Chapter XVI: Letter XV

KORUSKO. _November 20, 1843._[44]

Our journey from the Faiûm through Egypt was obliged to be much hastened on account of the advanced season of the year; we have, therefore, seldom stopped at any place longer than was necessary to make a hasty survey of it, and have confined ourselves in the last three months to a careful examination of what we have, and to extending our important collection of paper impressions of the most interesting inscriptions.

We have obtained, in our rapid journey to Wadi Halfa, three or four hundred Greek inscriptions, in impressions or careful transcripts. They often confirm Letronne’s acute conjectures, but not seldom correct the unavoidable mistakes incident to such an investigation as his. In the inscription from which it was, without reason, attempted to settle the situation of the city of Akoris, his conjecture ΙΣΙΔΙ ΛΟΧΙΑΔΙ is not corroborated; L’Hote has read ΜΟΧΙΑΔΙ but ΜΩΧΙΑΔΙ is to be found there, and previously ΕΡΩΕΩΕ not ΕΡΕΕΩΕ.

The dedicatory inscription of the temple of Pselchis (as the inscriptions give with Strabo, instead of Pselcis) is almost as long again as Letronne considers it, and the first line does not end with KΛEOPATPAΣ, but with AΔEΛΦHΣ, so that it should probably be supplied--

Ὑπὲρ βασιλέως Πτολεμαίου καὶ βασιλίσσης
Κλεοπάτρας τῆς ἀδελφῆς
θεῶν Εὐεργετῶν ...;[45]

At the end of the second line ΤΩΙΚΑΙ is confirmed; the title of Hermes, following in the third line, was, however, ΠΑΟΤΠΝΟΥΦΙ(ΔΙ), varying from the spelling in other subsequent inscriptions, where he is called ΠΑΥΤΝΟΥΦΙΣ. The same name is found not unfrequently hieroglyphically, and is then _Tut en Pnubs_, _i. e._ Thoth of, or lord of Πνούψ[46], a city, the position of which is yet obscure. I have already encountered this Thoth in earlier temples, where he often appears besides the Thoth of Shonun, _i. e._ _Heliopolis magna_. In the language of the people it was pronounced Pet-Pnubs, whence Paot-Pnuphis.

The interesting problem concerning the owner of the name Εὐπάτωρ, which Letronne endeavoured to solve in a new way in connection with the inscriptions of the obelisk of Philae, seems to be determined by the hieroglyphical inscriptions, where the same circumstances occur, but lead to other conclusions.[47] I have discovered several very perfect series of Ptolemies, the longest coming down to Neos Dionysos and his wife Cleopatra, who was surnamed Tryphæna by the Egyptians, according to the hieroglyphic inscriptions.[48] A fact of some importance is also that in this Egyptian list of Ptolemies, the first King is never Ptolemæus Soter I. but Philadelphus. In Qurna, where Euergetes II. is adoring his ancestors, not only Philometor, the brother of Euergetes, is wanting, which may easily be accounted for, but also Soter I., and it is an error of Rosselini, if he look upon the king beneath Philadelphus as Soter I. instead of Euergetes I. It seems that the son of Lagus, although he assumed the title of King from 305 B.C., was not recognized by the Egyptians as such, as his cartouches do not appear upon any monument erected by him. The rather, therefore, do I rejoice, that I have not yet found his name once upon an inscription of Philadelphus, as the father of Arsinoe II. But here, it must be observed, Soter certainly has the Royal Kings about his names, and a peculiar cartouche; but before both cartouches, contrary to the usual Egyptian custom, there stands no royal title, although his daughter is called “royal daughter,” and “Queen.”[49]

It is remarkable how little Champollion seems to have attended to the monuments of the Old Empire. In his whole journey through Middle Egypt up to Dendera, he only found the rock graves of Benihassan worthy of remark, and these, too, he assigns to the sixteenth and seventeenth dynasty, therefore to the New Empire. He mentions Zauiet el Meitîn and Siut, but scarcely makes any remark about them.

So little has been said by others of most of the monuments of Middle Egypt, that almost everything was new to me that we found here. My astonishment was not small, when we found a series of nineteen rock tombs at Zauiet el Meitîn, which were all inscribed, gave the names of the departed, and belong to the old time of the sixth dynasty, thus almost as far back as the pyramid builders.[50] Five of them contain, several times repeated, the cartouche of the Macrobiote Apappus-Pepi, who is reported to have lived one hundred and six years, and reigned one hundred; in another, Cheops is mentioned. On one side is a single tomb, of the time of Ramses.

At Benihassan I have had a complete rocktomb perfectly copied; it will serve as a specimen of the grandiose style of architecture and art of the second flourishing time of the Old Empire, during the mighty twelfth dynasty.[51] I think it will cause some surprise among Egyptologers, when they learn from Bunsen’s work,[52] why I have divided the tablet of Abydos, and have referred Sesurtesen and Amenemha, these Pharaohs, well known through Heliopolis, the Faiûm, Benihassan, Thebes, and up to Wadi Halfa, from the New Empire into the Old. It must then have been a proud period for Egypt--that is proved by these mighty tombs alone. It is interesting, likewise, to trace in the rich representations on the walls, which put before our eyes the high advance of the peaceful arts, as well as the refined luxury of the great of that period; also the foreboding of that great misfortune which brought Egypt, for several centuries, under the rule of its northern enemies. In the representations of the warlike games, which form a characteristically recurring feature, and take up whole sides in some tombs, which leads to a conclusion of their general use at that period afterwards disappearing, we often find among the red or dark-brown men, of the Egyptian and southern races, very light-coloured people, who have, for the most part, a totally different costume, and generally red-coloured hair on the head and beard, and blue eyes, sometimes appearing alone, sometimes in small divisions. They also appear in the trains of the nobles, and are evidently of northern, probably Semitic, origin. We find victories over the Ethiopians and negroes on the monuments of those times, and therefore need not be surprised at the recurrence of black slaves and servants. Of wars against the northern neighbours we learn nothing; but it seems that the immigration from the north-east was already beginning, and that many foreigners sought an asylum in fertile Egypt in return for service and other useful employments.

I have more in mind the remarkable scene in the tomb of the royal relation, Nehera-si-Numhotep, the second from the north, which places the immigration of Jacob and his family before our eyes in a most lively manner, and which would almost induce us to connect the two, if Jacob had not really entered at a far later period, and if we were not aware that such immigrations of single families could not be unfrequent. These, however, were the precursors of the Hyksos, and prepared the way for them in more than one respect. I have traced the whole representation, which is about eight feet long, and one-and-a-half high, and is very well preserved through, as it is only painted. The Royal Scribe, Nefruhotep, who conducts the company into the presence of the high officer to whom the grave belongs, is presenting him a leaf of papyrus. Upon this the sixth year of King Sesurtesen II. is mentioned, in which that family of thirty-seven persons came to Egypt. Their chief and lord was named Absha, they themselves Aama, a national designation, recurring with the light-complexioned race, often represented in the royal tombs of the nineteenth dynasty, together with three other races, and forming the four principal divisions of mankind, with which the Egyptians were acquainted. Champollion took them for Greeks when he was in Benihassan, but he was not then aware of the extreme antiquity of the monuments before him. Wilkinson considers them prisoners, but this is confuted by their appearance with arms and lyres, with wives, children, donkeys and luggage; I hold them to be an immigrating Hyksos-family, which begs for a reception into the favoured land, and whose posterity perhaps opened the gates of Egypt to the conquering tribes of their Semetic relations.

The city to which the rich rock-Necropolis of Benihassan belonged, and which is named Nus in the hieroglyphic inscriptions, must have been very considerable, and without doubt lay opposite on the left bank of the Nile, where old mounds are still existing, and were marked on the French maps. That the geography of the Greeks and Romans knows nothing of this city, Nus, as indeed was true of many other cities of the Old Empire, is not very astonishing, if it be considered that the five hundred years of Hyksos dominion intervened. The sudden fall of the Empire and of this flourishing city, at the end of the twelfth dynasty, is recognised by some in the circumstance, that of the numerous rock-tombs, only eleven bear inscriptions, and of these but three are completely finished. To these last, broad pathways led directly up from the banks of the river, which, at the steep upper end, were changed into steps.

Benihassan is, however, not the only place where works of the twelfth dynasty were found. Near Bersheh, somewhat to the south of the great plain, in which the Emperor Hadrian built, to the honour of his drowned favourite, the city of Antinoe, with its magnificently and even now partially passable streets, with hundreds of pillars, a small valley opens to the east, where we again found a series of splendidly-made rock-tombs of the twelfth dynasty, of which the greater portion are unfortunately injured. In the tomb of Ki-si-Tuthotep the transportation of the great colossus is represented, which was already published by Rosellini, but without the accompanying inscriptions; from the latter it is certain that it was formed of limestone (the hieroglyphic word for which I first ascertained here), and was about thirteen Egyptian ells, that is circa twenty-one feet, in height.[53] In the same valley, on the southern rock wall, there is hewn a series of still older, but very little inscribed tombs, which, to judge from the style of the hieroglyphics, and the titles of the deceased, belong to the sixth dynasty.

A few hours more to the southward comes another group of graves, also belonging to the sixth dynasty; here King Cheops is incidentally mentioned, whose name already appeared several times in an hieratic inscription at Benihassan. At two other places, between the valley of El Amarna, where the very remarkable rock-tombs of King Bech-en-Aten is situated, and Siut, we found graves of the sixth dynasty, but presenting few inscriptions. Perring, the pyramid measurer, has, in a recent publication, attempted to establish the strange notion, which I found also existed in Cairo, that the monuments of El Amarna were the work of the Hyksos: others wished to refer them to a period anterior to that of Menes, by reason of their certainly, but not inexplicable, peculiarities; I had already explained them in Europe as contemporaneous kings[54] of the eighteenth dynasty.

In the rock wall behind Siut, mighty tombs are gaping, in which we could recognize the grand style of the twelfth dynasty already from a distance. Here too, unfortunately, much has been lately destroyed of these precious remnants, as it was found easier to break down the walls and pillars of the grottoes, than to hew out the stones from the mass.

I learnt from Selim Pasha, the Governor of Upper Egypt, who received us at Siut in the most friendly manner, that the Bedouins had some time since discovered quarries of alabaster two or three hours’ journey into the eastern mountains, the proceeds of which Mahommed Ali had presented him, and from his dragoman I ascertained that there was an inscription on the rocks. I therefore determined to undertake the hot ride upon the Pasha’s horses, which he had sent to El Bosra for this purpose, from El Bosra thither, in company with the two Weidenbachs, our dragoman and the _khawass_. There we found a little colony of eighteen workmen, with their families, altogether thirty-one persons, in the lonely, wild, hot rock gorge, employed in the excavation of the alabaster. Behind the tent of the overseer there were preserved, in legible, sharply-cut hieroglyphics, the names and titles of the wife, so much revered by the Egyptians, of the first Amasis, the head of the eighteenth dynasty, who expelled the Hyksos, the remains of a formerly much larger inscription. These are the first alabaster quarries, the age of which is certified by an inscription. Not far from the place were others, which were already exhausted in antiquity; from those now reopened they have extracted within the last four months more than three hundred blocks, of which the larger ones are eighty feet long and two feet thick. The Pasha informed me, through his dragoman, that on our return I should find a piece, the size and form of which I was myself to determine, of the best quality the quarry afforded, which he desired me to accept as a testimonial of his joy at our visit. The alabaster quarries discovered in this region are all situated between Bersheh and Gauâta; one would be inclined, therefore, to consider El Bosra as the ancient Alabastron, if its position could be reconciled with the account of Ptolemæus; at any rate, Alabastron has certainly nothing to do with the ruins in the valley of El Amarna, as hitherto thought, to which also the relation of Ptolemæus does not answer, and which seems to be quite different. The hieroglyphical name of these ruins recurs continually in the inscriptions.

In the rock chains of Gebel Selîn there are again very early, but little inscribed, graves of the Old Empire, apparently of the sixth dynasty.

Opposite ancient Panopolis, or Chemmis, we climbed the remarkable rock cave of the ithyphallic Pan (Chem).[55] It is dedicated by another contemporaneous king of the eighteenth dynasty, whose grave we have since visited in Thebes. The holy name of the city often occurs in the inscriptions,--“Dwelling-place of Chem,” _i. e._ Panopolis. Whether this, however, was the origin of the popular name, Chemmis, now Echmîn, is much to be doubted. I have always found at Siut, Dendera, Abydos, and other have cities, two distinct names, the sacred one and the popular name; the first is taken from the principal god of the local temple, the other has nothing to do with it.[56] My hieroglyphical geography is extended almost with every new monument.

At Abydos we came to the first greater temple building. The last interesting tombs of the Old Empire we found at Qasr e’ Saiât; they belong to the sixth dynasty. At Dendera we visited the imposing temple of Hathor, the best preserved perhaps in all Egypt.[57]

In Thebes we stayed for twelve over-rich, astonishing days, which were hardly sufficient to learn to find our way among the palaces, temples, and tombs, whose royal giant magnificence fills this spacious plain. In the jewel of all Egyptian buildings, in the palace of Ramses Sesostris, which this greatest of the Pharaohs erected in a manner worthy of himself and the god, to “Ammon-Ra, King of the Gods,” the guardian of the royal city of Ammon, on a gently-rising terrace, calculated to overlook the wide plain on this side, and on the other side of the majestic river, we kept our beloved King’s birthday with salutes and flags, with chorus singing, and with hearty toasts, that we proclaimed over a glass of pure German Rhine wine. That we thought of you with full hearts on this occasion I need not say. When night came we first lighted a pitch kettle, over the outer entrances between the pylones, on both sides of which our flags were planted; then we let a green fire flame up from the roof of the Pronaos, which threw out the beautiful proportions of the pillared halls, now first restored to their original destination by us, as festal halls; “Hall of the Panegyries,” ever since thousands of years; and even magically animated the two mighty peace thrones of the colossi of the Memnon.

We have put off more extensive research till our return; but to select from the inexhaustible matter for our end, and with relation to what has already been given in other works, will be difficult. On the 18th of October we quitted Thebes. Hermonthis we saw _en passant_. The great hall of Esneh was some years ago excavated by command of the Pasha, and presented a magnificent appearance. At El Kab, the ancient Eileithyia, we remained three days. Still more remarkable than the different temples of this once mighty place are its rock-tombs, which belong chiefly to the beginning of the War of Liberation against the Hyksos, and throw much light upon the relation of the several dynasties of that period. Several persons of consideration buried there bear the curious title of a male nurse of a royal prince, expressed by the well known group of _mena_, with the determinative of the female breast in Coptic, ;[58] the deceased is represented with the prince in his lap.

The temple of Edfu is also among the best preserved of them; it was dedicated to Horus and Hathor, the Egyptian Venus, who is once named here “Queen of men and women.” Horus, as a child, is represented, as all children are on the monuments, as naked, with his finger to his lips; I had already explained from it the name of Harpocrates, which I have now found completely represented and written as Harpe-chroti, _i. e._ “Horus the Child.”[59] The Romans misunderstood the Egyptian gesture of the finger, and made of the _child_ that _can_ not speak, the God of Silence, that _will_ not speak. The most interesting inscription, unremarked and unmentioned as yet by any one, is found on the eastern outer wall of the temple, built by Ptolemaeus Alexander I. It contains several dates of King Darius, of Nectanebus, and the falsely named Amyrtæus, and has reference to the lands belonging to the temple. The glowing heat of that day caused me to postpone the more careful examination and the paper impression of this inscription till our return.[60] Gebel Silsilis is one of the richest places in historical inscriptions, which generally bear some reference to the ancient working of the sandstone quarries.

At Ombos, I was greatly rejoiced to discover a third canon of proportions of the human body, which is very different to the two older Egyptian canons that I had found in many examples before. The second canon is intimately connected with the first and oldest of the pyramid period, of which it is only a farther completion and different application. The foot is the unit of both of them, which, taken six times, makes the height of the upright body; but it must be remarked, not from the sole to the crown, but only as far as the forehead. The piece from the roots of the hair, or the forehead to the crown, did not come into the calculation at all, and occupies sometimes three-quarters, sometimes half, sometimes less of another square. The difference between the first and second canons concerns mostly the position of the knees. In the Ptolemaic canon, however, the division itself is altered. The body was not divided into 18 parts, as in the second canon, but into 21¼ parts to the forehead, or into 23 to the crown. This is the division which Diodorus gives us in the last chapter of his first book. The middle, between forehead and sole, falls beneath the hips in all the three divisions. Thence downward, the proportions of the second and third canons remain the same, but those of the upper part of the body differ exceedingly; the head is larger, the breast falls deeper, the abdomen higher; on the whole, the contour becomes more licentious, and loses the earlier simplicity and modesty of form, in which the grand and peculiar Egyptian character consisted, for the imperfect imitation of a misunderstood foreign style of art. The proportion of the foot to the length of the body remains, but it is no longer the unit on which the whole calculation is based.

We were obliged to change boat at Assuan, on account of the Cataracts, and had, for the first time for six months or more, the homeish greeting of a violent shower and blustering storm, that gathered beyond the Cataracts, surmounted the granite girdle, and burst with the most thundering explosions into the valley down to Cairo, which (as we have since learnt) it deluged with water in a manner scarcely recollected before. Thus we too may say with Strabo and Champollion:--“In our time it rained in Upper Egypt.” Rain is, in fact, so unusual here, that our guards remembered no similar scene, and our Turkish _Khawass_, who is intimately acquainted with the land in every respect, when we had long had our packages brought into the tents and fastened up, never laid a hand to his own things, but quietly repeated, _abaden moie_, “never rain,” a word, that he had since been often obliged to hear, as he was thoroughly drenched, and got a tremendous fever, that he was obliged to suffer patiently at Philae.

Philae is as charmingly situated as it is interesting for its monuments. The week spent on this holy island belongs to the most delightful reminiscences of our journey. We were accustomed to assemble before dinner, when our scattered work was done, on the elevated terrace of the temple, which rises steeply above the river on the eastern shore of the island, to observe the shades of the well-preserved temple, built of sharply-cut, dark-glowing blocks of sandstone, which grow across the river and mingle with the black volcanic masses of rock, piled wildly one upon another, and between which the golden-hued sand pours into the valley like fire-floods. The island appears to have become sacred at a late period among the Egyptians, under the Ptolemies. Herodotus, who went up to the Cataracts in the time of the Persians, does not mention Philae at all; it was then inhabited by Ethiopians, who had also half Elephantine in their possession. The oldest buildings, now to be found on the island, were erected nearly a hundred years subsequent to the journey of Herodotus, by King Nectanebus, the last but three of the kings of Egyptian descent, upon the southern point of the island. There is no trace of any earlier buildings, not even of destroyed or built-up remains. Inscriptions of much older date are to be found on the great island of Bigeh close by, called hieroglyphically Senmut. It was already adorned with Egyptian monuments during the Old Empire; for we found there a granite statue of King Sesurtesem III., of the twelfth dynasty. The little rock-islet Konossa, hieroglyphically Kenes, has also very ancient inscriptions on the rocks, in which a new, and hitherto quite unknown, king of the Hyksos period is named. The hieroglyphical name of the island of Philae has generally been read Manlak. I have found it several times undoubtedly written Ilak. This, with the article, becomes Philak, in the mouths of the Greeks Philai. The sign read “man” by Champollion also interchanges in other groups with “i,” thus the pronunciation I-lak, P-i-lak, Memphitic Ph-i-lak is confirmed.

We have made a precious discovery in the court of the great temple of Isis, two somewhat word-rich bilingual, _i. e._ hieroglyphical and Demotic decrees of the Egyptian priests, of which one contains the same text as the decree of the Rosetta stone. At least, I have till now compared the seven last lines, which not only correspond with the Rosetta in the contents but in the length of each individual line; the inscription must first be copied, ere I can say more about it; in any case the gain for Egyptian philology is not inconsiderable, if only a portion of the broken decree of Rosetta can be restored by it. The whole of the first part of the inscription of Rosetta, which precedes the decree, is wanting here. Instead of it, a second decree is there, which relates to the same Ptolemæus Epiphanes; in the beginning the “fortress of Alexander,” _i. e._ the city of Alexandria, is mentioned, for the first time, upon any of the monuments hitherto made known. Both decrees close, like the inscription of Rosetta, with the determination to set up the inscription in hieroglyphical, Demotic, and Greek writing. But the Greek inscription is wanting, if it were not written in red and rubbed out when Ptolemy Lathyrus engraved his hieroglyphic inscriptions over earlier ones.[61]

The hieroglyphic series of Ptolemies, which occurs here, again begins with Philadelphus, while it begins with Soter in the Greek text of the Rosetta inscription. Another very remarkable circumstance is, that Epiphanes is here called the son of Philopator Ptolemæus, and Cleopatra is mentioned, while according to the historical accounts the only wife of Philopator was named Arsinoe, and is so named in the Rosetta inscription and on other monuments. She is certainly also named Cleopatra in one passage of Pliny; this would have been taken for an error of the author or a mistake of the manuscripts, if a hieroglyphic and indeed official document did not present the interchange of names. There is consequently no farther reason to place, as Champollion-Figeac does, the embassy of Marcus Atilius and Marcus Acilius from the Roman Senate to Egypt to settle a new treaty concerning the Queen Cleopatra mentioned by Livy, in the time of Ptolemæus Epiphanes, instead of under Ptolemæus Philopator, as other authors inform us. We must rather conceive, either that the wife and sister of Philopator had both names, which would not obviate all the difficulties, or that the project which Appian mentions of a marriage of Philopator with the Syrian Cleopatra, who afterwards became the wife of Epiphanes, was carried out after the murder of Arsinoe, without mention of it by the historians. Here naturally means are wanting to me in order to bring this point clearly out.[62]

The quantity of Greek inscriptions at Philae is innumerable, and Letronne will be interested to hear that I have found on the base of the second obelisk, still in its own place, of which a portion only went to England with the other obelisk, the remains of a Greek inscription written in red, and perhaps once gilt, like those lately discovered on the base in England, but which is, of course, extremely difficult to decipher. That the hieroglyphical inscriptions of the obelisks, which I myself copied in Dorsetshire, besides the Greek on the base, and subsequently published in my Egyptian Atlas, have nothing to do with the Greek inscriptions, and were also not contemporaneously set up, I have already stated in a letter to Letronne; but whether the inscription on the second base had not some connection with that of the first is still a question; the correspondence of the three known inscriptions seems certainly to be settled.

The principal temple of the island was dedicated to Isis. She alone is named “Lady of Philek;” Osiris was only Θεὸς σύνναος, which is peculiarly expressed in the hieroglyphics, and is only exceptionally called “Lord of Philek;” but he was “Lord of Ph-i-uêb,” _i. e._ Abaton, and Isis, who was σύνναος there, is only occasionally called “Lady of Ph-i-uêb.” From this it is evident that the famous grave of Osiris was upon his own island of Phiuêb, and not on Philek. Both places are distinctly indicated as islands by their determinations. It is therefore not to be thought that the Abaton of the inscriptions and historians was a particular place on the island of Philae; it was an island in itself. So also do Diodorus and Plutarch intimate by their expression πρὸς Φίλαις. Diodorus decidedly refers to the island with the grave of Osiris as a distinct island, which was named ἱερὸν πεδίον, “the holy field,” by reason of this grave. This is a translation of Ph-i-uêb, or Ph-ih-uêb (for the h is also found expressed hieroglyphically), Koptic Ph-iah-uêb, “the sacred field.”[63] This consecrated place was an Abaton, and unapproachable except for the priests.

On the sixth of November we quitted the charming island, and commenced our Ethiopian journey. Already at Debôd, the next temple lying to the south, hieroglyphically Tabet (in Koptic perhaps ), we found the sculptures of an Ethiopian King Arkamen, the Ergamenes of the historians, who reigned at the time of Ptolemæus Philadelphus, and stood probably in very friendly relations with Egypt. In the French work on Champollion’s Expedition (I have not Rosellini’s work with me) there is great confusion here. Several plates, belonging to Dakkeh, are ascribed to Debôd, and _vice versâ_. At Gertassi we collected nearly sixty Greek inscriptions. Letronne, who knew them through Gau, has perhaps already published them; I am anxious to know what he had made of the γόμοι, the priests of whom play a conspicuous part in these inscriptions, and of the new Gods Σρούπτιχις and Πουρεποῦνις.

With what inaccuracy the Greeks often caught up the Egyptian names is again shown by the inscriptions of Talmis, which call the same god Mandulis, which is distinctly enough in the hieroglyphic Meruli, and was the local deity of Talmis. It is remarkable that the name of Talmis, so frequently occurring in this temple, nowhere appears in the neighbouring, though certainly much more ancient, the rock temple of Bet el Ualli. Dendûr, also, had a peculiar patron, the God Petisi, who appears nowhere else, and is usually named Peshir Tenthur; Champollion’s plates are here again in strange disorder, the representations and the inscriptions being wrongly put together.

The temples of Gerf Hussên and Sebûa are peculiarly remarkable, because Ramses-Sesostris, who built them, here appears as a deity, and is adorning himself, beside Phtha and Ammon, the two chief deities of this temple. In the first, he is even once called “Ruler of the Gods.”

Champollion has well remarked, that all the temples of the Ptolemies and Roman emperors in Nubia were probably only restorations of earlier sanctuaries, which were erected in the old time by the Pharaohs of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. That was the temple of Pselchis, first built by Tuthmosis III. Beside the scattered fragments of this first building, which, however, was not dedicated to Thoth, as Champollion thinks, but to Horus, and therefore underwent a later change, we have found others of Sethos I. and Menephthes: also, it appears that the earlier erection did not have its axis parallel with the river like the later one, but, like almost all other temples, had its entrances toward the river.

At the temple of Korte, the doorway only is inscribed with hieroglyphics of the worst style. But these few were sufficient to inform us that it was a sanctuary of Isis, here denominated “Lady of Kerte.” We also found blocks rebuilt in the walls, which has escaped former travellers, belonging to an earlier temple erected by Tuthmosis III., the foundations of which may still be traced.

We gathered our last harvest of Greek inscriptions at Hierasykaminos. To this place, the Greek and Roman travellers were protected by the garrison of Pselchis; and by a fixed camp called Mehendi, some hours southerly from Hierasykaminos, which is not mentioned in the maps. Primis seems only to have had a temporary garrison during the campaign of Petronius. Mehendi--which name probably only signifies the structure, the camp in Arabic--is the best preserved Roman encampment that I have ever seen. It lies upon a somewhat steep height, and thence commands the river and a little valley extending on the south side of the camp from the Nile, and turns the caravan road into the desert, which comes back to the side of the river again at Medik. The wall of the town encloses a square running down the hill a little to the east, and measuring one hundred and seventy-five paces from south to north, and one hundred and twenty-five from east to west. From the walls there rise regularly four corner and four middle towers; of the latter, the south and north formed also the gates, which, for the sake of greater security, led into the city with a bend, and not in a direct line. The southern gate, and the whole southerly part of the fortress, which comprehended about one hundred and twenty houses, are excellently preserved. Immediately behind the gate, one enters a straight street, sixty-seven paces long, which is even now, with but little interruption, vaulted; several narrow by-streets lead off on both sides, and are covered, like all the houses of the district, with vaults of Nile bricks. The street leads to a great open place in the middle of the city, by which lay, on the highest point of the hill, the largest and best-built house--no doubt belonging to the commandant--with a semicircular niche at the eastern end. The city walls are built of unhewn stone; the gateway only, which has a well-turned Roman arch, is erected of well-cut freestone, among the blocks of which several are built in, bearing sculptures of pure Egyptian, though late style, as a proof that there was an Egyptian or Ethiopian sanctuary here (probably an Isis chapel) before the building of the fortress. We discovered an Osiris head and two Isis heads; one of which still distinctly bore the red marks of the third canon of proportion.

The last monument we visited before our arrival in Korusko, was the temple of Ammon in the Wadi Sebùa (Lion’s Dale); so called from the rows of sphinxes which just peep out of the sand ocean that fell and covered the whole temple as far as it was exposed. Even the western portion of the temple, hewn in the rock, is filled with sand; and we had to summon the whole crew of our bark to assist in obtaining an entrance into this part. We encountered a novel and very peculiar combination of divine and human natures in a group of four deities, the first of whom is called “Phtha of Ramses in the house of Ammon;” the second, “Phtha,” with other usual cognomens; the third, “Ramses in the house of Ammon;” and the fourth, “Hathor.” In another inscription “Ammon of Ramses in the house of Ammon” was named. It is difficult to explain this combination.[64]

I was not less astonished to find in the front court of the temple of Ammon a representation of the posterity of the King Ramses-Miamun, in number one hundred and sixty children, with their names and titles, of which the greater part are scarcely to be read, as they are very much destroyed, and others are covered with rubbish, and can only be reckoned by the space they occupy. There were but twenty-five sons and ten daughters of this great king previously known. The two legitimate wives whose images appear on the monuments, he did not have at the same time, but took the second at the death of the first. To-day we were visited by the old, blind, but powerful and rich, Hassan Kachef, of Derr, who was formerly the independent regent of Lower Nubia; he has had no less than sixty-four wives, of which forty-two are yet remaining; twenty-nine of his sons and seventeen daughters are yet living; how many have died, he has probably never troubled himself to count, but, according to the usual proportion of this country, they must have been about four times the number of the living ones; therefore, about two hundred children.

Korusko is an Arab place, in the midst of the land of the Nubians, or Barâbra (plural of Bérberi), who occupy the valley of the Nile from Assuan to the other side of Dongola. This is an intelligent and honest race, of peaceable, though far from slavish disposition, of handsome stature, and with shining reddish brown skin.[65] The possession of Korusko by Arabs of the Ababde tribes, who inhabit the whole of the eastern desert, from Assuan down to Abu Hammed, may be accounted for by the important position of the place, as the point whence the great caravan road, leading directly to the province of Berber, departs, thus cutting off the whole western bend of the Nile.

The Arabic language, in which we could now, at any rate, order and question, and carry on a little conversation of politeness, had grown so familiar to our ear in Egypt, that the Nubian language was attractive on account of its novelty. It is divided, as far as I have yet been able to ascertain, into a northern and a southern dialect, which meet at Korusko.[66] The language is totally distinct in character to the Arabic, even in the primary elements the consonantal and vocalic systems. It is much more euphonious, as it has scarcely any doubling of consonants, no harsh guttural tones, few sibilating sounds, and many simple vowels, more distinctly separated than in Arabic, by which an effeminate mixture of vowels is also avoided. It has not the slightest connection in any part of its grammatical constitution, or in the roots, either with the Semetic languages, nor with the Egyptian, or with our own; and therefore, certainly belongs to the original African stock, unconnected with the Ethiopic-Egyptian family, though the nation may be comprehended by the ancients under the general name of Ethiopians, and though their physical race may stand in a nearer relation to them. They are not a commercial people, and therefore can only count up to twenty in their language; the higher numbers are borrowed from the Arabic, although they employ a peculiar term for one hundred, _imil_.[67] Genders scarcely exist in the language, except in personal pronouns, standing alone; they distinguish. “he” and “she,” but not “he gives” and “she gives.” They use suffixed inflections, as in our languages, rather than changes of accent, like the Semetic. The ordinals are formed by the termination _iti_, the plural by _îgi_; they have no dual. The union of the verb with the pronoun is both by prefix and affix, but is simple and natural; they distinguish the present tense and the preterite; the future is expressed by a particle, even for the passive they have a peculiar formation. The root of negation is “_m_,” usually with the following “_n_,” the single affinity, probably more than accidental with other families of language. Their original number of roots is very limited. They have certainly distinct words for sun, moon, and stars; but the expressions for year, month, day, hour, they borrow from the Arabic; water, ocean, river, are all signified by the same words with _essi_, yet it is remarkable, that they designate the Nile by a peculiar term _tossi_. For all native tamed wild animals, they have native names, for houses, and even all that concerns shipping, they use Arabic terms; the boat only they call _kub_, which has no very apparent connection with the Arabic _mérkab_. For date-fruit and date-tree, which have different designations in Arabic, _bellah_ and _nachele_, they have only one word, _béti_ (_fentί_); the sycamore-tree they name in Arabic, but it is remarkable, that they designate the sont-tree by the word for tree in general. Spirit, God, slave, the ideas of relationship, the parts of the body, weapons, field fruits, and what relates to the preparation of bread, have Nubian names; while the words servant, friend, enemy, temple, to pray, to believe, to read, are all Arabic. It is curious that they have separate words for writing and book, but not for stylus, ink, paper, letter. The metals are all named in Arabic, with the exception of iron. Rich are they in Berber, poor in Arabic, and in fact they are all rich in their poor country, to which they cling like Switzers, and despise the Arab gold, that they might win in Egypt, where their services, as guards and all posts of confidence, are much sought.

We now only stay for the arrival of the camels to begin our desert journey. Hence to Abu Hammed, an eight days’ journey, we shall only find drinkable water once, and then we shall continue our camel ride for four more days to Berber. There we shall find barks, according to the arrangements of Ahmed Pasha. We must then continue on to Chartûm, in order to provision; to proceed higher up, to Abu Haras, and thence to Mandera, in the eastern desert, will scarcely be worth while, if we may believe Linant; but Ahmed Pasha has promised to send an officer to Mandera, in order to test again the reports of the native.

This report I shall send with other letters by an express messenger to Qeneh.