Beaufort, Emily Anne: Egyptian sepulchres and Syrian shrines: including some stay in the Lebanon, at Palmyra and in Western Turkey ; in 2 vol. (Band 1) (London, 1862)

60

CHAP. IV.

CATARACT AND FLAME.

THO can describe Philas ? and what good would even

pages and pages of writing do to the minds of
our readers ? nought, I fear, but confusion, since PhilaB
is made up of apparently incongruous elements, each
beautiful in itself, though combining badly enough to-
gether in description, but which in reality melt into one
harmonious whole; stern and wild, yet soft and lovely
— grand in feature, j^et exquisite in detail — calm and
silent in its deep repose, yet surrounded with life and
sound — the vast white of the desert, and the deep
grey of the river — the glowing purple of the moun-
tains and the vivid green of the palm trees — the
lustrous black of the weird rocks in the water and the
fiery orange and red of the infernal-looking rocks on the
shore,— the blue and pink granite, and the red and
purple porphyry, — the creamy yellow of the ancient
ruins, so grand and beautiful, yet so arid and unpictur-
esque, and the dry, cracked, and crumbling mud huts
around and all over them:—these are the various op-
posing features which combine into the one unique and
perfect Philae; of all spots in Egypt and Nubia the one
to which, perhaps, one looks back through the vistas of
memory with the most love and tenderness.