Richard Lepsius

“ At the extremity of the court there is still a single watch-tower, whence the Prussian flag is streaming, and close by it a little house of two stories, the lower of which I myself inhabit. Space, too, is there for the kitchen, the servants, and the donkeys.
Incomparably beautiful and attractive is the boundless prospect over the Thebaic plain from the wall of the court, low towards the inside and deep on the outside. Here all that remains of ancient Thebes may be seen, or still better from the battlements of the tower or from the hills immediately behind our house. ”

“ Wild and desolate, the rock walls, which round themselves off to bald peaks, rise on both sides, and have their golden tops covered with coal-black stones, burnt, as it were, by the sun. The peculiarly solemn and dull character of this region always struck me the most when I rode after sunset over the unmeasureable rock rubbish which covers the earth to a great height, and is only interrupted by broad water-streams, which have formed themselves in the course of thousands of years, by the unfrequent, though not unknown storms, as experience has shown. ”

“ Nothing is to be won from the Turk by kindness, consideration, demonstration, or even by irritation; he only looks upon it as weakness. The greatest reserve alone, and the most scrupulous and proud politeness toward the great, or aristocratic usage and categorical commands toward the little, succeed. A Turkish khawass hunts a whole village of Fellahs or Arabs before him, and makes a decided impression upon the yet prouder Bedouins. The Pasha employs this body in delicate missions and trusts throughout the country. ”

“ Sheikh Ahmed was a splendid man, still young, but tall and well grown, with peculiarly active limbs of shining black-brown hue, an expressive countenance, a piercing, but gentle and slyly-glancing eye, and an incomparably beautiful and harmonious pronunciation, so that I liked much to have him about me, although we were always in a contention at Korusko, as he was obliged to furnish the camels and their concomitants, and through circumstances, could not or would not, procure them. ”

“ Indeed, it would not be difficult to recognise from our position, that ancient fig-tree, on the way to Heliopolis, by Matarîeh, beneath the shade of which, according to the legends of the land, Mary rested with the Holy Child. How many thousands of pilgrims from all nations have sought these wonders of the world before our days,—we, the youngest in time, and yet only the predecessors of many thousands more who will come after us, and behold, and climb these pyramids, with astonishment. ”

“ Formerly there was a large lake in the middle, but it is now transformed into gardens. All around run broad streets, parted off for riders and walkers, and shaded by high trees. There the whole East flits by me with its gay, manifold, and always picturesque forms; the poor with blue or white tucked-up dresses, the rich with long garments of the most various stuffs, with silken kaftans, or fine clothes in delicate broken colours, with white, red, green, or black turbans, or with the noble but little-becoming Turkish tarbush ”

“ If one be not aware that no water is there, it is quite impossible to distinguish the appearance from the reality. A few days ago I felt quite sure that I perceived an overflowing of the Nile, or a branch near El Mechêref, and rode towards it, but only found Bahr Sheitan, “Satan’s water,” as the Arabs call it.
By day the caravan road cannot easily be missed, even when the sand has destroyed every trace of it; it is marked by numberless camels’ skeletons, of which several are always in sight; I counted forty-one within the last half-hour before sunset, on the previous day. ”

“ I left my comrades here, who went direct to Abu Dôm at five o’clock, and proceeded to Nuri. Soon there gleamed towards us the blue heights of Mount Barkal, which rises alone with steep sides and a broad platform from the surrounding plain, and immediately attracts attention by its peculiar shape and situation. At six o’clock, the Nile valley lay before us in its whole and somewhat broad extent; a sight long desired, after the desert, and which excites the attention of travellers as much as the nearing coasts after a sea-voyage. ”

“ I consider it a proper mental diet for our company to break and interrupt our laborious, and, for the artists, very monotonous occupations, not only by the hebdomadal rest of Sunday, but also by pleasant parties of pleasure and gay festivals, as often as opportunity will admit. As yet, the harmony and good humour of our society have not been disturbed by the slightest echo of discord; and they gain new strength every day, as well by the fulness of our novel impressions and the reciprocal tastes and natures of our companions, as by the obstacles and hardships of this Bedouin life. ”

“ When we came to the first height,{411} which is divided from the principal chain by a shallow valley, we had suddenly an indescribably beautiful and astonishing view over the whole of the mountain range of Libanon, which rose up before us, its whole length and down a considerable distance, covered with fresh shining snow; a true Alpine country in its most magnificent features, which towers majestically over this land blessed with eternal spring, but now so shamefully oppressed by its Turkish enemies. ”

“ I have now much lightened the labours of inspecting the attendants and administering many outward labours by having brought an excellent khawass from Cairo. These khawasses, who form a peculiar corps of officers of the Pasha, are in this country a very exclusive and important class of people. Only Turks are admitted into it, and these, by their nationality, have an inborn preponderance over every Arab. There are few nations that possess so much talent for governing as the Turks, whom we often picture to ourselves as half-barbarians, rough and uncultivated in the highest degree. ”

“ But the infinite variety of the naked craggy mountains, and the sand and rubbish-filled valley, treeless and bushless, make so wholly uniform impressions, that no one of us would have recognised the principal valley as the right, if the direction and general distance of it had not told us that it was the right one. ”

“ Next day, the 2nd of October, we landed at Sâ el Hager to visit the remains of ancient Saïs, that city of the Psammetiche so celebrated for its temple to Minerva. Scarcely anything exists of it but the walls, built of bricks of Nile earth, and the desolate ruins of the houses: there are no remains of any stone buildings with inscriptions. We paced the circumference of the city and took a simple plan of the locality. In the northwestern portion of the city her Acropolis once stood, which is still to be distinguished by higher mounds of rubbish. ”

“ This immense height, towering over the mountainous landscape, we had often seen in our road when we had a clear view; and the accounts the Arabs gave of the fertile and well-watered Wadi Firân at its foot had made me desirous to make a nearer acquaintance. I had determined to ascend the mountain, and for this reason turned into the Wadi Rim, which runs into Wadi Selâf, into which Serbâl descends. When we had ridden a little way up this valley, we came to an old stone hut, which must have been inhabited by a hermit. ”

“ A dismal spirit of wearied indolence and ignorance lies like a heavy cloud on their discontented countenances. And yet these fugitives from a world of care, living under an ever cheerful, temperate climate, can alone of all the inhabitants of these arid deserts stay under the dark shade of cypresses, palms, and olive trees, besides having the care of a library of 1,500 volumes, without in the least degree thinking of its most beautiful destination as an ἰατρεῖον ψυχῆς. ”

“ For the Egyptian saloon you will certainly choose an Egyptian style of architecture, and one carried out in every way, for which, according to what I understand from Hertel, there is yet plenty of time; for I think that, in order to produce a general harmonious impression, the different styles peculiar to the different periods, particularly orders of pillars, must be retained in their historical order, and in their rich glory of colours. ”

“ I met the caravan again by the fountain El Hai, which is pleasantly situated amongst{334} palm-gardens on the road. The land rises gradually from the sea-shore till behind these wells. As soon as we had gained a complete view of the whole plain, and the summit of the high mountain which runs down in a steep and regularly descending chain to the end of the peninsula, I took the bearings of all the most remarkable points, entrances of valleys, and mountain-tops, which the guides were able to name. ”

“ It certainly struck me, in passing up this valley, as a very unfit, if not impracticable, spot for the encampment of any great number of people, if they were all in tents; though well supplied with pure water, the ground is rugged, and rocky, towards the base of the mountain awfully so; but still it is quite possible that a certain number might have established themselves there, as the Arabs do at present, while, as on other occasions, the principal masses were distributed in the surrounding valleys. ”

“ Before us the magnificent ruins of the Memnonia, from the hill of Qurna on the left, to the high pylones towering over the black ruins of Medînet Habu to the right, then the green region surrounded by the broad Nile, whence on the{310} right the lonely colossi of Amenophis rise; and on the other side of the river the temple groups of Karnak and Luqsor, behind the plain, stretches for several hours to the sharp little undulating outline of the Arabian mountains, over which we see the first rays of the sun gleaming, and pouring a wonderful flood of colours over the valley and rocky desert. ”

“ After an hour and a half, we came to the very considerable ruins of a great Christian convent in Wadi Gazâl; so named from the gazelles, who scrape here in the Chor (valley-bed) , for water in great numbers. The church was built of white unhewn sand-stone up to the windows, and, above them, of unburnt brick; the walls covered with a strong coating of gypsum, and painted inside. The vaulted apse of the tri-naved basilica, lies as usual to the eastward, the entrance behind the western transept to the north and south; all the arches of the doors, windows, and pillar niches are round. ”

“ In Bsherreh, which contains from 1,200 to 1,500 inhabitants, all were on foot; they pressed and pushed each other, in order to kiss our hands or clothes. The women began their piercing cries; clapped their hands, and danced; my brave boy remained still by my side, and so, at last, we got step by step through the thick crowd, who now saluted us as friends, and reached the house of the sheikh, of whom my guide was a younger brother. We were led up the stone steps, across the hall, into the roomy chamber where we were to lodge. ”

“ Yesterday it did seem that a storm of rain in the desert had knocked down and destroyed the last of them. The Arabs are now lighting great fires of smoke in the fields, and clattering and making loud noises all day long to preserve their crops from the unexpected invasion. It will, however, do little good.{50} Like a new animated vegetation, these millions of winged spoilers cover even the neighbouring sandhills, so that scarcely anything is to be seen of the ground; and when they rise from one place, they immediately fall down somewhere in the neighbourhood ”

“ We pitched our tents in the rank-grown plain soon after sundown. The camel-drivers and our khawass were terribly afraid of the lions in this desert, until a great fire was lighted, which they carefully kept up the whole night through. When a lion lets his voice be heard in the vicinity of a caravan, sounding indeed deeply and dreadly through the whole wilderness, all the camels run away like mad, and are difficult of being secured, often not until they have suffered and done some injury. ”

“ Our bark touched the shore first beneath the wall of Luqsor, at the southerly point of the Thebaïc ruins. The strong current of the river has thrust itself so near to the old temple, that it is in great danger. I endeavoured to obtain a general view of the ruins of Thebes from the heights of the temple, in order to compare it with the picture I had idealised to myself, from plans and descriptions.
But the distances are too great to give a complete view. One looks into a wide landscape, in which the temple groups are distinguishable only to those who are acquainted with the neighbourhood. ”

“ The native races of Arabs gradually moved, so that of the Biblical names none remained in its place. The Greeks and Romans knew only one place in the whole peninsula, the palm-grove of Pharan, just because this place and its port were alone of any importance, since the mines of the wilderness had been deserted. Also, for the Christian hermits—for which that mountain wild, even without reference to the sacred reminiscences of the place—must have seemed the most fitted of any region, as it provided them with the more necessary sustenance with the greatest solitude. ”

“ I had already determined upon our departure some days since, when a row of tombs were discovered of a new period, a new architecture, a new style in the figures and hieroglyphics, with other titles, and, as it might have been expected, with other royal names.
Our historical gain is by no means perfected, nor is it even general. I was quite right in giving up the task of reconstructing the third dynasty after monuments, while in Europe. ”

“ The country round Soba is level, as everywhere about here, to the foot of the Abyssinian mountains, and the soil, particularly at this season, dried up and black; the thicker vegetation is confined to the river shore, farther on, there are only single trees, now more frequent, now seldom.
I promised the sailors a sheep if we arrived early next morning at Kamlîn; for the wind was violent, and allowed us to make but little way. Our ship, too, does not go very fast, the sailors are not adroit, and, with the present low level of the water, the bark easily sticks in the sand-banks. ”