Edwards, Amelia B.: A thousand miles up the Nile (New York, [1888])

ABOU SIMBKL. 277

himself seems to have fallen asleep. Wandering to and
fro among these sculptured halls, like a shade among
shadows, one seems to have left the world behind; to have
done with the teachings of the piesent; to belong one's
self to the past. The very gods assert their ancient influ-
ence over those who question them in solitude. Seen in
the fast-deepening gloom of evening, they look instinct
with supernatural life. There were times when I should
scarcely have been surprised to hear them speak—to see
them rise from their painted thrones and come down from
the walls. There were times when I felt I believed in
them.

There was something so weird and awful about the
place, and it became so much more weird and awful the
farther one went in, that I rarely ventured beyond the
first hall when quite alone. One afternoon, however,
when it was a little earlier, and therefore a little lighter
than usual, I went to the very end and sat at the feet of
the gods in the sanctuary. All at once (I cannot tell
why, for my thoughts just then were far away) it flashed
upon me that a whole mountain hung—ready, perhaps,
to cave in — above my head. Seized by a sudden
panic such as one feels in dreams, I tried to run; but my
feet dragged and the floor seemed to sink under them. I
felt I could not have called for help, though it had been to
save my life. It is unnecessary, perhaps, to add that the
mountain did not cave in, and that I had my fright for
nothing. It would have been a grand way of dying, all
the same; and a still grander way of being buried. My
visits to the great temple were not always so dramatic.
I sometimes took Salame, who smoked cigarettes when not
on active duty, or held a candle while I sketched patterns
of cornices, head-dresses of kings and gods, designs of
necklaces and bracelets, heads of captives, and the like.
Sometimes we explored the side-chambers. Of these there
are eight; pitch-dark, and excavated at all kinds of angles.
"wo or three are surrounded by stone benches cut in the
rock; and in one the hieroglyphic inscriptions are part cut,
Part sketched in black and left unfinished. As this temple
]s entirely the work of Ivameses II, and betrays no sign
°f having been added to by any of his successors, these
^vidences of incompleteness would seem to show that the
king died before the work was ended,