of edifices, the various groups of ruins in the adjoining temples—these had such an effect as to separate me in imagination from the rest of mortals, and make me seem unconscious whether I was on earth or some other planet.”
And Karnak, like all Nile scenes, is said to be finer by moonlight than sunlight. But you must go protected, for the wild beast does not hesitate to make a lair of the caverns amid these ruins. Human vanity needs no sadder commentary.
This temple was the acme of old Egyptian art. Its mass was not the work of one king, but of many. It therefore measures taste, wealth and architectural vigor better than a book. But its founder, Thutmes III., left similar monuments to his power. They have been traced in Nubia, in the island of Elephantine, in various cities of northern Egypt, and even in Mesopotamia.
A MUMMY.
In Central Thebes you meet with ruins of the home palace or dwelling place of Rameses III. The king’s chamber can be traced by the character of the sculptures. You see in these the king attended by the ladies of his harem. They are giving him lotus flowers and waving fans before him. In one picture he sits with a favorite at a game of draughts. His arm is extended holding a piece in the act of moving. And so the various domestic scenes of the old monarch appear, reproducing for us, after a period of 3500 years, quite a history of how things went on in the palaces of royalty upon the Nile.
The tombs of Thebes surpass all others in number, extent and splendor. They are back toward the desert in the rocky chain which bounds it. Here are subterranean works which
almost rival the pyramids in wonder. Entrance galleries cut into the solid rock lead to distant central chambers where are deposited the sarcophagi which contained the bodies of the dead. The walls everywhere, and the sarcophagi, or stone coffins, are elaborately sculptured with family histories, prayers, and all the ornaments which formed the pride of the living. Festivals, agricultural operations, commercial transactions, hunts, bullfights, fishing and fowling scenes, vineyards, ornamental grounds, form the subject of these varied, interesting and truly historic sketches. The chambers and passages which run in various directions contain mummies in that wonderful state of preservation which the Egyptians alone had the art of securing. They are found wrapped in successive folds of linen, saturated with bitumen, so as to preserve to the present the form and even the features of the dead. Alas! how these sacred resting places have been desecrated. The sarcophagi have been broken and carried away, and the mummified remains that rested securely in their niches for thousands of years have been dragged out to gratify the curiosity of sight seers in all quarters of the globe.
TEMPLE AT EDFOU.