CHAMBER OF OUTLINES.

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right, other mummies, condemned, perhaps, to slumber out the great year, are decently reclined, like Vishnu, on serpent-formed couches; unless, as the serpent was the symbol of eternity, this may be taken as a hint of the esoteric doctrine taught by the priests, whose creed was pantheism. In the immediate neighbourhood, a group of living serpents bear upon their necks and backs a number of human heads. On the several faces of the columns, the king is successively received and embraced by all the principal deities of the Egyptian pantheon,- Athor, Neith, Isis, Osiris, Phthah, Ammon, Thoth, Anubis, Horus, and a goddess crowned with a scarabæus, bearing the kteis in each claw.

CCCCLVIII. We now proceed to a spacious apartment on the right, adorned with two massive square pillars. Here the figures on the walls are merely in outline, death, apparently, having arrested the king in the midst of his labours; and his successors not caring to snatch a moment from the embellishment of their own tombs in compliment to his ghost. It has been remarked, and the idea is not without foundation, that in these pencil sketches more freedom, energy, and grace are observable than in the finished paintings. It appears, in fact, that, in all works of this kind, the design was executed by one set of men, the details and filling up by another; and that, in many cases, the latter were inferior to the former, and contrived to spoil their outlines. Isis is here delineated with some ability: indeed, her long

78

artist. usual.

ISIS.

sleepy eye, smiling pouting lips, and countenance full of love, exhibit the nearest approach to feminine softness and beauty ever made, perhaps, by an Egyptian But the body and limbs are ill formed, as Whatever may have been the vulgar notions propagated by the priests concerning this goddess, she would in reality appear to be nothing more than a deification of womanhood, in strict conformity to the original nature of the Egyptian religion, which arose out of fetichism, and never very widely departed from its principles.

CCCCLIX. It would be endless to describe minutely every group and figure on the walls of this tomb; and, in the present state of our knowledge, such a description would be of no great utility; but, were the exact import and character of each understood, a volume-and it would require a large one -might be well devoted to the proper delineation and explanation of these extraordinary pictures. The gods of Egypt are all assembled here. The most important truths of which they had caught any obscure glimpses, and mingled with fables, — a future the judgment of the dead-rewards-punishments-transmigration-absorption-all seem to be alluded to and shadowed forth in symbols, comprehended only by the initiated. To us, now that the key is lost, much that we see appears to be the representations of a fantastic dream. Figures of men with globes, instead of heads, upon their shoulders.; women with serpents on their brows; headless trunks, with

state

GOD OF SILENCE.

79

snakes or scarabæi creeping forth from the bleeding neck; and, in the midst of these and similar unintelligible things, we discover the figure of Harpocrates, with his finger pointing to his lips, enjoining eternal silence on the mysterious subject, - an injunction which has been but too well obeyed.

CCCCLX. Returning into the great chamber, and descending a flight of eighteen steps, we follow a continuation of the corridor, on the walls of which the wars and other actions of the deceased monarch appear to be portrayed. In the midst of soldiers, we find a man and woman, clad in leopards' skins, overlooking a third person, engaged in cutting up an ox or calf in the royal presence. Another flight of steps conducts to a lower chamber, covered, like the rest, with sculptures, which we shall not attempt to describe. Passing onward from hall to hall, some adorned with columns, others not, we everywhere observe the same mystic representations. One group, on the roof of a lofty arched apartment, is eminently curious. The figures appear to be white, on a black ground; but are found, on examination, to be of a pale yellow. A white bull, with a hawk perched on his horns, is approached by numerous gods in procession, all bearing globes upon their heads; among which is the female hippopotamus, with a woman's breasts, standing upright, with a crocodile climbing up her back, and looking over her head. Other crocodiles are near, together with a lion surrounded with stars. On either end of the apartment is a winged female

80 AGRICULTURAL AND MILITARY SCULPTURES.

figure. To the left of this, is a spacious and beautiful hall, adorned with two columns, and a raised stone bench, like a rich sideboard, extending round the whole. This bench is hollowed out below into a series of recesses, in each of which is an elegant couch. Having attained the lowest chamber, we found that a rude staircase conducted still farther into the rock, and descending through an opening in the wall, proceeded downwards over steps covered with rubbish, two hundred feet, perhaps, below the level of the tomb. On reaching the bottom, however, our progress was stopped by rocks, though a narrow aperture existed, through which the bats passed in and out. Other apartments may hereafter be discovered, both here, and at the commencement of the steps above.

CCCCLXI. The other royal tombs, the entrances to many of which yet remain to be discovered, possess each a peculiar interest; but to describe them separately would be tedious. In one of the small chambers of the one commonly called "Bruce's tomb," because it contains the figures of the two harpers, the copying of which exposed him to so much unjust and absurd reprehension, there occurs an agricultural subject of much interest, representing the ploughman ploughing, and the sower sowing a field. The plough -but this I state from memory-is drawn by two cows or oxen, and a young calf is sporting before them among the furrows. the furrows. At a short distance in the rear is the sower, who holds the grain in a basket, and scatters it as he goes. From this picture we discover

AGRICULTURAL AND MILITARY SCULPTURES. 81

that women, in Egypt, were employed in the labours of agriculture; for a woman is here observed approaching the husbandman with a full basket of grain, while, at a little distance, another is employed in filling a similar basket from a large heap. On the other walls of the apartment are stacks of corn in a field, and the Nile, flowing between green fertile islands, and bearing a galley under sail. In another chamber, close to the above, a collection of military ensigns and weapons are represented upon the walls;

swords, spears, daggers, arrows, bows, quivers, helmets, shirts of mail, and chariot-poles. The standards consist of the hawk, the bull, the heads of Isis and Athor, and other similar objects, mounted on long handles, like the staff of a spear.