The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage

by J. H. Ingraham

At this gate, the city is entered in its central point. Two obelisks, ninety feet in height, towered on each side of the entrance. Here I was received by a venerable noble, who was mounted upon a snow-white horse, and attended by a brilliant retinue, all superbly mounted. This personage extended to me the same hospitable and courteous welcome from his queen, which had been presented to me from the others. He rode by my side, and we took our way at a rapid trot along an avenue of alternate obelisks and sphinxes, until we passed through a pylon which opened into the streets of the city. The splendor around bewildered me. Palaces, with gorgeous façades and triple stories of colonnades, composed street after street, while fountains and statues and propyla, temples, monoliths, andro-sphinxes and crio-sphinxes presented, as I rode along through this superb "City of the Sun," an endless spectacle of architectural grandeur and marble magnificence. The streets were thronged with handsomely attired citizens, either in the pursuit of pleasure or business, while priestly processions, festival parties crowned with flowers and attended by musicians, and bodies of horse, were met by us. Gilded chariots, palanquins, and vehicles of rare and graceful forms, were numerous. The whole city wore an air of pleasure and life, and impressed me with the idea that the Egyptians are not only master-builders in architecture, but know how to enjoy the splendid cities they erect with such costly care.

My senses sated with luxury, I was not unwilling to alight at the entrance of a beautiful palace, which the venerable horseman said the queen had placed at my service. Upon its portico I was met by my private secretary, Acherres, who, in his joy at beholding me again, forgot for a moment my rank, and embraced me with tears of delight; for, in this foreign land, he saw in me alone the link which bound him to his native country.

I have now been two days in this palace, wherein is furnished me, by the queen, the attendance of slaves; and every luxury of Egypt is at my command. As I said to you, dear mother, in my first letter, I have yet only seen the Queen of Egypt at a distance, as she was ascending the steps of her palace, but to-morrow I am formally to be presented to her, for on that day of the week alone she receives princes and ambassadors. She had returned four days before to Memphis, from Philæ, with a great retinue of the lords and officers of her realm, and yesterday, crossing the Nile in her barge of state, she entered this sacred city, which she visits for three days every month to perform in the great temple the sacred rites of her gorgeous religion. Of this worship I will soon write you more fully. It is an error, however, to suppose that these enlightened Egyptians worship the sun, or any other objects, as such, of mere matter. Their fundamental doctrine is the unity of the deity, whose attributes are represented under positive and material forms. The common people perhaps never go beyond these forms, and their minds never are admitted to a knowledge of the truth of the mysteries; but the priests, and the high in rank, look upon the sun, and moon, and animals, and the fecund Nile, only as so many attributes of a one infinite deity. The sun—believed to possess much of the divine influence in its vivifying power and its various other effects—is regarded as one of the grandest agents of the one deity. The moon is another direct manifestation of the invisible author, and as the regulator of time, say their sacred books, is figured in painting and sculpture as the ibis-headed Thoth, and the deity who records, as time flies, the actions of men's lives. Osiris, if I understand their mythology, is this supreme god (symbolized here by the sun), who is also the judge of the souls of the dead, rewarding or punishing hereafter the creatures he has created, according to their lives. But when I learn more fully their system of religion, I will explain it to you, dear mother.

Although I have not seen, to speak with her, the august lady who reigns over Egypt, I have been visited by her son, the lord Prince Remeses. I have already written of him. He is in his thirty-fourth year, and the noblest appearing man my eyes ever beheld. Upon his brow the gods have set the seal and impress of command. I will narrate the manner of our first intercourse.

I was standing by the window of the stately apartment, which overlooks one of the squares of the city, interested in watching the toils of several hundred men, coarsely attired in blue aprons or loin-cloths, and gray breeches reaching only to the knee, the upper part of their bodies being naked, who were at work constructing a wall which was to inclose a new lake before the temple of Apis, in the midst of the square; for On is a city of alternate lakes (all of great beauty and adorned with trees), temples, squares, and palaces, interspersed with dromos of sphinxes connecting court after court, through lofty pylones; while obelisks, statues, and fountains fill up the interspaces.

My window not only commanded a view of these laborers with their heavy burdens of bricks, borne on their shoulders to the top of the wall they were building, but also, beyond the wall and distant temples, a glimpse of the yellow expanse of the desert. How mighty, and grand, and solemn it looked in its loneliness and ocean-like vastness! A faint dark line that I at length perceived in motion, was, doubtless, a caravan coming from the haven of the Red Sea, where the galleys from Farther Ind land their precious freights of untold wealth. This caravan seeks the port of On, six miles below on the Nile, whence sail ships, laden with the treasures of the caravan, to all parts of the known earth. Sesostris, Thothmes, Menes, all planned a canal from the Nile to this sea; but the camels are the only ships, to this day, that cross this desert waste. Again my eyes rested upon the laborers, seeing that they were sorely pressed by cruel taskmasters, who, with long rods, urged them to their ceaseless toil. I perceived, then, that they were men with Syrian features, arched eagle noses, long black beards, and narrow but fine eyes, which seemed to have a strange expression of tears in them. There were among them noble and manly men, handsome youths, though pale with toil, and bent forms of aged men. I marvelled to see so fine a race thus in bondage, as slaves under taskmasters, for in the day of the Phœnician Pharaohs, there were no such bondmen in the land of Egypt. From their remarkable likeness to some natives of Mesopotamia I had seen in Tyre, I judged that they must be captives of that ancient Orient people, taken in the wars of Amunoph.

While I was regarding them, and especially an interesting youth, whose dark eyes, as he staggered under a heavy burden of bricks, were turned up to me as if seeking sympathy, Acherres entered and said:

"My lord Sesostris, the mighty Prince Remeses is alighting from his chariot upon the steps of your palace!"

Upon hearing this news I hastened to the portico, wondering if I were to be honored with a personal visit from the lord of Egypt, ere the queen mother should receive me in state.

Upon reaching the circular peristyle hall within the portico, the ædile of my palace opened the gilded doors, and there stood before me the Prince of Egypt. I have already described his noble presence and personal appearance. Upon seeing me he advanced, waving his attendants to withdraw, and with mingled dignity and sweetness, that at once won my heart, said: