Chapter II

Facing the sea of life, upon its shores

There stood a temple proud.

* * * * *

THE TEMPLE OF SEMNEH.

Visitors to temples. — The German. — The Frenchman. — The Englishman. — The American. — Description of the temple.

ON the banks of the Nile, forty miles from Wady Halfa, stands the small temple of Semneh.

A visit to a temple has always afforded me instruction and matter for reflection, not less, perhaps, on account of the temple itself than on account of the tourists from different parts of the world, whom, at the right season and in frequented parts, one is likely to find there. Each nationality has its unmistakable peculiarities; each is a study in itself.

The proceedings of the German are, perhaps, most calculated to excite attention. He is a little fat man with a huge red moustache adorning an energetic and determined-looking face. He wears a helmet which he evidently thinks has a national and military appearance; it is, however, always either much too small or much too large, generally the latter, when it hides all his face from view, excepting only the end of his nose and the huge red moustache. The rest of his costume consists of a pair of low shoes, the laces often untied, a pair of very baggy trousers, much too short, made of white duck or brown holland; his coat is of the same material and equally ample; beneath it is his waistcoat with many pockets and of as many hues as the famous coat that Joseph wore and which formed the envy of his brothers. He generally goes to a temple on a donkey, and the pace at which he trots away, and the ease and elegance with which he sits his saddle, are strong evidence that he is not unfamiliar with the control of a nobler quadruped. He despises all guides, the donkey-boy is his only attendant; he takes with him, tied to the back of the donkey, a camp-stool on which he intends to climb to get a better view of the hieroglyphics on the walls of the temple. His white umbrella is under his arm, and the boy trots behind and now and then prods or wallops the donkey. Arrived at his destination he places his stool close to the wall and sits down, while the boy holds the umbrella over his head to keep off the sun. Having carefully blown over the surface of the stone, to dislodge any loose sand that may be there, he takes from his pocket a note-book, a measure, a pair of spectacles, and a lead-pencil; he then measures, with great care and accuracy, the height and breadth of a hieroglyphic, and gets the depth by inserting the end of the pencil; this he does two or three times to be quite sure that there is no mistake. After making notes of all these measurements he moves the camp-stool two or three yards back and mounts to the top, steadied by the boy; an opera-glass is produced from his pocket, and he scans, from end to end, the whole wall of the temple. His observations are now concluded; the glass, note-book, spectacles, measure, and pencil are replaced, and, after a draught of refreshment from a bottle of beer, which has evidently been opened and partly emptied before, he rides back as he came. When he gets home to Germany he writes an exhaustive pamphlet on the temples of Egypt and their hieroglyphics.

The Frenchman goes to see a temple in a different way and for an entirely different purpose; he is generally accompanied by two or three friends. When he gets there he says, “Mon Dieu!” and if he makes any further remark it will be to compare the temple with the “Madeleine,” the “Arc de Triomphe,” or with some other building for which he has special and patriotic admiration. He and his friends then repair to breakfast, champagne and cigars, into the shadiest corner of the ruin; the conversation will be lively and on various subjects, not one of which, however, will have anything to do with the object of the visit. When breakfast is finished he will go home amused and delighted with his excursion, and will talk graphically about the temple for the rest of his life, but will only know as much as our friend the German who wrote the pamphlet.

Before an Englishman visits a temple he reads up _Murray’s Guide_ for the previous six months, and, when he goes, he takes a copy under his arm, and a hammer and chisel in his pocket. He always travels in a large party of fellow-countrymen and women. In the party there are sure to be at least two wise men and, perhaps, as many wise ladies, who make it their business to impart knowledge concerning every particular of the temple, historical and archæological, to their listening companions. When the information of one of the authorities differs from that of the other, there is always much warm argument, until the party is divided into two parties, in a parliamentary sense, who continue the debate until their arrival at the temple, when each party finding itself absurdly wrong, a general silence is the result. The silence, however, does not last long, and our tourist remarks that the temple is “wonderful.” Conversation becomes general and enthusiastic; he feels bound to admire the manner in which the masonry is put together, and to express his approval of the exquisite carving of the hieroglyphics; then, quite forgetting his _Murray_, he speculates on the age of the temple and on the effect that the arts and sciences of the ancient Egyptians may have had upon the civilisation of modern nations, of which England is the greatest. He then seeks a prominent place in the wall and carves his name on what may, perhaps, be the most interesting cartouche on the temple, and which, if properly interpreted, may be capable of furnishing all the information which he professes himself so anxious to acquire. After the achievement of this, the principal object of his visit, he will, like the Frenchman, sit down to lunch; his conversation will not, like his, be lively, but it will certainly have reference to the temple and to nothing else. On the ride home he will converse much, soon become argumentative, and ultimately quarrelsome, and will go to bed determined never to see another temple. There is one thing, however, which is quite certain, that the English tourist knows much more about a temple before he has seen it than ever he does after, and this is, perhaps, a somewhat singular circumstance.

The American is again different, as a tourist he is unique; he goes to a temple not with the object of going there and of seeing it, but with the object of having been there and of having seen it. He is very erratic in his movements, sometimes he makes his journey alone, sometimes with other Americans, but more frequently he joins a party of Englishmen; he converses fluently about the temple, but it is evident to all that he knows nothing whatever on the subject; perhaps he has not even heard of its name until the day before; his object is to obtain all the information he can from the conversation of the _Murray’s-Guide_-filled Englishmen; he always succeeds, and on his return journey is often in a position to satisfactorily decide any question about which there may be a difference. He is amiable and generous and well supplied with excellent cigars, which he freely distributes. On arrival at the temple, he invariably knocks a piece of stone off a corner, and tells his attendant to carry it to his hotel; when he gets there himself, he labels it and puts it with many others in a large box marked “Geological Specimens.” On arrival in America he calls them his “rocks,” and gives them to his friends, who value them much. An American tourist is peculiar in other ways: he will sometimes, if hot and tired, only go part of the way to the temple, where he will sit down and wait till the return of his friends, one of whom will certainly have been commissioned to bring his “rock.” When he starts alone to see a temple, he very seldom goes all the way, but picks up a “rock” in the desert, and makes that answer every purpose. He has always plenty of money, and buys nearly all things that are offered to him, paying six times as much as an Englishman, twenty times as much as a Frenchman, and forty times as much as a German. He has at his hotel a trunk full of relics of all shapes, and amongst them several hundred scarabæi, one or two of which may, perhaps, be genuine; in the States he lectures on the collection, and makes the money he has spent on their purchase, and, very often, a great deal more besides.

It has never been my happiness to meet an Italian on a visit to a temple; but I have reason to believe that his proceedings are like those of the gentlemen mentioned above, characterized by dignity, propriety, and fitting veneration for the monuments of an extinct race.

Individuals of different peoples differ, of course, considerably among themselves; but those I have described may, I think, be regarded as fair and often-met-with types.

My visit to Semneh was only short and hurried, and offered me no prospect of meeting with any chance tourist. The temple is much too far removed from the beaten track; its walls are not rich in carvings, ancient Egyptian or modern English, and no “rocks” have been knocked from the corners.

It is about twelve feet in height, and contains but one chamber, thirty feet by eleven. Thothmes III. is said to be the monarch by whom it was erected; he was one of the most famous kings of the eighteenth dynasty, which lasted, according to Sir Gardner Wilkinson, from 1520 B.C. to 1340 B.C., according to Bunsen from 1625 B.C. to 1409 B.C., and according to Mariette from 1703 B.C. to 1462 B.C. It will thus be seen that, at the lowest computation, the temple of Semneh must be more than three thousand years old.

During the reign of Thothmes III., Egypt, in the language of the hieroglyphics, “placed its frontiers where it pleased.” He carried his victorious arms far into Western Asia. Had there been Parliamentary government in those early times, there is no doubt that, by the leaders of His Majesty’s Opposition, he would have been characterised as a regular old Egyptian “jingo.” On the pillars of the temple, Thothmes III. is represented in company with Totouôn and other deities. Osirtasen III., an ancestor, is represented as a god; he was one of the few known kings of the twelfth dynasty, lasting, according to Sir G. Wilkinson, from 2080 B.C. to 1900 B.C., according to Bunsen from 2781 B.C. to 2634 B.C., and according to Mariette from 3064 B.C. to 2851 B.C.; to his reign belong the obelisk at On, or Heliopolis, the tombs of Beni Hassan, the famous Labyrinth, and Lake Mœris, excavated to collect the waters of the Nile for irrigation purposes.

For the above particulars I am indebted to _Murray’s Guide_, which, on the occasion of my visit to the temple of Semneh, I, as a matter of course, faithfully took with me under my arm.

[Decoration]