or 1430, B. C. His colleague was probably the Danaus, who led a colony into Greece, and founded the kingdom of Argos. From these statues to the Memnonium, as the palace and temple of Sesostris are called, is about half a mile. The magnificent hall of this temple is entered between two calm and contented-looking giants of rock, each twenty feet high. Within this hall was the library! The ceiling is covered with astronomical figures, which reveal the date of the building, 1322, B. C. On one of the walls, Sesostris is represented as seated under the shadow of the Tree of Life, while gods inscribe his name upon its leaves. It is impossible to convey any idea of the extent and variety of all these ruins, or of the profusion of sculpture and painting which everywhere adorns them. A statue of Sesostris lies without the temple, in the position which he has occupied unmoved since Cambyses overthrew him; the upper part of his body is broken into two or three vast fragments, and the lower is almost indistinguishable in its brokenness. The breadth of this enormous figure across the breast is twenty-three feet; the whole was cut from a single block of granite, and polished as smooth as marble. These are the principal objects of interest on the Libyan side of the river: there are many others, which, however they may attract the traveller, would scarcely interest the reader. The valley of the Tombs of the Queens (who even in death preserved their propriety, by lying apart from the coarser sex); the grottoes of Koornat Murraee; and the temple (afterwards the church) of Dayr el Bahree; tell enough of their own stories. in their names for our purpose. On returning to our boat, a curious rencontre took place on board a dahabieh, that was conveying a lion from Abyssinia to the Pasha's menagerie at Cairo. Mr. M.'s servant had pur. chased a wild fox from one of the natives, and, being anxious to see if the lion would devour him, he threw him into the cage Reynard was game, however, put up his bristles, showed his teeth, and threatened hostilities; the lion howled with affright, and made such efforts to escape, that he very nearly. upset the boat, to the great ire of the Rais, whose life might have paid forfeit for his prisoner's loss. He began to curse all the foxes and Christians ur der the sun, together with their beards, and those of their fathers, and the gallant assailant was rescued and restored to liberty. Of Luxor I shall only observe that it forms a fitting approach to Carnak. It presents a splendid confusion of courts, columns, statues, ruins, and a lonely obelisk, whose companion was removed to Paris, and now flourishes on the "Place de la Concorde." We found here the luxury of Arab horses, and rode along a wide plain covered with coarse grass, and varied by some gloomy little lakes and acacia shrubs, when, at the end of an hour, our guide reined in his horse, and pointed with his spear towards the South. There lay Carnak! darkening a whole horizon with its portals, and pyramids, and palaces. We passed under a noble archway, and entered a long avenue of sphinxes: all their heads were broken off, but their pedestals remain unmoved since the time of Joseph. It must have been a noble sight in the palmy days of Thebes-that avenue of two hundred enormous statues, terminated by that temple. Yet this was only one of many at least eight others, with similar porticoes and archways, led from this stupendous edifice. We rode through half a mile of sphinxes, and then arrived at the Temple, the splendor of which no words can describe. A glorious portal opened into a vast court, crowded with a perfect forest of the most magnificent columns, thirty-six feet each in circumference, covered with hieroglyphics, and surmounted by capitals, all of different patterns, and richly painted. No two persons agree on the number of these apparently countless columns: some make it amount to 134, others, 160: the central measure 66 feet in height, exclusive of the pedestals and abacus. Endless it would be to enter into details of this mar. vellous pile; suffice it to say, that the temple is about one mile and three quarters in circumference, the walls 80 feet high, and 25 feet thick. With astonishment, and almost with awe, I rode on through labyrinths of courts, cloisters and chambers, and only dismounted where a mass of masonry had lately fallen in, owing to its pillars having been removed to build the Pasha's powder manu factory. Among the infinite variety of objects of art that crowd this temple, the obelisks are not the least interesting. Those who have only seen them at Rome, or Paris, can form no conception of their effect where all around is in keeping with them. The eye follows upward the finely tapering shaft, till suddenly it seems, not to terminate, but to melt away, and lose itself in the dazzling sunshine of its native skies. For hours I wandered eagerly and anxiously on, through apparently interminable variety, every moment encountering something new, unheard of, and unthought of, until then. The very walls of outer enclosures were deeply sculptured with whole histories of great wars and triumphs, by figures that seemed to live again. In some places, these walls were poured down like an avalanche, not fallen: no mortar had been ever needed to connect the cliff-like masses of which they were composed: at this hour the most ignorant mason might direct the replacing of every stone where it once towered, in propylon or gateway, so accurately was each fitted to the place which it was to occupy. We rested for a long time on a fallen column, under a beautiful archway that commands a wide view of the Temple, and then slowly and lingeringly withdrew. The world contains nothing like it. We returned to Luxor by a different, yet similar, avenue of statues to that by which we had approached: as we proceeded, we could discover other pillars and portals far away upon the horizon, each marking where an entrance to this amazing Temple once existed. From the desert or the river; from within, or from without; by day, or by moonlight; however you contemplate Carnakappears the very aspect in which it shows to most advantage. And when this was all perfect; when its avenues opened in vista upon the noble temples and palaces of Sesostris, upon Gournou, Medinet Abou, and Luxor; when its courts were paced by gorgeous priestly pageants, and busy life swarmed on a river flowing between banks of palaces like those of Venice magnified a hundred fold-when all this was in its prime, no wonder that its fame spread even over the barbarian world and found immortality in Homer's song. For many a day after I had seen it, and even to this hour, glimpses of Thebes mingle with my reveries and blend themselves with dreams, as if that vision had daguerreotyped itself upon the brain, and would remain there for ever. CHAPTER XXIX. DENDERA TO CAIRO. To glide adown old Nilus, where he thres is Witch of Atlas.-SHELLEY. WE sailed away from Thebes one balmy evening, and soon the only testimony of its existence was in our memories, and in a young jackal, one of our exportations thence, which now, true to its instinct, began a series of mournful howlings, and continued them without intermission throughout the night. Our crew, who had hitherto been paid extra for almost every day's work, began to wax very indolent when they had no longer the stimulus of bribery to induce exertion. We at first remonstrated with them, but in vain; we then insisted on leaving the worst of them behind us, and thereupon the remainder, with the exception of the pilot, broke out into regular mutiny. We had only ourselves to depend upon, as Mahmoud had taken fright, and Abdallah was a mere negation. We were in the loneliest part of the river, and far from any authority to which we could appeal; so that we were reduced to the unpleasant necessity of taking the law into our own hands. The men rested on their oars, and refused to move; the rais affected not to hear; and Mahmoud said we must make the best terms we could come to: so, while R. stood garrison at our cabin fortress, I jumped forward among the crew, and, with the hippopotamus-thong whip, soon restored the rais to his hearing, and the crew to motion. Some took to their oars, others jumped up and seemed inclined to show |