Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/85



and petty warfares then. - Demagogues and knaves flourished then as now. Noisy patriots harangued from the stump, fanatics howled from the rostrum, and office seekers wandered up and down the earth.

From the mummy-pits to the Memnonium, the temple-palace of Sesostris. It is imposing even in its wreck. I ts lofty columns, crowned with capital and cornice, stand erect as in the days of its prime. It is approached by an avenue of sphynxes, terminating in a splendid propylon, richly covered with sculptures, commemorative of the triumph of the monarch whose name it bears. Near its entrance are the remains of a colossal statue of Sesostris, hewn out of a single block of granite, measuring twentythree feet across the breast, and weighing eight hundred and eighty-seven tons! This enormous colossus was

'hurled from his pedestal by the fury of Cambyses, and broken into fragments.

But splendid as is this temple, it is puny in comparison with that of Medeenet Habou, half a mile to the south. I cannot describe it at length. Passing the pylon, you enter a court, one hundred and ten by one hundred and thirteen feet, having on the one side a row of Osiride pillars, and on the other, eight similar columns, with bell-formed capitals, representing the full-blown lotus. Then follows the principal pylon, or gateway, surmounted by a row of sitting apes, the emblems of the god Thoth, which leads into the grand court. It measures one hundred and twenty-three by one hundred and thirty-three feet, and is surrounded by a peristyle, whose east and west sides are supported by five massive columns, the south by a row of eight pillars, and the north by a similar number. Behind is a superb corridor of circular columns, each with a circumference of twenty-three feet, and a height of twenty-four feet. These pillars are richly colored, and present

an appearance the most magnificent of which the imagination can conceive. The walls of this court are covered with sculpture, illustrating the Pharoah to whom the temple was dedicated. In one place he is represented as sitting in his car, while a heap of hands (those of his vanquished enemies) are placed before him, which an officer counts, while a scribe notes down in numbers. In another place he is returning from the wars. A long procession of captives, with pinioned arms, are marching beside and before him, while three of the number are bound to the axle of his chariot.

There are three other smaller temples on the western side of the river, two of which I visited, but which I cannot stop to describe. Indeed, the whole vast plain is one field of ruin. Columns and colossii, sphynxes and towers, rear their giant forms above the waste of sand as far as the eye can see. Wherever the traveler wanders, the same wrecks of the past arrest his progress. Some are barely visible above the sand, while others stand out clear and dauntless, as if defying the might of Time.

A short ride across the plain brings us vis-a-vis with the Vocal Memnon. There he sits, calm and stoical, as he sat when the sages of Greece and Rome came to do him homage, and listen to his greetings of the morning sun. He has long since, however, given up singing as a profession, and sends forth no welcome to the blushing Aurora as she kisses his weather-beaten brow. This modest veteran is hewn out of a single block of granite, and measures in his sitting posture some forty-seven feet in height. His face is sadly battered; he has lost his nose and left ear; his chest is quite gone, and the poor fellow looks shabby and woe-begone generally. An Arab boy climbed up his back and tried to imitate his "tricks upon travelers" by striking a "musical stone." But it was a poor imitation, and I left