The triumphs of perseverance and enterprise, recorded as examples for the young

by Thomas Cooper

Belzoni Removing the Bust of Memnon.

This grand and gigantic relic of antiquity was discovered and brought into notice by the lamented Burckhardt, but when Belzoni first approached it, the accumulation of sand was such “that it appeared an impossibility ever to reach the door.” The exact spot where he had fixed the entrance to be was determined in his own mind from observing the head of a hawk, of such a monstrous size that, with the body, it could not be less than twenty feet high. This bird he concluded to be over the doorway; and as below the figure there is generally a vacant space, followed by a frieze and cornice, he calculated the upper part of the doorway to be about thirty-five feet below the summit of the sand.

Having succeeded in procuring for hire, from one of the cachefs, as many labourers as he could afford to employ, Belzoni set about clearing away the sand from the front of the temple. The only condition made with the cachef was, that all the gold and jewels found in it should belong to him, as chief of the country, and that Belzoni should have all the stones. At the end of four or five days his funds were entirely exhausted; he therefore, after obtaining a promise from the chief that no one should molest the work in his absence, resumed his search for other antiquities; and, after conveying the Memnon to Alexandria, and being joined by Mr. Beechy at Cairo, met, at Philæ, with Captains Irby and Mangles of the British Navy, and was joined also by them.

Having conciliated the cachefs by suitable presents, they agreed to give the workmen, who were eighty in number, three hundred piastres for removing the sand as low down as the entrance. At first they seemed to set about the task like men who were determined to finish the job; but, at the end of the third day, they all grew tired, and, “under the pretext that the Rhamadan was to commence on the next day, they left us,” says Belzoni, “with the temple, the sand, and the treasure, and contented themselves with keeping the three hundred piastres.”

The travellers were now convinced that, if the temple was to be opened at all, it must be by their own exertions; and, accordingly assisted by the crew of the boat, they set to work, and, by dint of perseverance and hard labour for about eighteen days, they arrived at the doorway of that temple, which had, in all probability, been covered with sand two thousand years, and which proved to be the finest and most extensive in Nubia. Belzoni thus describes the exterior of the temple of Ipsambul.

“The outside of this temple is magnificent. It is a hundred and seventeen feet wide, and eighty-six feet high: the height from the top of the cornice to the top of the door being sixty-six feet six inches, and the height of the door twenty feet. There are four enormous sitting colossi, the largest in Egypt or Nubia, except the great sphinx at the pyramids, to which they approach in the proportion of nearly two thirds. From the shoulder to the elbow they measure fifteen feet six inches; the ears three feet six inches; the face seven feet; the beard five feet six inches; across the shoulders twenty-five feet four inches; their height is about fifty-one feet, not including the caps, which are about fourteen feet.

One of the Enormous Sitting Colossi.

“There are only two of these colossi in sight: one is still buried under the sand, and the other, which is near the door, is half fallen down, and buried also. On the top of the door is a colossal figure of Osiris, twenty feet high, with two colossal hieroglyphic figures, one on each side, looking towards it. On the top of the temple is a cornice with hieroglyphics, a torus and frieze under it. The cornice is six feet wide, the frieze is four feet. Above the cornice is a row of sitting monkeys eight feet high, and six feet wide across the shoulders. They are twenty-one in number. This temple was nearly two-thirds buried under the sand, of which we removed thirty-one feet before we came to the upper part of the door. It must have had a very fine landing-place, which is now totally buried under the sand. It is the last and largest temple excavated in the solid rock in Nubia or Egypt, except the new tomb in Beban el Molook.

“The heat on first entering the temple was so great that they could scarcely bear it, and the perspiration from their hands was so copious as to render the paper, by its dripping, unfit for use. On the first opening that was made by the removal of the sand, the only living object that presented itself was a toad of prodigious size. Halls and chambers, supported by magnificent columns and adorned with beautiful intaglios, paintings, and colossal figures, the walls being covered partly with hieroglyphics, and partly with exhibitions of battles, storming of castles, triumphs over the Ethiopians, sacrifices, &c.—made up the striking interior.”