Valley of the Nile

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 Excerpt: ...the Egyptian trades. The men are at work, for instance, on the monstrous sphinx, chipping away at the huge granite blocks from which it was fashioned.t We now cross. the Nile to the "most magnificent Sir Q. Wilkinson, "Modern Egypt and Thebes," 11. 201-210. t Dr. Richardson, " Travels along the Mediterranean," etc., 1. 279-281. spot in Egypt," and, landing on the eastern bank, proceed to explore the vast ruins which lie at ElKarnac, or KARNAK. Mrs. Lushington, an English traveller, describes in emphatic language the feelings of amazement and wonder with which she first beheld them--feelings which every traveller shares. It was long, she says, after she reached her tent before she recovered from the emotion which the view of these stupendous monuments of antiquity had produced. No one, indeed, who has not seen them with his bodily eyes can understand the mingled awe and admiration they excite. No painting, or verbal description, can embody even a tithe of their grandeur. No words can impart a conception of the profusion of pillars, standing, prostrate, inclining against each other, broken, or entire;--stones of a, gigantic size propped up by columns, and columns resting upon stones which appear ready to crush the gazer under their sudden fall; yet, on a second view, 'you are convinced that nothing but an earthquake could move them: and all, though three or four thousand years old, are covered with sculpture, which is as fresh as if finished but yesterday; sculpture, too, truly exquisite in design and execution, and not of grotesque and hideous objects, which we are accustomed to suppose the normal ideas of Egyptian mythology, but figures of gods, warriors, priests, kings, and heroes--all instinct with a vivid life! When the Fren...