Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/82

 this im mense tomb, which it takes hours to explore, was wrought out of the solid rock.

I cannot pause to give the details of the wonderful sculptures and still more wonderful paintings of this tomb. In one of the rooms is a representation of four different peoples contrasting widely in dress and color and cast of countenance. These are supposed to represent the great divisions of mankind, among them the negro. So little has the latter changed during a period of over 3,000 years, that an "American citizen of African descent" might recognize his portrait among the figures of this group. What, then, becomes of the pretty theory of those ethnologists who insist that the difference in color and feature between the white and blackis referable to the influence of time and climate? If the lapse of over 3,200 years (for the occupant of this tomb ascended the throne 1,385 years before Christ) has sufficed to effect no perceptible physical difference in the Ethiop, surely the remaining less than 3,000 years of man's biblically-recorded history cannot have produced so great disparity between white and black. One of the chambers of the great tomb is unfinished. The positions of the figures are given by the artist, but the coloring is not put on. What great event—what sudden calamity—prevented the completion of the task? You have entered the studio of an artist during his temporary absence from his work. Half-finished sketches are lying about; rough designs are scattered hither and thither; the paint is hardly dry upon the canvas at which he wrought; a multitude of outlines and shadows—of faintly dawning perspective and sombre background are visible. So here: the artist seems to have just left his work. Profiles of gods and goddesses—sketches of kings, and apes, and owls, and hawks, and genii, are seen on walls and ceilings. You cannot realize that these profiles

were drawn—that these _half-filled sketches were executed —that these brilliantly tinted figures were wrought, over thirty centuries ago.

The next tomb we visit—that of Rameses the Third (called the "Harper's Tomb ")—is equally interesting, though not so rich in painting and sculpture. Its total length is four hundred and five feet, with a perpendicular descent of thirty-one feet. Here the wondering traveler obtains a glimpse of the manners and customs of the ancient Thebans, We enter a small room on whose walls the mysteries of the Egyptian kitchen are revealed. An ox is being slain; aman is filling a cauldron with the joints of the slaughtered beast; another is blowing the fire with the bellows; another is pounding something with a mortar; another is chopping meat into mince; another is making pastry; anotheris kneading dough. Farther on is a room whose walls are covered with paintings of furniture. There are chairs and sofas of elegant forms and richly ornamented; couches of seductive pattern, porcelain pottery, copper utensils, baskets of graceful shapes, mirrors and toilet articles, basins and ewers, and all the paraphernalia of stylish household furniture. Nothing I have seen in this strange land amazed me more than these latter. They prove the old Egyptians to have been versed in the elegant arts—to have known a degree of refinement in their private life indicating a high type of civilization. No dealer in "fancy wares" on Broadway or Montgomery street could present a more brilliant "assortment" than are displayed upon these time-honored walls.

Is there any thing "new under the sun?" How much have we advanced in the practical or elegant arts beyond the busy-bodies of ancient Thebes? Glass-blowing was practiced in the reign of Osirtasen over 3,800 years ago, and the form of the blow-pipe and the bottle differed little from that of our