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

not raised at the comparatively late period ascribed to them by Herodotus and Diodorus. No monuments in Egypt can be compared in antiquity with these buildings; and the names of the predecessors of Rameses the Great are found in their vicinity, evidently sculptured at a much later epoch. 'The Pyramids are at least ten thousand years old,' said Champollion to a friend of mine in Egypt, rubbing his hands, with eyes sparkling with all the enthusiasm of triumphant research.

It is highly probable that Rameses the Great was the Sesostris of Herodotus. This name is entirely a Greek invention, and is found on no Egyptian monuments. The splendid tomb, first opened by Belzoni, in the Valley of the Kings, is of the grandfather of this monarch--Rameses the First. It is evident from the Theban sculptures and inscriptions, that Rameses and his predecessors were engaged in a long war with a most powerful enemy,' and that that enemy was an Oriental people, a nation with fair countenances and flowing robes, dwelling in a hilly and well-wooded country. It is probable that this nation was the Assyrians, who, according to ancient writers, invaded Egypt under Ninus and Semiramis. Thothmes the Third and Fourth, Amunoph, and Rameses the First, carried on this war with uncertain success. The successor of Rameses the First, whose phonetic name is doubtful, was not unworthy of the son whom the gods accorded to him as a reward for his valour and magnificence. This anonymous sovereign led the war in person, and probably against degenerate princes. On the walls of Karnak--a sculptured scroll, more durable than those of his poets and historians--we find him in his triumphal chariot, leading a host of infantry and chariots, attacking fortified places, defended by lofty walls and surrounded by water. The enemy is seen clearing their country in advance, driving away their cattle, and felling forests to impede the progress of the invader's chariots; but at length the victorious Pharaoh returns to his Nile with crowds of prisoners, bearing every variety of rich and fantastic tribute.

The son of this chieftain was Rameses the Second, or the Great. Following the example of his illustrious predecessor, he soon led a numerous and chosen army to extend the Oriental conquests of the Egyptians. He passed along the sea-coast of a country, which is, without doubt, Syria, since the name of Rameses the Second is still found on that shore, near the ancient Berytus and modern Beirut. He continued his march into the interior, where we at length find him opposed by a powerful force on the banks of a great river, probably the Euphrates. On the opposite bank of the river is a vast and strongly-fortified city. The battle is fought and won. The Orientals are defeated, and sue for peace. The city is not represented as taken, yet sieges are often sculptured on these walls, and the Egyptian army is always supplied with scaling-ladders and the testudo. And what was this city? Was it Babylon? Was it Nineveh? How wonderful is it at this remote period, to read for the first time, the Gazettes of the Pharaohs! It does not appear to have been the object of the Egyptians to make a permanent settlement in these conquered countries. They laid waste the land, they accumulated plunder, they secured peace by the dread of their arms, and, returning home with the same rapidity that they advanced, they enjoyed and commemorated their victories in the embellishment of their majestic cities. The remainder of the long reign of Rameses the Great was passed in the cultivation of the arts. A greater number of monuments, statues, and temples bear the name of this king than of any other who ruled in Egypt, and there are few remains of any city in that country where it is not met with. To him we are indebted alike for the rock temples of Nubia, and the inimitable obelisks of Luxor. He raised that splendid structure on the western side of Thebes, supported by colossal statues, which is foolishly styled the Memnonion; he made great additions to Karnak; he built the temple of Osiris at Abydus; he adorned the great temple of Memphis with colossal statues, for which he evidently had a passion; and, finally, amid a vast number of other temples, especially in Nubia, which it would be tedious to recount, and other remains, he cut the famous Monticoelian obelisk now at Rome. Whatever may have been the actions recorded of Sesostris, one thing is certain, that no Egyptian king ever surpassed or equalled the second Rameses. Let us then allow that history has painted in too glowing colours the actions of the former-too great for the limited power of Europe--and remain persuaded, that, so far from aiming at the conquest of the world, the utmost extent of his march was confined to the countries bordering on Assyria, Arabia, and part of AEthiopia, from which country he is represented as receiving tribute. The conquests of Rameses the Second secured a long peace to Egypt. The reigns of his two successors, however, are celebrated for the creation of the great avenue of sphinxes at Thebes, leading from Luxor to Karnak, a mile and a quarter in extent, a sumptuous evidence of the prosperity of Egypt and of the genius of the Pharaohs. War, however, broke out again under Rameses the Third, but certainly against another power, and it would appear a naval power. Returning victorious, the third Rameses added a temple to Karnak, and raised the temple and the palace of Medcenet Habu. Here closes the most interesting period of Egyptian history. A long succession of princes, many of whom bore the name of Rameses, followed, but, so far as we can observe, they were distinguished neither in architecture nor war. There are reasons which may induce us to believe that the Trojan war happened during the reign of the third Rameses. The poetical Memnon is not found in Egyptian records. The name is not Egyptian, although it may be a corruption. It is useless to criticise this invention of the lying Greeks, to whose blinded conceit and carelessness we are indebted for the almost total darkness in which the records of antiquity are enveloped. The famous musical statue of Memnon is still seated on its throne, dignified and serene, on the plain of Thebes. It is a colossus, fifty feet in height, and the base of the figure is covered with inscriptions of the Greek and Roman travellers, vouching that they had listened to the wild sunrise melody. The learned and ingenious Mr. Wilkinson, who has resided at Thebes upwards of ten years, studying the monuments of Egypt, appears to me to have solved the mystery of this music. He informed me that having ascended the statue, he discovered that some metallic substance had been inserted in its breast, which, when struck, emitted a very melodious sound. From the attitude of the statue, a priest might easily have ascended in the night, and remained completely concealed behind the mighty arms while he struck the breast; or, which is not improbable, there was probably some secret way to ascend, now blocked up; for this statue, with its remaining companion, although 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. Thanks to the phonetic system, we now know that this musical statue is one of Amunoph the Second, who lived many centuries before the Trojan war. The truth is, the Greeks, who have exercised almost as fatal an influence over modern knowledge as they have a beneficial one over modern taste, had no conception of anything more ancient than the Trojan war, except Chaos. Chaos is a poetic legend, and the Trojan war was the squabble of a few marauding clans.

'Where are the records of the great Assyrian monarchy? Where are the books of the Medes and Persians? Where the learned annals of Pharaohs?

'Fortunate Jordan! Fortunate Ilissus! I have waded through the sacred waters; with difficulty I traced the scanty windings of the classic stream. Alas! for the exuberant Tigris; alas! for the mighty Euphrates; alas! for the mysterious Nile!'

It is curious that no allusion whatever to the Jews has yet turned up on any Egyptian monuments. But upon the walls of Medoenet Habu I observed, more than once repeated, the Ark borne in triumph. This is not a fanciful resemblance. It responds in every particular.

I have noticed the history of Ancient Egypt, because some knowledge of it is necessary to illustrate Thebes. I quit a subject which, however curious, is probably of too confined an interest for the general reader, and I enter in his company the City of the Hundred Gates.

The Nile winds through the valley of Thebes--a valley formed by ranges of mountains, which on one side defend it from the great Lybian desert, and on the other from the rocky wilderness that leads to the Red Sea. On each side of the stream are two great quarters of ruins. On the side of the Red Sea are Luxor and Karnak, on the opposite bank the great temple called the Memnonion, and the various piles which, under the general title of Medoenet Habu, in all probability among other structures comprise the principal palace of the more ancient Pharaohs. On the Lybian side, also, are the cemeteries of the great city-the mummy caves of Gornou, two miles in extent; above them, excavated in the mountains, the tombs of the Queens, and in the adjacent valley of Beban-el-Maluk the famous tombs of the Kings. The population of the City of the Hundred Gates now consists of a few Arab families, who form four villages of mud huts clustered round those gigantic columns and mighty obelisks, a single one of which is sought for by the greatest sovereigns of Europe for their palaces and museums as the rarest of curious treasures. Often, indeed, have I seen a whole Arab village rising from the roof of a single Egyptian temple. Dendera is an instance. The population of Gornou, in number between three and four hundred, reside solely in the tombs.

I think that Luxor, from its situation, first attracts the notice of the traveller. It is close on the river, and is built on a lofty platform. Its enormous columns are the first specimen of that colossal genius of the Pharaohs which the Ptolemies never attempted to rival. The entrance to this temple is through a magnificent propylon, that is, a portal flanked by massy pyramidal moles. It is two hundred feet in breadth, and rises nearly sixty feet above the soil. This gate is entirely covered with sculpture, commemorating the triumph of Rameses the Great over the supposed Assyrians. On each side of the portal are two colossal statues of red granite, buried in the sand up to their shoulders, but measuring thence, to the top of their crowns, upwards of twenty feet. On each side of them, a little in advance, rise the two most perfect obelisks that remain, also of red granite, and each about eighty feet high. From the propylon you pass into a peristyle court, about two hundred and thirty feet long by one hundred and seventy, the roof of which was once supported by double rows of columns, many of which now remain; and so on through other pyramidal gates and courts and porticoes and chambers which are, in all probability, of a more ancient date than the gates and obelisks and colossi first described, which last were perhaps added by Rameses, who commemorated his triumph by rendering a celebrated building still more famous.

From Luxor you proceed to Karnak, the other great division on this side of the river, through an avenue of sphinxes considerably above a mile in extent; and here I should observe