We arose with the first glimmer of light in the eastern sky and found Selim preparing our bath on the roof. When we descended to the interior of the temple we found that the thermometer had only fallen three degrees. The courtyard was again our coolest breakfasting place, besides being more or less free from the smell of bats, which is a distinctive feature of all enclosed temples.
POTTERY BAZAAR IN A NILE VILLAGE
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The town is as unspoilt as any on the banks of the Nile, and the early morning and evening are the only times when it is possible to explore it in comfort at this time of the year. I found some delightful subjects in the little bazaar, and could paint here till the sun drove me from where I had set up my easel. The temple interior, even at a hundred degrees of Fahrenheit, then became a welcome shelter from the burning sun.
My companion was engaged on some literary work and never stirred out of the temple till dusk. After lunch we would retire to improvised beds near the sanctuary, and a ray of sunlight descending through a slit in the roof gave us light by which we could read till we fell asleep.
We spent eight days in the shades of this majestic shrine, and though Weigall had brought quite a library of books on things Egyptological and was also able fluently to read the inscriptions with which the walls are covered, we could only cull a fraction of the flowery descriptions of the deeds that were done while this temple of Horus was being raised. I made a careful study of a fine panel on the inner side of the western girdle-wall. It represents a ship with expanded sail, with Isis kneeling at the prow and Horus astride on the deck launching a javelin into a minute hippopotamus near the edge of the river; both he and the goddess hold a cord which is attached to the beast. The king stands on the bank and is also driving a spear into the victim. The figures are so beautifully drawn and the panel is so decoratively filled, that when we speak of the debased art of the Ptolemies, it must be understood as being so only in comparison with the superlatively fine work of some of the earlier dynasties.
We left Edfu in the early morning to step on to a steam-launch which would run us up to Gebel Silsileh in six hours. I seemed awakened from a sleep gently disturbed with dreams in which the great, of an age long past, and their strange divinities had slowly filed before me, to be lost in the darkness of Edfu’s sanctuary.
The steam-launch seemed an anachronism after the eight days during which we had been transported back to times before the dawn of Christianity. Running against the current our progress was slow; but it was a giddy speed compared with that of the Nile boats we overtook, though their great sails were swelled with the wind blowing up the river. Lying on a mattress in the shade of an extemporised awning and enjoying the breeze which overtook us, we could thoroughly enjoy some hours of complete laziness which we glorified by the name of well-deserved rest. It seemed a pity to fall asleep and to lose consciousness for a moment of this delicious feeling of fresh air and pleasant coolness. Objects we passed were just of sufficient interest not to over-excite us, but just to prevent any feeling of monotony. The remains of a Byzantine fortified town with the ruins of a convent spread picturesquely over the crest of the hill es-Serâg. I should like to have made a sketch of this, though I soon found consolation in the thought that I might pass here again and catch it in a more pictorial lighting. Consolation for most ills comes easily while afloat on the Nile.