food, air, &c. Since the removal of those feverish symptoms which followed my excursion to the temple at Thebes, I had suffored considerably from dysentery; and this serious addition to an evil already sufficiently great, began to discourage my perseverance, more particularly when I remembered my opthalmic sufferings in the early part of the present year, and considered that every step removed me still farther from medical aid and auxiliary comforts. Willing, however, to think more maturely upon a step I might afterwards regret, and retaining a irresistible desire to visit the Nubian Frontier, we made sail at sun-rise, and passed through the narrow valley of cultivation which follows Edfou, having scarcely any other relief to the scenery of gray hills which approached the water on each side, except occasional tombs of holy sheiks, elevated on the most broken summits of the mountains; crowded sand islands in the middle of the stream, and the appearances of ruined villages on the banks of the river. One of these on the left, appeared to have been of the Saracenic age, from the walls and circular towers seen at intervals, which were built of unburnt bricks. The valley still grew narrower, and cultivation less and less until we reached Hannam, where we brought up at sun-set, by mooring our boat to the bank. QUARRIES OF GEBEL SILSILIS.-DEC. 3. The morning brought me but a slight alleviation of my pain, yet as we were near the mountains of free-stone, from which all the materials of Egyptian temples had been drawn, I was desirous of visiting them, in order to observe the mode by which such immense blocks were separated from the rock, and conveyed to the water, for transport down the Nile-if any traces remained to assist such a discovery. On approaching the strait formed by those opposite hills, the channel of the river becomes considerably narrower, so as to be not more than a long pistol shot across in some parts. We landed on the eastern side, where the quarries appear to have been excavated most extensively, and ascended to their summit. The whole of this stone is sand-stone, of a fine grain and equal texture, of a light yellowish colour, and capable of yielding masses of any size, free from vein or blemish-an advantage of the highest kind in the construction of such colossal piles as those which Egyptian grandeur has left in the monuments of her skill, her riches, and her power. I could see nothing like the separation of shapeless rocks by violence; every part was positively hewn in perpendicular and horizontal lines, and retained the mark of a similar instrument to that by which stones with us are shaped for building, after having been brought in rough masses from the quarry; so that the labour of procuring the material must have been equal at least to that of its combination in the edifice. In some places there are the appearances of sloped ways or inclined planes, by which those blocks, when hewn, descended to the water's edge, and were there probably loaded on rafts, during the spring and summer months, to be floated by the waters of the inundation, and thus conveyed to their ultimate destination. The few tombs and caverns we saw on this side of the Nile, offering nothing of peculiar interest beyond the labour of the excavations, we crossed to the opposite bank, and at less than fifty yards from the water's edge approached a building hewn out of the solid rock, presenting a front of about eighty feet to the river, surmounted with a plain torus and cornice, and having five doors or entrances, between each of which were niches, with small statues, cut in an alto relievo of six or eight inches above the level. Over the central door, which is the narrowest, the winged globe, the beetle, and the grasshopper are sculptured; and double perpendicular columns of inscriptive characters ornamented the portals on each side. Within the doors are groups of religious personages, representing offerings of fruits and flowers, accompanied by the drooping lotus, the emblem of death, the decay of nature, or the sleep or suspension of animation; from which, like that flower, the dead would again awake. These five entrances open into an arched gallery, extending the whole front of the building, and so disposed as to become an extensive sanctuary of death, and give entombment to a numerous family, or even race. Along the inner wall of this gallery, are arched spaces at intervals, resembling closed doors, on which are sculptured some expressive groups, resembling offerings and long processions. The inscriptions are sometimes in hieroglyphics, and sometimes in the current character; recording no doubt the outline history of the deceased--perhaps an eulogizing epitaph--a profession of devotion to the gods, or a moralizing exhortation to the living. In one of those compartments, towards the southern extremity, are some singularly grouped figures, which it would have been highly interesting to have made out, as their contour shows great freedom of design and beauty of execution; some of them appear to be either in the exercise of athletic games or dancing; but they have been wantonly mutilated by the hand of barbarism, or by the ascetic Christians of early times, who have left no other mark of their having ever inhabited these temples of idolatry, except the disfiguration of their walls by a number of white crosses painted on them. At the northern extremity of this gallery, is a group of six full grown figures, standing, each differently habited, and in different attitudes; some having their arms crossed--others with one hand laid on its own bosom, while the other hangs down the side, as if appealing to the spectator, and pledging the sincerity of the heart for the truth of some maxim, relative to the cruelty of inexorable death, who appears here to have triumphed over a whole family. On the robes of each figure are long inscriptions, proba bly descriptive of the characters, the period, and manner of their death, or their departing testaments to mankind. Near this, in a recess to the right, are three sitting figures-a male supported by two females, which may represent the still nearer connection of connubial bonds, and designate the wives, mutually happy in dividing the affections of a fond husband, carrying their fidelity to the grave, and unwilling to be divided even by the iron hand of the all-destroying king. At the southern extremity of this excavation, is a corresponding group, occupying a similar recess; and in the centre of the whole, a narrow sculptured door leads to a chamber of about twelve feet square; the situation of which gives every reason to suppose that the closed arched door-ways throughout the gallery, also lead into similar ones, as yet unopened. The obscurity of this chamber allows one barely to perceive that its walls are ornamented with painted figures. sculptured on stucco, like those in the tombs of the kings at Thebes; but they have been too much injured to be correctly copied. On the terminating wall, opposite to the door-way, seven sculptured figures occupy all its length, and appear to represent a mother sitting in the centre, supported on each side by three of her children, who are standing in filial respect. Their attitudes and dresses also differ, and their sexes and ages can be well distinguished. It is a matter of extreme regret, however, that the blind bigotry of both Christian and Mahommedan zeal should have, in almost every instance, wreaked its vengeace so invariably on the features of the sculptured figures here, that all the expression they might once have possessed, is for ever lost-they are executed in that gravity of attitude which characterizes our religious sculpture of Henry the VII's time, and struck me as bearing a resemblance to many figures I had seen in the sculptures of Westminster Abbey. Further to the south, on the same side, are other single tombs, the ceilings of which are painted in waving scrolls of azure, red, and yellow, the colours preserving all their original freshness. Here also are recesses in which figures are seated. In some instances the females have their inner arms twined round the body of the male, and their outer arms lifted in a bent position, with the extended hand laid upon the bosom. Then follow others, sometimes with double and sometimes with single figures; the females representing virgins; and the males, men who have died in celibacyall with sculptured ornaments, painting, and hieroglyphical tablets. Further on in the same direction, and close to the water's edge, is a fine double tomb unopened. The entrances show two shallow recesses of considerable height, supported on each side by fluted Egyptian columns, cut out of the solid rock, and surmounted by the torus, cornice, winged globes, and all the ornaments of the temple gates, to which it bears a near resemblance. The sides, the ceilings, and every intermediate part are covered with sculpture; and on the closed doors, are represented groups of priests and religious personages, giving and receiving the offerings for the dead, including the fruits and flowers which were taken to the tombs by the surviving friends and the drooping lotus, whose emblematic death and restoration, seemed always to be the prominent object, as if thus to encourage the hopes of future life, and teach the consoling doctrine of reanimated dust. These tombs resemble each other very closely, and were, perhaps, the last habitations of two attached friends. The one on the south, however, contains a very conspicuous figure of Priapus, which might have implied the devotion of the deceased to that god, who had blessed his connubial union with a numerous progeny; which— from the days of the inspired Psalmist, who tells the father of a numerous race, that God shall strengthen him against a host of foes, and that he shall not be ashamed when he meets with his enemy on the gate, down to the present day, when every where in the east, the most honorable title by which a man can be addressed, is as the father of a large family-has been invariably the boast of the living, and the silent pride of the dead. Around these tombs and porticoes are scattered fragments of other sepulchres, apparently destroyed, and some unfinished, with detached tablets of hieroglyphics upon the very quarries themselves, as if commemorating the purposes for which they were worked. We left this spot a little before noon, when the combined effect of a perfect calm, a burning sun, and the strong reflection of its rays from those yellow rocks, unrelieved by a single blade of verdure, were almost insupportable. Beyond the strait formed by the mountains here, the valley of cultivation widens with the stream, and some palm groves and villages are again seen, with grounds sown with wheat and maize, and some small spots of tobacco, grown by the Arab peasants, for their own consumption. On the eastern bank we saw two beautiful gazelles, who had come to quench their thirst in the river's stream, but apparently alarmed at the very sound of our sailor's tread, those timid and delicate creatures bounded off into the silence of the desert with the swiftness of an arrow. The calm continued until two hours past noon, when a light air from the westward succeeding, our boatmen were about to bring up, as the wind was foul, and they thought it was impossible to proceed. They had not the most distant idea of any kind of sailing except with a wind abaft the beam, and I was reduced to the necessity of a sharp remedy before we could get the crew to make sail. The reach of the river runs here nearly N. E. and S. W.; so that we were close hauled and were obliged to keep upon the weather-shore, and steer close to the wind, luffing up frequently to catch the eddy current, which forms a counter stream in-shore. All these were operations, of which the Egyptian boatmen knew nothing; and I had, besides, to perform the task of remaining at the helm myself until sun-set, while my servant attended the sheet, to haul it taut and ease it off as the flaws of wind over the land occasionally headed or favoured us in our progress. On drawing toward the point of Koum Ombos, the course lay more southerly, and as we were again restored to plain sailing, I quitted the helm, and lay down to take a moment's repose, giving the crew particular directions to take the broadest channel where the stream divides, and haul close round the point to the eastward, intending to bring up, off the site of Koum Ombos itself, so as to have an opportunity of examining its remains before our departure in the morning; but, as if their incompetency had not yet been sufficiently exhibited, they steered into the narrowest and most intricate channel of the two, assigning as the only reason that it appeared to be in the straitest direction; and, consequently, must be the right one. It was here, however, that our boat grounded more than fifty times in succession, and at length stuck so completely fast about mid channel, that for some time we despaired either of being able to proceed or to return. The moon fortunately favoured us with her light; but it was nearly day-break before we had surmounted all our difficulties, and got again in the broad stream of the river. Koum Ombos, or the ancient city Crocodilopolis could not then be examined, without considerably retarding our progress upward to the cataracts, and as I should pass it on my return down the Nile, I reluctantly postponed my visit to it until then. SONNET. VIEW FROM THE CROW'S NEST, NEAR WEST point, new YORK. BEAUTY and grandeur mingle in the scene! Lo! to the north a living landscape lies, On which the gazer dwells with ravished eyes,- Washed by the waters of old Hudson's stream, Southward frowns 'Neath which spreads out a classic, rock-girt plain, Studded with banners, tents and martial hallsSacred to honor may they e'er remain ! On every side, in majesty severe, Huge mountains rise, and God's own strength is here! B. F. B. |