66

them, from the following remarks of Abdallatif, an Arabian physician of Bagdad, who wrote a description of Egypt in the fourteenth century, He tells us, that formerly the sovereigns watched with care over the preservation of the ancient monuments remaining in Egypt; "but, in our time," he adds, the bridle has been unloosed from men, and no one takes the trouble to restrain their caprices, each being left to conduct himself as to him should seem best. When they have perceived monuments of colossal grandeur, the aspect of those monuments has inspired them with terror; they have conceived foolish and false ideas of the nature of these remains of antiquity. Every thing which had the appearance of design, has been in their eyes but a signal of hidden treasure; they have not been able to see an aperture in a mountain, without imagining it to be a road leading to some repository of riches; a colossal statue has been to them, but the guardian of the wealth deposited at its feet, and the implacable avenger of all attempts upon the security of his store. Accordingly, they have had recourse to all sorts of artifice to destroy and pull down these statues; they have mutilated the figures, as if they hoped by such means to attain their object, and feared that a more open attack would bring ruin upon themselves: they have made openings, and dug holes in the stones, not doubting them to be so many strong coffers filled with immense sums: and they have pierced deep, too, in the clefts of mountains, like robbers penetrating into houses by every way but the doors, and seizing eagerly any opportunity which they think known only to themselves."

This is the secret of much of the devastation which has been worked among the monuments of ancient Egypt.

VILLAGES OF MODERN THEBES.

Ir does not appear, that in the long line of ages which have witnessed the desolation of ancient Thebes, its site has at any time become absolutely deserted; on the contrary, it would seem that some sparks of existence have been kept constantly alive in the shelter of small scattered villages, such as occupied its surface in the days of Strabo, and such as are still to be found encumbering it, in our own. The position of these modern villages has been determined by that of the chief groups of monuments; for the halfsavage people who inhabit them, have been but too eager to supply the deficiency of their own art, by the labour of their skilful predecessors, and to raise up their paltry mud huts, within the walls, and upon the very roofs, of temples and palaces, which were erected thousands of years ago. "In every part of Egypt," says the Rev. Mr. Jowett, in his interesting Christian Researches, we find the towns built in this manner upon the ruins, or rather the rubbish of the former habitations. The expression in Jeremiah XXX. 18, literally applies to Egypt in the very meanest sense, The city shall be builded upon her own heap: and the expression in Job xv. 28, might be illustrated by many of these deserted hovels. He dwelleth in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps. . Still more touching is the allusion in Job iv. 19; where the perishing generations of men are fitly compared to habitations of the frailest materials, built upon the heap of similar dwelling-places, now reduced to rubbish. How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust!"

The principal villages, or rather groups of habitations which now occupy the site of ancient Thebes, are Luxor and Karnak, on the castern bank of the river, that is to say, on the ground once occupied by Diospolis Proper; and Goornoo, and Medeenet Haboo, on the western bank-the "Lybian suburb of a former age. There are some characteristic points of distinction between the monuments on the two sides of the river; the eastern bank is remarkable for its obelisks and avenues of sphinxes; while the wonders of the western bank, are its tombs and its colossal statues. But both possess palaces and temples, (or whatever else they should be called,) splendid specimens alike of gigantic architecture, and equally remarkable for the sculptures which adorn them. The palm of antiquity, however, must be awarded to one of that group which is found upon the eastern bank; the great temple of Karnak-which is thought to be that "oldest temple" mentioned by Diodorus, and is, indeed, generally identified with that famous "temple of Ammon," which existed at Thebes; contains portions nearly 4000 years old.

THE VILI AGE OF LUXOR.

LUXOR occupies the principal place among the villages of modern Thebes; indeed, it holds the rank of a markettown in the geography of the country, poor and miserable as it is. It is, moreover, the residence of a Cashef, or Turkish governor, and the head-quarters of a troop of Turkish cavalry. The name is written in various waysLuxor, Luqsor, El Uqsor, and El Qosoor, and other forms: all these are variations of an ancient plural of the word Qasr, signifying a palace, country-seat, pavilion, or any large mansion. Thus, the meaning of the appellation Luxor, is the palaces;" and not as some writers, and among them, even Mr. Hamilton have rendered it "the ruins" Burckhardt expressly guards us against that interpretation. According to Mr. Wilkinson, the town has also the name of Aboo l Haggay, from the name of the Mohammedan Sheik, who is worshipped there; the ancient Egyptians, he adds, called it Southern Tapé.

The houses of Luxor are built with sun-burnt bricks, or lumps of mud, and baked clay pipes; about three or four feet from the top, branches of trees are inserted, either to bind the structure, or to accommodate the pigeons, which flock to the town in myriads, and perching on these branches, add to the curious appearance of the place. The walls are battlemented, and in the port-holes are piled up pipes of clay, which at a distance, have the appearance of small cannon. On the very top of the parapet, circular pots are placed, which also viewed from afar, looked like so many men's heads; "so that when I first discovered the town," remarks Mrs. Lushington, "it seemed to me, that all its inhabitants had mounted the roofs to see us. It was remarkable to see the miserable mud huts of the moderns built on some of the magnificent pillars of the ancient city." Captain W. F. Head, one of the latest visiters, speaks of the Arab houses surrounding the eastern end of the ruins, as having the appearance of connected forts; "they look formidable at a distance, but lose much of this respectable character upon a nearer approach."

66

An

The pigeons of Luxor are very carefully preserved, though they belong to no particular proprietors. English traveller happened to kill one of them by way of sport, and he was very severely maltreated by the inhabitants of the village. As might naturally be inferred, the traveller who visits Luxor must not expect to find much accommodation for his personal wants; his best chance of securing some degree of comfort lies in carrying his tent with hiin, and pitching it on one of the convenient spots which are to be found among the ruins What sort of a dwelling he is likely to procure if he trusts to the mud-huts of the Arabs, may be learnt from the statement of one of our countrymen, who had been obligingly provided with a lodging by a French artist, then resident at Thebes, M. Rifaud. On his arrival, he found his destined abode to be a rude mud hovel, under the very walls of an old temple; it had an upper chamber in ruinous condition, the floor in parts fallen through, the thatch not weatherproof, and neither door, lattice, or window-shutter." Our Indian servant consulted the safety of our necks by bringing up some planks to place over a hole in the floor. They were painted; a black ground, with figures and hieroglyphics in bright yellow-mummy chests, broken up and sold for firewood. There being a large heap in the yard bought for a piastre, and our cook was feeding his fire with the once sacred sycamore."

Mrs. Belzoni, who accompanied her husband in one of his journeys to Thebes, gives a very unfavourable account of the accommodation which she enjoyed during her stay at Luxor. "Mr. B.," she says, "had but just time to put me in a house where he was informed there was a room on the top for me; he was then obliged to sail to Esne to secure the boat," (to carry down the colossal head.) "This was the first time I had ever been left alone with the Arabs, without an interpreter or an European, with about twenty Arab words in my mouth. What they denominated a room, consisted of four walls open to the sky, full of dates put to dry in the sun, an oven in one corner, a waterjar, and a fire-place of three bricks for a pot to stand on, without a chinney, and this place not to myself, as it was the apartment of the women. I never in my life felt so isolated and miserable, in a violent fever, exposed to the burning sun; besides the torment to have all the women of the village coming out of curiosity to see me."

Within the last two or three years the accommodation for travellers has been somewhat improved; the French, ir

ITS INHABITANTS.

LUXOR, like the rest of Thebes and its neighbourhood, and, indeed, like the whole of Egypt, is inhabited partly by Copts, who are Christians, and partly by Mohammedan Arabs; the latter are the more numerous. When Dr. Richardson visited Egypt, (in 1818,) there were about one hundred Coptic families in this village, and about five times as many Mussulmans, "who live in small huts about twelve feet square, among vermin, dust, and filth, the usual comforts of the Moslems in Egypt. These wretches," he adds, "neither enjoy themselves, nor permit others to enjoy the sweets of a tranquil and social life." The men are employed to a considerable extent in grubbing among the ruins in search of relics, for which the demand has, of course, become more extensive since the "Tour to Egypt." When a traveller arrives, they soon beset him and offer the produce of their labour; but it is seldom worth purchasing, for the most valuable articles that are discovered, are sent to a better market at Alexandria. Besides, these people do not display much discrimination in the collections which they make; fragments of modern china are sometimes handed to the curious traveller when he is eagerly hoping to grasp a scarabæus or a precious roll of papyrus. Some one, indeed, tells us of an old broken corkscrew which had been left behind by visiters of a civilized cast, being found by an inquisitive Arab, and shown by its joyful possessor as a prize evidently of great value in his own eyes, and in those of his companions.

The degraded condition of these miserable fellahs, as the Arab labourers are called, is unhappily too deep to leave us much hope of their redemption for some time to come. We know, indeed, that, of late years, and under the sway of her present ruler, some parts of Egypt have been forced into a little apparent conformity with the civilization of modern times; but his efforts seem to have been confined to those districts which are more immediately connected with his European instructors, and scarcely to have extended to the comparatively remote region of the upper country. There the misery of the people still continues unabated; or if it has undergone some mitigation, they have to thank their predecessors of three thousand years ago, who had skill enough to leave behind them such durable monuments of their labour, as in ages so long after could attract the presence of some civilized beings. There are several incidental notices in Belzoni's narrative, of the oppression which the people in this part of Egypt are in the habit of enduring; and where they are subjected to such treatment, it would be too much to expect them to become civilized.

Mrs. Belzoni, in her remarks upon the women of this district, affords us a curious little specimen of the civilization which they have attained. Some meat was brought to the house in which she lived for her use, but she declined it on account of a fever: the women proceeded to dress it, and from her apartment, Mrs. Belzoni saw “the daughter-in-law with the meat between her teeth,-one hand holding it out, and the other, with a bad knife, cutting, or rather tearing it up till she made it small enough to her mind." We shall not have much difficulty in understanding how she “considered it very lucky she was not hungry or inclined to eat." She experienced, however, much kind treatment from these females, "Mohammedans as well as Christians;”—“ there was not a day," is her remark, "I was not visited by the women of Luxor, Karnak, and other villages near."

CHRISTIANITY IN MODERN THEBES

ABOUT sixteen years ago, the villages of Thebes, in common with the rest of Upper Egypt, were visited by the Rev. Mr. Jowett, who communicated the result of his inquiries in the first series of his Christian Researches. From him we derive many interesting notices of the state of Christianity in that district, and of the existence of some feebie fragments of the ancient church, which there flourished so extensively in the early ages of our religion. The only one of the villages at Thebes in which he found any Christians, was Luxor; Karnak had none, Goornoo had none, and Medeenet-Haboo was in ruins and deserted; but at Luxor, as he says, Christians are numerous. I visited their chief several

"the

were settling with some noise while we sat within. There are about 100 Christian families; they have three priests, two of whom were present. Their church is in the hills, more than an hour's ride off, and is also the church to a village adjacent, called Zenia, where there are almost 40 Christian families. Two days before I came, I had sent word over the river that I should probably sell one Bible to the Mâllem: he told his children of it, who can read; one was continually saying to him, Father, the book is not come yet. It was evident that much had been made of it in expectation. I was truly sorry that I had no more to spare, as I could have sold several. In the school there were from fifteen to twenty scholars; the master was, as usual, dearly blind; he had, however, copied some Coptic and Arabic on paper, which the boys learnt almost by rote." Soon afterwards, this zealous missionary was visited by one of the priests, who expressed a desire to go with him to England; he had never had any education but what Luxor afforded, and he wished to know why the English travellers spent so much money on the granite statues, and other antiques. Some idea seemed to have crept into his mind, that the English would put them into their churches and worship them: "I took care," says Mr. Jowett, "to explain to him, especially as he had brought a Mohammedan, that we were better Christians."

The monuments of Thebes exhibit clear proofs, that at one time Christianity was more flourishing in their neighbourhood than it now is; in several parts of the ruins there are distinct traces of Christian churches. At MedeenetHaboo, according to Mr. Wilkinson, "the early Christians converted one of the deserted courts of the great temple into a more orthodox place of worship, by constructing an altar at the east end, and concealing with a coat of mud the idolatrous sculptures of their Pagan ancestors. The size of the church, and the extent of the village, prove that its Christian population was considerable, and require that Thebes must have held a rank among the principal dioceses of the Coptic church." Large gilt crosses, such as were used to ornament the dresses of the priests, have been discovered within the small apartments at the back of this building, and from this circumstance it is conjectured that those chambers were appropriated, by the ministers of the new religion, to their own use.

Mr. Jowett discovered in an obscure part of one of the temples at Karnak, a short but interesting inscription, which also indicated the former existence of Christianity here; it was written on a pillar in small red letters, and appeared to be a list of bishops who had, perhaps, holden a council here in former days, and left this simple memorial of it. He has given a fac-simile of it in his Researches, with an explanation and translation; there appear to have been originally fourteen names recorded in the list, in the form of the following:-" Abba Senouthius, Bishop," which is the first in the list. Most of them are imperfect, though deficiencies may be easily supplied. "If it should be thought surprising," says Mr. Jowett, "that so many bishops should have left so humble a memorial of their assembling, I can only say that in the Greek convent at Cairo, I observed the public notice of the patriarch's having gone to Patmos in the September preceding, written in the rudest characters with charcoal on the wall."

66

GRANDEUR OF THE RUINS.

THE earliest travellers who visited Thebes, described its wonders with such glowing enthusiasm as to raise the expectations of all who went after them to the very highest pitch. It ordinarily happens in such cases, that some disappointment is the result; yet here it is otherwise,-for each succeeding traveller has always avowed, that the reality has far exceeded his anticipations, and Las generally striven to out do his predecessors in the language of praise. Their collected encomiums would fill a volume. A few selected sentences will best serve to convey some notion of the powerful impression which results from beholding those wonderful works which are the subject of them. The description of the French artist, Denon, who accompanied Napoleon and the "wise men," in their famous Egyptian expedition of science and conquest, is eminently characteristic of the writer in both his individual and his national capacity. His enthusiasm upon Egyptian matters was intense, so much so, as very often to blind his scholarship as well as his judgment. The "few pages" about Thebes which, as our readers will see, he has so generously given

to Herodotus, would be very acceptable if any one could find them. The following is his description.

"On turning the point of a chain of mountains which forms a promontory, we saw at once the seat of the ancient Thebes, unfolded in its full extent,-that city of which the magnitude has been pictured to us by Homer in one single word, hundred-gated,-a poetical and unmeaning phrase which is still repeated with confidence after the lapse of so many ages. Described in a few pages, dictated to Herodotus by Egyptian priests, and copied by succeeding authors, renowned for a number of kings, whose wisdom has placed them in the rank of gods,-for laws which have been revered without ever being known,-for sciences confided to proud and enigmatical inscriptions, wise and primitive monuments of the arts which time has respected, this sanctuary, abandoned, isolated through barbarism, and restored to the desert from which it had been won,-this city always enveloped in that veil of mystery by which even colossi are magnified,-this remote city of which the fancy has but caught a glimpse through the obscurity of time, was still a vision so gigantic for our imaginations, that at the sight of its scattered ruins, the army halted of its own accord, and the soldiers with one spontaneous movement clapped their hands, as if to occupy the relics of this capital had been the aim of its glorious labours, and the completion of the conquest of Egypt!"

ap

One of our countrymen who visited Thebes many years after Denon,-Dr. Richardson-tells us, that as he proached it in the night, he could not judge of the awful grandeur of that first appearance which so powerfully affected the enthusiastic Frenchman. "But the next morning's sun convinced us," he says, "that the ruins can scarcely be seen from the river; that nowhere does the traveller turn the corner of the mountain to come in sight of them; and that he must be near them, or among them, before he can discover anything." Yet both Denon's draw ings, and the more recent ones of Captain W. F. Head, give some distant views of the ruins, which are very effective.

We have in a former number, when lightly touching on the subject of Thebes, transcribed the remarks of Belzoni upon his first view of the monuments. Champollion describes his impressions vividly. "The name of Thebes," he says, "was beforehand great in my thoughts;-it has become colossal since I have traversed the ruins of the old capital, the eldest of the cities of the world: through four whole days I have been running from wonder to wonder. Yet still," he adds, "Thebes is to me but a mass of columns, obelisks, and colossi; the scattered limbs of the monster must be examined one by one, Lefore it is possible to convey a precise notion of it. Patience then," addressing his correspondent, "till I shall pitch my tents in the peristyle of the palace of the Rameses!" Mr. Carne speaks to the same effect:-"It is difficult to describe the noble and stupendous ruins of Thebes. Beyond all others, they give you the idea of a ruined, yet imperishable city; so vast is their extent that you wander a long time confused and perplexed, and discover at every step some new object of interest."

We will close our extracts with a very pertinent remark of the Arabian physician Abd-allatif, and one which has the advantage of being some hundred vears older than any other we have quoted. He applied it to the monuments of Lower Egypt, we may apply it to those of Thebes with equal justice. "A man of good sense," he says, "on seeing these remains of antiquity, is tempted to excuse that error of the vulgar, which supposes that the men of these remote ages lived much longer than those of our time; that they were of gigantic stature, or at least that they exercised dominion over stones by touching them with a wand, and so caused them obediently to transport themselves wherever they were ordered."

Our Engravings afford illustrations of portions of the ruins on the eastern bank of the river. That in page 41 is a view of the Great Colonnade in the Great Temple, or Palace, at Luxor; page 48 exhibits a view of the Grand Hall at Karnak. See Saturday Magazine, Vol. IV., p. 154.