Sketches by Benjamin Disraeli (read me like a book .txt) 📕

of effect should not be broken. The great door in the centre is sixty-four feet in height.

Through this you pass into colonnaded courts, which in any other place would command undivided attention, until you at length arrive in front of a second propylon. Ascending a flight of steps, you enter the great hall of Karnak. The area of this hall is nearly fifty-eight thousand square feet, and it has recently been calculated that four such churches as our St. Martin's-in-the-Fields might stand side by side in this unrivalled chamber without occupying the whole space. The roof, formed of single stones--compared with which the masses at Stonehenge would appear almost bricks--has fallen in; but the one hundred and thirty-four colossal columns which supported it, and which are considerably above thirty feet in circumference, still remain, and with the walls and propyla are completely covered with sculptured forms.

I shall not attempt to describe any other part of Karnak;-the memory aches with the effort. There are many buildings attached to it, larger than most temples; and infinite number of gates and obelisks, and colossi; but the imagination cannot refrain from calling up some sacred or heroic procession, moving from Luxor to Karnak, in melodious pomp, through the great avenue of sphinxes, and ranging themselves in groups around the gigantic columns of this sublime structure. What feudal splendour, and what Gothic ceremonies; what tilts and tournaments, and what ecclesiastical festivals, could rival the vast, the beautiful, and the solemn magnificence of the old Egyptians?

Crossing the river to Western Thebes, we arrive at two seated colossi, one of which is the famous musical statue of Memnon. It is fine to see him still seated on his throne, dignified and serene, on the plain of Thebes. This colossus is fifty feet in height; and its base is covered with inscriptions of Greek and Roman travellers, vouching that they had listened to the wild sunrise melody. This statue and its remaining companion, though now isolated in their situation, were once part of an enormous temple, the ruins of which yet remain, and the plan of which may yet be traced.

The Memnonion itself is now near at hand. In the colossal Caryatides we recognise the vast genius that excavated the rocks of Ipsambul, and supported a cavern temple upon the heads of giants. From the Memnonion came the statue that is now in the British Museum. But this figure, though a fine specimen of Egyptian sculpture, sinks, so far as magnitude is concerned, into insignificance, when compared with the statue of the supposed Sesostris, which, broken off at the waist, now lies prostrate in the precincts of the sanctuary. This is, probably, the most huge colossus that the Egyptians ever constructed. The fragment is of red granite, and of admirable workmanship. Unfortunately, the face is entirely obliterated. It lies upon its back, and in its fall has destroyed all the temple within reach. It measures more than sixty feet round the shoulders, the breadth of the instep is nearly seven feet, and the hieroglyphical figures engraven on the arm are large enough for a man to walk in.

Perhaps the most interesting group of ruins at Thebes is the quarter of Medoenet Habu, for here, among other vast remains, is that of a palace; and it is curious, among other domestic subjects, that we find represented on the walls, in a very admirable style, a Pharaoh playing chess with his queen. It is these domestic details that render also the sepulchres of Thebes so interesting. The arts of the Egyptians must be studied in their tombs; and to learn how this remarkable people lived, we must frequent their burial-places. A curious instance of this is, that, in a tomb near Beni-hassan, we learn by what process the Egyptians procured from the distant quarries of Nubia those masses of granite with which they raised the columns of Karnak and the obelisks of Luxor.

If I were called upon to describe in a word the principal and primary characteristic of Egyptian architecture, I should at once say Imagination, as Grace is the characteristic of the architecture of the Greeks. Thus, when the Ptolemies assumed the sceptre of the Pharaohs, they blended the delicate taste of Ionia t with the rich invention of the Nile, and produced Philoe, Dendera, and Edfou. It is from the Pharaohs, however, that you must seek for the vast and the gigantic: the pyramid, the propylon, the colossus, the catacomb, the obelisk, and the sphinx.

It was in the early part of the year of the invasion of Syria by the Egyptians, some eight years gone, that I first visited Thebes. My barque was stowed against the bank of the river, near the Memnonion; the last beam of the sun, before it sunk behind the Libyan hills, quivered on the columns of Luxor; the Nubian crew, after their long and laborious voyage, were dispersed on shore; and I was myself reposing in the shade, almost unattended, when a Turk, well mounted, and followed by his pipe-bearer, and the retinue that accompanies an Oriental of condition, descended from the hills which contain the tombs of the queens, and approached the boat. I was surprised, on advancing to welcome him, to be hailed in my native tongue; and pleased, at such a moment and in such a place, to find a countryman. While we smoked the pipe of salutation, he told me that he had lived at Thebes for nearly ten years, studying the antiquities, the history, and the manners of its ancient inhabitants. I availed myself of his invitation to his residence, and, accompanying him, I found that I was a visitor in a tomb, and yet by no means a gloomy dwelling-place. A platform, carved in the mountain, was surrounded by a mud wall and tower, to protect it from hostile Arabs. A couple of gazelles played in this front court, while we, reposing on a divan, arranged round the first chamber of the tomb, were favoured with a most commanding view of the valley outspread beneath. There were several inner chambers, separated from each other by hangings of scarlet cloth. Many apartments in the Albany have I seen not half as pleasant and convenient. I found a library, and instruments of art and science; a companion full of knowledge, profound in Oriental manners, and thoroughly master of the subject which naturally then most interested me. Our repast was strictly Eastern, but the unusual convenience of forks was not wanting, and my host told me that they were the very ones that he had used at Exeter College. I shall never forget that first day at Thebes, and this my first interview with one then unknown to fame, but whom the world has since recognised--the learned, the ingenious, and amiable Mr. Wilkinson.


EGYPTIAN THEBES

THE characteristic of Egyptian architecture is Imagination; of Grecian architecture, Grace. When the Ptolemies assumed the sceptre of the Pharaohs, they blended the delicate taste of Ionia with the rich invention of the Nile; and they produced the most splendid creations of architectural power that can now be witnessed. Such is the refined Philoe--such the magnificent Dendera--such the sumptuous Edfou!

All the architectural remains of the most famous nations and the greatest empires,--the amphitheatres, and arches, and columns of the Romans; the fanes of the Greeks; the temples of the Syrians and Sicilians; the Colosseum, the Parthenon, the courts of Baalbec, the pillars of Palmyra and Girgenti,--sink into insignificance when compared with the structures that line the banks of an African river. The mind makes a leap amid their vastness, their variety, and their number. New combinations rise upon our limited invention and contract the taste,--the pyramid, the propylon, the colossus, the catacomb, the obelisk, the sphinx.

Take the map; trace the windings of the mysterious stream, whose source baffles even this age of enterprise, and which remains unknown even when the Niger is discovered. It flows through a wilderness. On one side are the interminable wastes of Libya; on the other, a rocky desert, leading to the ocean: yet its banks are fertile as a garden; and within 150 miles of the sea it divides into two branches, which wind through an immense plain, once the granary of the world.

A Nubian passed me in a state of nudity, armed with a poisoned spear, and guarded by the skin of a hippopotamus, formed into a shield. In this country, the animal called man is fine, although his wants are few,--some rice, a calabash of palm wine, and the fish he himself spears. Are his ancestors the creators of the adjoining temple, covered with beautiful sculptures, and supported by colossal figures fifty feet in height? It is well to ponder, by the roar of the cataracts of the Nile, over the perfectibility of man.

A light has at length broken into the darkness of Egyptian ages; and although we cannot discover the source of the Nile, we can at least decipher its hieroglyphics. Those who are ignorant of the study are incredulous as to its fruits; they disbelieve in the sun, because they are dazzled by its beams. A popular miscellany is not the place to enter into a history, or a vindication, of the phonetic system. I am desirous here only of conveying to the general reader, in an intelligible manner, some idea of the discoveries that are now unfolding themselves to the Egyptian antiquarian, and of wandering with him for a moment amid the marvellous creations of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies, with a talisman which shall unfold for his instruction and amusement their mystical and romantic history.

I approach this mighty temple. A goose and globe, encircled in an oval, at once inform me that it was constructed by a 'Son of the Sun,' or a 'Phrah,' or 'Pharaoh.' It is remarkable that the Greeks never once mention this memorable title, simply because they have always translated it by their celebrated personification, 'Sol,' or 'Apollo.' In the obelisk of Hermapion, given by Ammianus Marcellinus, we should therefore read, in the third column, instead of 'the powerful Apollo,' 'the powerful Phrah, the all-splendid Son of the Sun.' Proceeding with the inscription, I also discover that the temple was constructed by Rameses the Second, a monarch of whom we have more to hear, and who also raised some of the most wonderful monuments of Thebes.

The first step of the Egyptian student should be to eradicate from his mind all recollection of ancient authors. When he has arrived at his own results, he may open Herodotus with interest, read Diodorus with suspicion; but, above all, he will then learn to estimate the value of the hitherto reviled Manetho, undoubtedly the fragments of the work of a genuine Egyptian writer. The history and theology of ancient Egypt must be studied on the sculptured walls of its palaces and temples, breathing with sacred mysteries and heroic warfare; its manners and customs in its catacombs and sepulchres, where the painter has celebrated the minutest traits of the social life and the domestic economy of the most ancient of nations.

Even in the time of Strabo, Egyptian Thebes was a city of enormous ruins, the origin of which no antiquary could penetrate. We now know by the inscriptions we decipher that these mighty monuments chiefly celebrate the achievements of a great conqueror,--Rameses the Second, or the Great, whom the most rigid critic would be rash to place later than fifteen hundred years before Christ. These great creations, therefore, demonstrate the mature civilisation of Egypt far beyond three thousand years back. Rameses and his illustrious predecessors, the Thothmes and the Amunophs, are described as monarchs of the eighteenth dynasty. Thothmes the Fourth, one of these ancestors, cut the great Sphinx of the Pyramids; as for the Pyramids themselves, it is now undeniable that they were