you read the figures, and see if they don't take away your breath.
THE GREAT HALL OF KARNAK.
"It is the grandest hall in the world! It is 329 feet long and 170 feet broad, and down its centre there are two rows of columns, twelve in all, each of them 60 feet high, without counting capital and pedestal, and 12 feet in diameter. Then there are one hundred and twenty-two other columns arranged in fourteen rows, seven on each side of the two central rows, so that the whole room seems to consist of little else than columns. What a capital place for a game of hide-and-seek! How the Egyptian children must have enjoyed it if they were permitted to play here, which we very much doubt!
GRAND COURT-YARD OF THE TEMPLE.
"These one hundred and twenty-two columns are each 42 feet high and 9 feet in diameter. Altogether there are one hundred and thirty-four columns in the hall of the temple, and they are all closely covered with sculptures. They once supported a roof, but it is nearly all gone now, and some of the columns have fallen. The stones used in building the temple were of great size, and they lie around us in all directions; they do not appear very large till you come close up to them, and then you seem dwarfed into nothing by their greatness. Everything is on so grand a scale that you forget the dimensions of individual things until you are side by side with them.
"Some writers have said that there is as much stone here as in the Great Pyramid at Gizeh. Certainly there is a vast amount; but it is so scattered, and in such irregular masses, that you cannot easily make an estimate of it. At any rate, it is a much finer work than that of building the Great Pyramid, as the whole of the walls, the columns, the sides of all the rooms, in fact everywhere that a plain surface was presented, is covered with sculpture or painting. The pyramid impresses you with its vastness, and so does Karnak; but the latter has another impression—that of beauty and artistic effect—which the pyramid has not. The stones used in the construction of Karnak are many of them much larger than those in the pyramids; they show that the builders must have been very skilful engineers, and that their work covered a long period of years.
A BODY OF ARCHERS.
"We looked at the sculptures till our eyes were weary. At every step something new was revealed, and we seemed to be living in the days of the great kings of Egypt. The most of the sculptures represent battle scenes and kindred subjects; and the deeds of the kings are so well illustrated that anybody who has time and patience to study them can easily make out the whole history of a campaign. Here the king is marching out with his army, some on foot, and others on horseback or in chariots, and bearing the swords, spears, and other weapons in use at that time. Next we see him attacking a fortress or crossing a river; next he is putting the enemy to flight and securing the captives; and, finally, he is returning in triumph, and coming to the temple to offer thanks to the divinity who has protected and favored him.
MAKING A LIST OF CAPTIVES.
"The sculptures here, and at other temples in the vicinity of Thebes, show pretty certainly that the ancient Egyptians were accustomed to make human sacrifices. There is a large picture representing the king striking off the heads of a group of captives, and sometimes the hands and feet of slain enemies are cut off and piled before the king, to show how great the slaughter has been. Frequently the king is represented much larger than those that surround him, and the artists took the precaution to label each king with his name, so that there could be no mistake as to his identity. They also put labels on most of the battle scenes, and thus greatly assisted our study of Egyptian history.
OBELISK AND PART OF GRAND HALL AT KARNAK.
"Who built the great Temple of Karnak?
"There has been and still is much dispute among Egyptian scholars on this subject: it is now generally agreed that it was the work of no one king, but rather of several. There is a difference of two hundred and fifty years between the earliest and latest sculptures, and it is believed that from the beginning to the completion of the temple was nearly three centuries. On the walls, columns, and obelisks are the names of kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, and they are so conspicuous that it is pretty certain the building of the temple covered these two periods in Egyptian history. Thothmes III. and Rameses II. and III. are prominently represented, and some of the inscriptions show that portions were added to the temple much later than any of the rulers mentioned.
"It is supposed that the present temple is on the site of an older one, and that four thousand years at least must be given for its antiquity. The Arabs have a tradition that Noah visited the temple after the Flood, and we may fairly believe that portions of it were finished before Jacob went to Egypt with his family. It was an old structure when Moses led the Israelites out of captivity, and its decay had begun when Christ was born at Bethlehem. Shishak, or Sheshonk, who plundered Jerusalem and led the King of Judea captive, is represented on its walls, and there is a picture showing his return with his train of unhappy prisoners. Do you wonder that we stand astonished amid the ruins of Karnak, which are older than the Bible, and older than any of the histories that have come down to our hands?
"We spent the afternoon among the ruins, and then returned to Luxor. The evening was bright with the growing moon, and so we determined to see Karnak by moonlight. If any reader of these lines should hereafter be at Luxor when the moon favors, we advise him by all means to go there under its light, as he will find an effect that is not visible when the sun is in the sky. It is impossible to describe, and so we will not attempt a description; the play of light and the darkness of the shadows are surpassingly beautiful, and some of the columns and broken walls seem even more gigantic than at other times. There is an Arab village close to the ruins, but not within the temple itself; the only inhabitants are owls and jackals, who resent your intrusion with their peculiar cries, and seem to consider themselves the rightful heirs of the kings so long dead and gone."
EGYPTIAN SOLDIERS.