seemed to be at the work of teaching because he was not fit for anything else. I turned away with a feeling of melancholy, and almost blushed in the presence of the haughty Mussulmans, to recognise the ignorant and degraded objects around me as my Christian brethren.

Thebes, its Temples and great Ruins.-The Obelisk of Luxor, now of Paris. An Avenue of Sphinxes.-Carnac.-The Mummy-pits.-The Tombs of the Kings.-The Memnonium.

It was nearly noon, when, with a gentle breeze, we dropped into the harbour of Thebes. The sun was beating upon it with meridian splendour; the inhabitants were seeking shelter in their miserable huts from its scorching rays, and when we made fast near the remains of the ancient port, to which, more than thirty centuries ago, the Egyptian boatman tied his boat, a small group of Arabs, smoking under the shade of some palm-trees on a point above, and two or three stragglers who came down to the bank to gaze at us, were the only living beings we beheld in a city which had numbered its millions. When Greece was just emerging from the shades of barbarism, and before the name of Rome was known, Egypt was far advanced in science and the arts, and Thebes the most magnificent city in the world. But the Assyrian came and overthrew for ever the throne of the Pharaohs. The Persian war-cry rang through the crowded streets of Thebes, Cambyses laid his destroying hands upon the temples of its gods, and a greater than Babylon the Great fell to rise no more.

The ancient city was twenty-three miles in circumference. The valley of the Nile was not large enough to contain it, and its extremities rested upon the bases of the mountains of Arabia and Africa. The whole of this great extent is more or less strewed with ruins, broken columns, and avenues of sphinxes, colossal figures, obelisks, pyramidal gateways, porticoes, blocks of polished granite, and stones of

extraordinary magnitude, while above them, "in all the nakedness of desolation," the colossal skeletons of giant temples are standing "in the unwatered sands, in solitude and silence. They are neither gray nor blackened; there is no lichen, no moss, no rank grass or mantling ivy to robe them and conceal their deformities. Like the bones of man, they seem to whiten under the sun of the desert." The sand of Africa has been their most fearful enemy; blown upon them for more than three thousand years, it has buried the largest monuments, and, in some instances, almost entire temples.

At this day the temples of Thebes are known almost everywhere, by the glowing reports of travellers. Artists have taken drawings of all their minute details, and I shall refer to them very briefly. On the Arabian side of the Nile are the great temples of Luxor and Carnac. The temple of Luxor stands near the bank of the river, built there, as is supposed, for the convenience of the Egyptian boatmen. Before the magnificent gateway of this temple, until within a few years, stood two lofty obelisks, each a single block of red granite, more than eighty feet high, covered with sculpture and hieroglyphics fresh as if but yesterday from the hands of the sculptor. One of them has been lately taken down by the French, and at this moment rears its daring summit to the skies in the centre of admiring Paris; the other is yet standing on the spot where it was first erected.

Between these and the grand propylon are two colossal statues with mitred headdresses, also single blocks of granite, buried to the chest by sand, but still rising more than twenty feet above the ground. The grand propylon is a magnificent gateway, more than two hundred feet in length at its present base, and more than sixty feet above the sand. The whole front is covered with sculpture; the battlescenes of an Egyptian warrior, designed and executed with

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extraordinary force and spirit. In one compartment the hero is represented advancing at the head of his forces, and breaking through the ranks of the enemy; then standing, a colossal figure, in a car drawn by two fiery horses, with feathers waving over their heads, the reins tied round his body, his bow bent, the arrow drawn to its head, and the dead and wounded lying under the wheels of his car and the hoofs of his horses. In another place several cars are seen in full speed for the walls of a town, fugitives passing a river, horses, chariots, and men struggling to reach the opposite bank, while the hero, hurried impetuously beyond the rank of his own followers, is standing alone among the slain and wounded who have fallen under his formidable arm. At the farthest extremity he is sitting on a throne as a conqueror, with a sceptre in his hand, a row of the principal captives before him, each with a rope around his neck; one with outstretched hands imploring pity, and another on his knees to receive the blow of the executioner, while above is the vanquished monarch, with his hands tied to a car, about to grace the triumph of the conqueror.

Passing this magnificent entrance, the visiter enters the dromos, or large open court, surrounded by a ruined portico formed by a double row of columns covered with sculpture and hieroglyphics; and, working his way over heaps of rubbish and Arab huts, among stately columns twelve feet in diameter, and between thirty and forty feet in height, with spreading capitals resembling the budding lotus, some broken, some prostrate, some half buried, and some lofty and towering as when they were erected, at the distance of six hundred feet reaches the sanctuary of the temple.

But great and magnificent as was the temple of Luxor, it served but as a portal to the greater Carnac. Standing nearly two miles from Luxor, the whole road to it was lined with rows of sphinxes, each of a solid block of granite. At this end they are broken, and, for the most part, buried

under the sand and heaps of rubbish. But, approaching Carnac, they stand entire, still and solemn as when the ancient Egyptian passed between them to worship in the great temple of Ammon. Four grand propylons terminate this avenue of sphinxes, and, passing through the last, the scene which presents itself defies description. Belzoni remarks of the ruins of Thebes generally, that he felt as if he was in a city of giants; and no man can look upon the ruins of Carnac without feeling humbled by the greatness of a people who have passed away for ever. The western entrance, facing the temple of Northern Dair on the opposite side of the river, also approached between two rows of sphinxes, is a magnificent propylon four hundred feet long and forty feet in thickness. In the language of Dr. Richardson, "looking forward from the centre of this gateway, the vast scene of havoc and destruction presents itself in all the extent of this immense temple, with its columns, and walls, and immense propylons, all prostrate in one heap of ruins, looking as if the thunders of heaven had smitten it at the command of an insulted God."

The field of ruins is about a mile in diameter; the temple itself twelve hundred feet long and four hundred and twenty broad. It has twelve principal entrances, each of which is approached through rows of sphinxes, as across the plain from Luxor, and each is composed of propylons, gateways, and other buildings, in themselves larger than most other temples; the sides of some of them are equal to the bases of most of the pyramids, and on each side of many are colossal statues, some sitting, others erect, from twenty to thirty feet in height. In front of the body of the temple is a large court, with an immense colonnade on each side, of thirty columns in length, and through the middle two rows of columns fifty feet in height; then an immense portico, the roof supported by one hundred and thirtyfour columns, from twenty-six to thirty-four feet in circum