[100] Apuleii Asclepius, dialogue Hermetis Trismegisti, c. 24.
[101] When I wrote the above, I did not think that the crime would be so soon avenged. See Letter XXXV. p. 372.
[102] I have since learnt (Rev. Arch., vol. iv. p. 32,) that M. Ampère had been expressly sent to Egypt, by the Paris Academy, to copy the bilingual inscription at Philae, to which I had turned attention in my Letters. See Letter XV. p. 120, and note. Of the impression brought back to Paris, in which, however, the beginnings of the Demotic lines, and the date of the decree are wanting, the very diminished representation of Demotic text is taken, which M. de Saulcy has published in the Revue Archéologique.
[103] [In Bunsen’s list of Determinatives, No. 5. I quote his description “Disk diffusing rays of light; light, as sti, a sunbeam, (sun’s ray); ht, daylight; ubn, to illuminate; mau, to gleam; ui, brilliancy; hai, light; am, a beam.” Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place, vol. i. p. 537.—Since writing the foregoing note in the first edition, I have read the Rev. Charles Forster’s Monuments of Egypt, and I find that he attempts to identify this royal sign with a grain of millet, “with its stamina and antheræ developed,” assigning for its pronunciation the word “pschent.” I forbear criticism upon this “discovery,” only referring the reader to p. 54 of the second part of the Primæval Language.—K. R. H. M.]
[104] [Dr. Lepsius alludes to Herr Maximilian Weidenbach.—K. R. H. M.]
[105] These places were first accurately and instructively described by Wilkinson, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, vol. ii. pp. 28 sqq.
[106] These are the actual words of my journal as they are understood also by Ritter, p. 578. According to the printed report, p. 8, it might appear as if Robinson had given up the attempt to climb the whole of this mountain district; this is particularised in the Bibliotheca Sacra as an inaccuracy. But I only spoke of the top of the mountain rising in the plain in contradistinction to the higher points lying toward the side, which Robinson has ascended.
[107] This report, sent to His Majesty, was printed, while I was still absent in 1846, under the title “Reise des Prof. Lepsius von Theben nach der Halbinsel des Sinai vom 4ten März, bis zum 14ten April, 1845,” Berlin, with two maps, a general map of the whole peninsula, and a special map of Serbâl and Wadi Firân, which were drawn by G. Erbkam after my directions or plans. This pamphlet was not published, but was given to a few; yet its contents have become better known by a translation into English by Charles H. Cottrell, (A Tour from Thebes to the peninsula of Sinai, &c., London, 1846); and into French by T. Pergameni, (“Voyage dans le Presq’île du Sinai, &c., lu à la Société de Géographie, séances du 21 Avril et du 21 Mai. Extrait du Bulletin de la Soc. de Géogr., Juin, 1847, Paris.”)
[108] The Nakb el Haui, “Windsaddle” is an exceedingly wild and narrow mountain pass, which is impassable from its shelving abysses. The road had to be made with great art along the western side, and is in many places hewn out of the rock; on the other side, the loose soil has been paved with great flat stones. It is not to be doubted, that this daring path was made after the building of the convent, in order to have a shorter road to the town of Pharan, which before could only be reached by the wide circuit through the Wadi e’ Shech.
[109] It seems that this convent has not been visited by any recent traveller. Burckhardt, who calls it Siggillye, did not descend, but heard that it was well-built and spacious, and provided with a good well, (Trav. in Syria, p. 610). More accurate information concerning this convent in the Serbâl gorge is very desirable, as it belongs probably to one of the oldest, or, at least, the most considerable of the peninsula, as the artistic and elaborately prepared rock-road thence to the town of Pharan amply shows.