Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/808

784 784 EGYPT f DESERTS. place of Osiris. On. the east side is a small but very picturesque temple, now hypaethral, of the Greek and Roman time, and unfinished. It is 48 feet in width and G3 in length, and has 14 columns with capitals of various forms, connected by intercolumnal walls. The great temple of Isis stands to the westward of this. Its front is formed by a propylon, before which is a kind of court, to be after wards described. The portal bears the name of Nectanebes II., but the wings were added by the Ptolemies, making the entire width about 122 feet. Through the portal we enter a court, on the right side of which is a gallery fronted by columns, behind which are several small chambers, and on the left side is a separate small temple of Athor, the main entrance to which is by a door and passage in the left wing of the great propylon. This small temple begins with a portico having four columns with the faces of Athor sculptured in high relief upon each of their sides above the capitals. Beyond this are three chambers behind one another, above the door of the first of which is a Greek dedication by Ptolemy Euergetes II., and the two Cleopatras. The temple was, however, begun by Epiphanes. The court of the great temple, that of Isis, is bounded by a second propylon of smaller dimensions than the first, forming the entrance to the portico, which is a very elegant structure raised on ten columns, eight of which are at the back and one on each side. It is partly hypjethral, an open space being left between the two columns last mentioned. The beautiful forms of the columns and the bright remains of colour on them and the walls, with the effect of the sunlight through the aperture of the roof, produce a charming effect. Behind this hall are several small apartments, one of which, reached by a staircase, contains very curious sculptures relating to the story of Osiris. The temple appears to have been begun by Ptolemy Philadelphus (whose name is the earliest found there), and was continued under the Roman emperors. The court before the temple remains to be noticed. It is bounded by two galleries with columns in front. One of these is about 250 feet long, and is built close to the western side of the isle, terminating at a small temple of Athor near its southern end. This edifice, which is much ruined, was supported by columns with faces of Athor above their capitals, of which six stand ; it was raised by Nectanebes II. The eastern gallery, which is shorter than the other, is not parallel with it, and thus shows that this court was not part of the great temple, but rather an approach to it. The other remains are of minor import ance, and the same may be said of the ruins of a temple on the neighbouring large island of Bige. A few words must be said respecting the eastern and western deserts. The latter is remarkable for two valleys besides those called the Oases. The first of these valleys is that of the Natron Lakes to the westward of the Delta, containing four monasteries, the remains of the famous anchorite settlement of Nitrise. To the southward of this, and parallel to it, is a sterile valley called the Bahr- bela-Ma, or &quot; River without Water.&quot; Yet farther to the southward is the Little Oasis (Oasis Parva), about 100 miles from the Nile in 29 E. long., nearly due west of the town of Bahnese. It contains remains of little interest. Within 200 miles due south of this oasis is another, of which the usual apellation is Wah ed-Dakhileh, where, near the town of El-Kasr, is an Egyptian temple of the Roman period. This, according to Sir Gardner Wilkinson, is the most flourishing of the oases. About half-way between this oasis and the Nile at Thebes lies the Great Oasis (Oasis Magna). Here, near the town called El- Kharigeh, the ancient Hibe, is a great temple of Amen built by Darius I., and in the same oasis are other ruins of the period of the Ptolemies and Caesars. The Oasis of Jupiter Ammon, that of Seewah, is not far from the coast at a great distance to the westward, and it is not properly included in Egypt. Various Arab tribes occupy this desert, besides the settled inhabitants of the oases. In the eastern desert must be mentioned the town of Es- Suweys, or Suez (15,000 inhabitants), anciently Arsinoe, at the head of the gulf to which it gives its name. To the southward, a little below 29 lat., are the secluded Coptic convents of St Antony and St Paul, near the sea. Farther south are the porphyry quarries of Gebel-ed-Dukhan, ex tensively worked under the Romans, and the granite quarries of Gebel-el-Fateereh. Considerably more to the south, at El-Hammamdt, on the old way from Coptos to Philoteras Portus, are the Breccia Verde quarries, which were much worked from very early times, and have interesting hieroglyphic inscriptions. At Gebel Zabarah are emerald mines, now abandoned as unproductive. At the various mines, and on the routes to them and to the Red Sea, are some small temples and stations, ranging from the Pharaonic to the Roman period. Along the shore of the sea are the sites of several ancient ports, the most important of which were Myos Hormos and Berenice, and also the modern town of El-Kuseyr. The northern part of this desert is occupied by the Ma azee Arabs and smaller tribes as far as the Kuseyr road, beyond which are the Ababdeh, an African tribe very different from the Arabs in appearance; and to the south of these, to the east of Lower Nubia, is the Bisharee tribe, a people also of African race. STATISTICS. 1 [In Egypt, as has been well said, L JKtat c est le Khedive. So far as the country itself is concerned the khedive is its personal, absolute, and independent sovereign ; but his relations with the Porte are somewhat less simple. When Selim I. of Turkey conquered Egypt at the beginning of the 16th century, the Memlook power was still too strong for complete subjection, and Selim was obliged to allow his new subjects liberal terms. Egypt still retained practical autonomy, the government being in the hands of a council of Memlook beys, presided over by a pasha, whose duty it was to look to the annual tribute paid to the Porte, but who possessed little or no actual power. This system was continued till the French occupation, and was re-established when the English army evacuated the country. The Memlooks were still the virtual governors of Egypt, until their massacre by Mehemet Ali. The ambitious designs of this pasha opened the eyes of the Porte to the dangers incurred by so lax a control of a governor unshackled by the council of beys. Menaced with the loss of Syria as well as Egypt, the cause of the sultan was espoused by four of the Great Powers; and the Treaty of 1840, confirmed by the Convention of 1841 limited Mehemet Ali s power to the vice-royalty of Egypt, hereditable by the eldest male of his family, ordered the continuation of the customary tribute, restricted the military and naval strength of the viceroy, and imposed certain other conditions, thus reducL.g Egypt once more to the state of a Turkish province. But in the reign of the present ruler a change has taken place in the relations between the sultan and his viceroy. A series of expensive negotiations with the Porte, ending with the raising of the tribute from 376,000 to 675,000, procured for Ismail Pasha the title of Khedive, and the right of succession from father to son. The limitation of the Egyptian army 1 For much of the information contained i:i the present section, the writer is indebted to the industrious work of Mr J. C. M Coan, Egypt as it is, though he has thought it necessary to check it with official reports and other authorities : but it must always be remembered that Egyptian like all Oriental statistics can be accepted only with reserve.