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PLAIN OF ABYDOS.

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these, which for a long way bordered our path on either side, were intermingled with a heavy under crop of tall clover, undoubtedly the finest and most abundant I have ever seen. On all sides, as far as the eye could reach, arose the date groves in which the villages stood embosomed; and the farmers were every where busy in the fields. Perched here and there, on the ground or in the trees, were doves, hawks white and brown, which, from their familiarity with the other birds, would appear not to be carnivorous, large black eagles, resting aloft on the tops of the highest palms; small flights of ibises, and innumerable sparrows and pigeons. The camel, the buffalo, the horse, the cow, the sheep, and the goat, were feeding in groups among the rich pasturage, which having been drenched by the dews of the preceding night, heavy as those of Hermon, every leaf and blade now glittered with sparkling dew-drops. Scenes of beauty and fertility like this involuntarily recall to mind those exquisite images, which Milton with so much taste and judgment has introduced into Eve's rapturous description of external nature:

"Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds: pleasant the sun
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower
Glistening with dew."

Scarcely could paradise itself be more delightful than the land now before us; the whole atmosphere being perfumed faintly, but deliciously, by the scent of

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PLAIN OF ABYDOS.

many flowers, while every object which presented itself to the eye was clothed with inimitable freshness and beauty. The weather was such as we sometimes enjoy in England during the month of June, when the sun's heat is tempered by light clouds, which alternately admit and intercept his beams. To enjoy it, we slackened our pace: Abydos, and its Memnonium, were, for the moment, forgotten; and the beauties of the landscape were greatly enhanced by the buoyancy of my spirits and the indescribable delights of health. I could now comprehend why the Romans sent their consumptive patients, and the Turks their men grown prematurely old by excess, to the banks of the Nile; for nowhere on earth could they, in winter, find a more congenial climate than that of the Thebaid.

CCVI. All this plain is abundantly inundated by the Nile, so that a few months ago boats might have sailed where we now admired the richness of the crops; but there is also a canal by which, when the river has subsided, water is conveyed to the foot of the desert; and we observed them raising it for the purposes of irrigation from small tanks filled during the inundation. But one great cause of the fertility of Egypt, is the extraordinary dew, which, as in all countries where the atmosphere is generally free from clouds, falls during the night, leaving the earth drenched as after heavy showers; and to this circumstance the ancient Egyptians seem to have alluded in an epithet of Buto, or the clear starry

TEMPLE OF OSIRIS.

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night, whom they termed the "Mother of Dew."* In about three hours we arrived at Abydos; and, passing through the modern village, that has nothing

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remarkable except the noble palm wood in which it stands, emerged into the desert, where numerous mounds of rubbish, burned brick, broken pottery, &c. marked the site of the ancient city. Our guides first conducted us to a set of small painted chambers, evidently forming part of a spacious temple, probably of Osiris, whom, according to Strabo, the people of Abydos held in extreme veneration.

CCVII. The ruins are much too imperfect to admit, without extensive excavations, of our forming an accurate idea of the original form and dimensions of the temple, which, like many other religious edifices in Egypt, appears to have been broken up, internally, into numerous insignificant apartments and separate chapels, nowise answering to the magnificence of the exterior. The figures represented on the walls differ little in design and execution from those which adorn other Egyptian monuments; but made, perhaps, a deeper impression on our imaginations, from being the first perfect specimens we saw. They are executed in intaglio relevato, and were once painted in the most brilliant colours; the effect of which, however barbarous it may appear to systematic

Jablonski identifies Buto, or Latona, with the moon, and resolves her name into Mau-ioti; but, in his system, all the gods of Egypt are only so many forms of those two primitive objects of worship, the sun and moon. · Panth, Egypt. i. 84. 116.

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antiquarians, is singularly gorgeous and picturesque ; at least, when tastefully and ably executed, which it sometimes was in Egypt. The colours employed were red, yellow, green, and blue; and these, considering the years which have elapsed since they were laid on, are still remarkably fresh and vivid; though, in pretending that they seem to have been finished but yesterday, travellers are guilty of ridiculous exaggeration. In one of the apartments, for example, there is a figure painted in a colour that to my companion appeared blue, to me green; which may serve to give some idea of their preservation. The blue and the green, however, are most faded; the red and yellow being, in general, well preserved.

CCVIII. In the northern division of the pile there is a small chapel, containing an extremely remarkable series of figures. Upon the beautiful cornice over the door, both on the exterior and interior, is the winged globe, symbolical of the world self-balanced in the regions of space; and the sides of the doorway, together with the friezes and architrave, are covered with brilliantly painted hieroglyphics: but the roof has been removed, and the eastern wall much broken and injured at the top, though one only of the figures has suffered material detriment. What the event here celebrated in sculpture may have been, it seems difficult to determine; but, after an attentive examination, it appeared to be an historical subject representing the deification, or apotheosis, of some distinguished mortal, perhaps of that Memnon,

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Ismendes, or Osymandyas, whose palace still stands in the neighbourhood. The procession consists of several figures, male and female, gods and mortals, who move in the train of the principal personage towards the throne of Osiris, placed at the extremity of the chamber. On entering, the first figures which present themselves to the eye, upon the right hand wall, are those of two females, bearing in one hand a kind of graduated staff, in the other the Kteis-Phallus, which they extend towards the god. In front of these is a male figure, with the serpent, the emblem of sovereignty, on his brow, leading forward the foremost of the two females; while the hawk-headed god, Aroëris, holds him by the hand, and at the same time presents him with the mystic symbol of Eternal Life. The complexion of Memnon and Aroëris is red; that of the goddesses, yellow both utterly unnatural. The incipient divinity having been furnished with the sign of immortality, another god, of blue complexion, with a long narrow beard (the present Egyptians have very scanty beards) presents him with the flagellum, crosier, and bird-headed staff. This group is preceded by a goddess, bearing in her hand what appears to be a kind of musical instrument. The first compartment here terminates, and a narrow band of hieroglyphics, descending from the ceiling to the floor, divides. it from the next; in which there are but three figures; Isis and Osiris on their thrones, and Memnon, or whoever this personage may be, presenting himself

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