INTERIOR OF ROCK TOMB—BENI-HASSAN.
But where in Egypt do these wonders of monument, of sculpture, of sacred writing, not exist? We find them everywhere, telling of a people full of genius and the germs of all civilization. You read as you could not read from a book, for there is no conflict of sentiment, no odd statements to reconcile. And what do you read? That the art of writing was familiar to priest and scribe. That they had ships, for their inscriptions show handsome nautical designs. There are glass blowers, flax dressers, spinners, weavers, and bales of cloth. There are potters, painters, carpenters, and statuaries. There is a doctor attending a patient and a herdsman physicking cattle. The hunters employ arrows,
spears and the lasso. There is the Nile full of fish and a hippopotamus among the ooze. There is the bastinado for the men and the flogging of a seated woman. There are games of ball and other amusements for men and women. And then the luxuries! There are harpers, costly garments, patterns of every design, fashions for the hair, costly spices and perfumes. They have portrayed every type of life and business with a faithfulness which is astonishing.
EGYPTIAN BRICK FIELD.
The most mysterious of Egyptian monuments is “The Caves of the Crocodiles,” or Grottoes of Samoun, in Upper Egypt. They are not often visited because travelers are repelled at the
outset by their difficulty and gloom. They are filled with an incalculable number of human mummies, and those of the crocodile, birds and reptiles. Whence they came is not known, but, it is supposed, from Monfalout and Hermenopolis on the opposite side of the Nile. An English traveler, M. A. Georges, penetrated them after great trouble, and was horrified to find within the dark grottoes the remains of a traveler who had been overcome by famine and exhaustion. He says,
“On raising our eyes we perceived a horrid spectacle. A corpse still covered with its skin was seated on the rounded fragment of a rock. Its aspect was hideous. Its arms were outstretched, its head thrown back. His neck was bent with the death agony. His emaciated body, eyes enlarged, chin contracted, mouth twisted and open, hair erect on his head, every feature distorted by suffering—these gave him a horrible appearance.
INTERIOR OF GROTTOES OF SAMOUN.