At three o’clock in the afternoon we arrived at Girgé, the largest town we had seen since we left Cairo; which, by the latitude Ptolemy has very rightly placed it in, should be the Diospolis Parva, and not Gawa, as Mr Norden makes it. For this we know is the beginning of the Diospolitan nome, and is near a remarkable crook of the Nile, as it should be. It is also on the western side of the river, as Diospolis was, and at a proper distance from Dendera, the ancient Tentyra, a mark which cannot be mistaken.
The Nile makes a kind of loop here; is very broad, and the current strong. We passed it with a wind at north; but the waves ran high as in the ocean. All the country, on both sides of the Nile, to Girgé, is but one continued grove of palm-trees, in which are several villages a small distance from each other, Doulani, Consaed, Deirout, and Berdis, on the west side; Welled Hallifi, and Beni Haled, on the east.
The villages have all a very picturesque appearance among the trees, from the many pigeon-houses that are on the tops of them. The mountains on the east begin to depart from the river, and those on the west to approach nearer it. It seems to me, that, soon, the greatest part of Egypt on the east side of the Nile, between Achmim and Cairo, will be desert; not from the rising of the ground by the mud, as is supposed, but from the quantity of sand from the mountains, which covers the mould or earth several feet deep. This 24th of December, at night, we anchored between two villages, Beliani and Mobanniny.
Next morning, the 25th, impatient to visit the greatest, and most magnificent scene of ruins that are in Upper Egypt, we set out from Beliani, and, about ten o’clock in the forenoon, arrived at Dendera. Although we had heard that the people of this place were the very worst in Egypt, we were not very apprehensive. We had two letters from the Bey, to the two principal men there, commanding them, as they would answer with their lives and fortunes, to have a special care that no mischief befel us; and likewise a very pressing letter to Shekh Hamam at Furshout, in whose territory we were.
I pitched my tent by the river side, just above our bark, and sent a message to the two principal people, first to the one, then to the other, desiring them to send a proper person, for I had to deliver to them the commands of the Bey. I did not choose to trust these letters with our boatman; and Dendera is near half a mile from the river. The two men came after some delay, and brought each of them a sheep; received the letters, went back with great speed, and, soon after, returned with a horse and three asses, to carry me to the ruins.
Dendera is a considerable town at this day, all covered with thick groves of palm-trees, the same that Juvenal describes it to have been in his time. Juvenal himself must have seen it, at least once, in passing, as he himself died in a kind of honourable exile at Syene, whilst in command there.
Terga fugæ celeri, præstantibus omnibus instant,
Qui vicina colunt umbrosæ Tentyra palmæ.
Juv. Sat. 15. v. 75
This place is governed by a cacheff appointed by Shekh Hamam. A mile south of the town, are the ruins of two temples, one of which is so much buried under ground, that little of it is to be seen; but the other, which is by far the most magnificent, is entire, and accessible on every side. It is also covered with hieroglyphics, both within and without, all in relief; and of every figure, simple and compound, that ever has been published, or called an hieroglyphic.
The form of the building is an oblong square, the ends of which are occupied by two large apartments, or vestibules, supported by monstrous columns, all covered with hieroglyphics likewise. Some are in form of men and beasts; some seem to be the figures of instruments of sacrifice, while others, in a smaller size, and less distinct form, seem to be inscriptions in the current hand of hieroglyphics, of which I shall speak at large afterwards. They are all finished with great care.
The capitals are of one piece, and consist of four huge human heads, placed back to back against one another, with bat’s ears, and an ill-imagined, and worse-executed, fold of drapery between them.