Egypt (La Mort de Philae)

enoon, having come, like so many pilgrims of old, from the banks of the Nile to visit t

owers, such as may be seen in our climate. Hundreds of little birds sing to us distractedly of the joy of life; the sun shines radiantly, magnificently; the impetuous c

ome; beyond indeed the mountain chain of Libya, like a wall confining the fertile fields, looks strange perhaps in its rose-colour, and too desolate; but

omehow to transform the aspect of the homely green fields, and make this pastoral region almost imposing. The buzzing of the

h which presses so closely upon inhabited Egypt: the desert! The desert of Libya, and now as ever when we come upon it suddenly from the banks of the old river it rises up before us; beginning at once, without transition, absolute and terrible, as soon as we leave the

e solitudes; but its necropoles, more venerated even than those of Memphis, and its thrice-holy temples, are a little farther on, in th

sound of our steps, the atmosphere too seems suddenly to change; it burns wi

e little vapours of mirage like water ruffled by the wind. The background, which mounts gradually to the foot of the Libyan mountains, is strewn with the debris of bricks and stones-shapeless ruins which, though they scarcely rise above the sand, abound nev

oly places where it behoved them to be buried if they wished to be ready when the signal of awakening was given. And in old Egypt, therefore, each one, at the hour of death, turned his thoughts to these stones and sands, in the ardent hope that he might be able to sleep near the remains of his god. And when the place was becoming crowded with sleepers, those who could obtain no place there conceived the idea of having humble obelisks planted on the holy ground, which at least should tell their names; or even recommended that their mummies might be there for some weeks, even if they w

thing warns us of its proximity. The sand from which it has been exhumed, and which buried it for 2000 years, still rises almost to its roof. Through an iron gate, guarded by two tall Bedouin guards in black robes, we plunge at once into the shadow of enormous stones. We are in

ough, beyond a second row of columns, is quite a little crowd talking loudly in Englis

ity which patronises Thomas Cook & Son (Egypt Ltd.). They wear cork helmets, and the classic green spectacles; drink whisky and soda, and eat voraciously sandwiches and other viands out of greasy paper, which now litters the floor. And the women! Heavens! what scarecrows they are! And this kind of thing, so

ible before the sight shall ha

ation at first sight seemed satisfactory: "The United Kingdom, justifiably jealous of the beauty of its daughters, submits them to a jury when they reach the age of puberty; and those who are classed as too ugly to reproduce their kind are accorded an unlimited account at Thomas Cook & Sons, and thus vowed to a course of perpetual travel, which leaves them no time to think of certain trifles incidental to life." The

solitary. Indeed the sun blazes there a lonely sovereign in the midst of

body; their heads and shoulders have disappeared with the upper parts of the walls. But they seem to have preserved their vitality: the gesticulations, the exaggerated pantomime of the attitudes of these headless things, are more strange, more striking, perhaps, than if their faces still remained. And they have preserved too, in an extraordinary degree, the brightness of their antique paintings, the fresh tints of their costumes, of their robes of turquoise blue, or lapis, or emerald-green, or golden-yellow. It i

a manufacturer, e

overing that the li

this temple as a q

beyond price serve

f the f

apeless ruins of tawny-coloured blocks follow one another in the sands until the dazzling distance ends in a clear-cut line against the sky. Apart from this temple of Ramses, where we now stand, and that of Seti in the vicinity, where the enterprise of Thomas Cook & Son flourishes, there is nothing around us but ruins, crumbled and pulverised beyond all pos

The great ancestral people, who would have shuddered at our black trees, and the corruption of the damp graves, like

uin drivers, is being driven in the direction of the adjacent temple, dedicated to the god by Seti! The luncheon no doubt i

ing, not without a conscious air of majesty, their white cotton parasols, take them

away the leavings and the dirty paper. And they pack the dubious crockery, which will be required for to-morrow's luncheon, into large che

ishonours the halls of the interior, where silence has ag

vaulted chambers; seven doors for the processions of kings and multitudes; and, at the sides, numberless halls, corridors, secondary chapels, dark chambers and hidden doorways. That very primitive column, suggestive of reeds, which is called in architecture the "plant column" and resembles a monstrous stem of papyrus, rises here in a thick forest, to support the stones of the blue ceilings, which are strewn with stars, in the likeness of the sky of thi

ation their eternal mute conversation. The whole temple, with the openings which give it light, is more beautiful perhaps than in the time of the Pharaohs. In place of the old-time darkness, a transparent gloom now alternates with shafts of sunlight. Here and there the subjects of the bas-reliefs, so long buried in the darkness, are deluged with burning rays which detail their attitudes, their muscles, their scarcely a

es, full of the ancient dream, were already skilled in their art; but through a deficiency, which puzzles us, they were only able to draw them in profile. All the legs, all the feet are in profile too, although the bodies, on the o

eat Sesostris of the Greeks). They have given the latter quite a frank air, and he wears a curl on the side of his head, as was the fashion then in childhood. He, also, has his mummy in a glass case in the museum, and anyone who has seen that toothless, sinister wr

a halt in their midst. Almost touching me is a dear little white donkey, who looks at me pensively and in such a way that we at once understand each other. A mutual sympathy unites us. A Cookess in spectacles surmounts him-the most hideous of them all, bony and severe. Over her travelling costume, already sufficiently r

is ears twitch restlessly and his beautiful eyes, so fine

beauty,

nk of this: fixed on thy back as she is, thou h

, and his look answers me that he would be much prouder if he ca