THE BIBAN EL MELOOK. 57 CCCCXLIII. These views may, perhaps, be found to differ from those vulgarly entertained of the ancient Egyptians; but they are supported by existing monuments and the relations of historians of undoubted credit. I shall now pass on to the description of the principal antiquities; aiming, as far as possible, at brevity, and omitting the mention of such objects as have elsewhere occurred. The first things we visited were the TOMBS OF THE KINGS. Setting out at an early hour, we proceeded on asses across the plain towards the Libyan mountains; where the sun's heat, already very powerful, seriously incommoded several of my companions; more particularly when, having crossed the cultivated plain, we touched upon the desert, and entered those winding, rocky defiles leading to the Biban el Melook. The transition was most striking. The eye, which, but a few minutes before, had reposed on verdant plains, palm woods, and the cool blue waters of the Nile, now encountered the most desolate and savage scenery,- blasted rocks, huge perpendicular cliffs, deep and dismal ravines, the seat of eternal silence and barrenness, the very "Valley of the Shadow of Death." In certain conditions of mind, however, such places are not unproductive of delight. Nature, elsewhere robed, and concealed from sight by a thousand magical appearances, seems there to stand before us, naked, in all her majesty. Our ideas wander beyond their usual sphere; for the mind, seeming to have pushed its researches into forbidden regions, up to the very threshold of eternity, feels as if about to 58 ILLUSTRATION OF SCRIPTURE. solve the mystery of death and life. Conscious of a firm hold upon existence, our spirits buoyant with robust health, we enter, as if assured of immortality, the portals of the grave, saying secretly to ourselves, "Death has, indeed, been at work here; but over us he has no power!" Every thing around is calm and motionless. No animals bound along the earth, no trees wave in the wind, no streams, no rivulets flow, reminding us, by their progression, of the flux of time. The stainless purity of the atmosphere defends us even from the passing shadow of a cloud. All is stationary, fixed, immutable, as if prepared for eternal duration; sunshine and tranquillity brood over the landscape; and we participate in the calm of nature. CCCCXLIV. The Theban kings, in selecting wild solitary places, wherein to build their tombs, acted conformably to the general practice of the East, alluded to by Job. Why," he exclaims, "died I not from the womb? 66 Fol For now should I have lain still and been quiet; I should have slept: then had I been at rest, with kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves."* lowing the numerous windings of the valley, we arrived at the point where it divides itself into several narrow ravines, which, on the right, terminate abruptly in a rocky wall of vast height, forming the base of a stupendous mountain; and on the left, in And this, we were a series of inconsiderable gullys. * Chap. III. v. 11—14. MYTHOLOGY OF EGYPT. 59 told, was the spot chosen by the Egyptian monarchs for their eternal abode. Proceeding a few steps farther, the entrances to the tombs appeared, resembling, at a distance, the shafts of so many mines. "Dî, quibus imperium est animarum, umbraque silentes: Pandere res altâ terrâ et caligine mersas." CCCCXLV. The first tomb we entered was that opened by the enterprising and unfortunate Belzoni, which is the most remarkable of the whole. To the description of this, therefore, I shall chiefly confine myself; as in the distribution of the apartments, as well as in the columns, paintings, and hieroglyphics, they all, in a great measure, resemble each other. Several untoward circumstances combine, however, to render imperfect our pictures of these extraordinary hypogea. The mythology of Egypt, whose most secret mysteries, those relating to the fate of the sou after its separation from the body, are supposed to be here delineated, is hitherto scarcely at all understood, even by the learned; and, on this account, it is exceedingly difficult, in a series of complicated scenes, to pursue the thread of events, and observe by what nice transitions the sculptor passed, so to say, from one part of his narration to another. Perhaps, also, * Which Dryden has thus rendered: "Ye realms, yet unreveal'd to human sight, Eneid, book vi. 60 DESCENT INTO THE TOMB. where the graver failed, the aid of hieroglyphics was called in, to express the less palpable and obvious ideas; for we see them in long perpendicular bands upon the walls, separating the various divisions of the sculptured tale, into books or chapters, as it were; but all these characters, which once spoke to the eye, are now dumb. Even were our knowledge competent, however which it is not to follow the sculptor and the scribe through the mazes of this vast mythological labyrinth, the destructive ravages of M. Champollion, and other antiquarians who, by breaking down doorways, and sawing off the faces of pillars, covered with bas-reliefs and hieroglyphics, have removed the connecting links of events, and rendered them, to a certain extent, unintelligible for ever-would effectually arrest our progress, and throw us, in many cases, out of the true scent. CCCCXLVI. But to proceed with what remains. When we entered from the burning, leafless desert, into these gorgeous subterranean palaces, the effect was indescribably grand. Without, the bare inhospitable waste, scorched by an almost vertical sun, seemed scarcely to afford a shelter or a hiding-place to the fox and the jackal; within, we found ourselves descending magnificent flights of steps, or wandering through long corridors, vast galleries, lofty halls, and spacious banqueting-rooms, hewn in the solid rock, and extending five or six hundred feet into the bowels of the mountain; the walls, ceilings, and pillars, covered with symbolical representations, FESTIVAL OF THE MANES. 61 No idea, resembling an endless picture-gallery. formed from reading, of the character and manners of the ancient Egyptians, can possibly prepare the traveller for what he finds here. With what object were these gay and costly palaces constructed? For the reception of a corpse: to be closed, like other receptacles of the dead, until doomsday; when their royal inmates, roused by the last trump, should come shivering forth from their stately halls, to stand before a far more terrible tribunal than that which preceded their burial? This seems wholly improbable. In my opinion they were made for the use of the living, not of the dead. From the ancients we learn that the Egyptians, resembling the Ghouls in taste, were enlivened and excited to debauchery by the sight of a mock-corpse, which, at grand banquets, was brought round and shown to every guest. Many ancient nations reckoned the Manes of their ancestors among the Dii minorum gentium; and at stated seasons, probably on the anniversaries of their death, assembled together, and invoked them with feasts and sacrifices. This practice is alluded to in the Book of Psalms. "They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor," says the prophet, "and ate the sacrifices of the dead."* And the Hindoos, among whom a religion similar to that of Egypt still flourishes, annually devote fifteen days to the worship of the manes of their ancestors: during which period, the princes of Méwar, proceeding to the royal cemetery, perform at the tombs of each of their * Psa.m cvi. 28. |