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

3?8 A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE.

which are particularly noticed the assault of a fortress
"environed by a river," a procession of captives without
hands, and a series of all the gods of Egypt, to whom the
king was represented in the act of making offerings; finally,
against the entrance to the second court-yard, three
statues of the king, one of which, being of Syenite granite
and made "in a sitting posture," is stated to be not only
" the greatest in all Egypt," but admirable above all others
"for its workmanship and the excellence of the stone."

Bearing in mind that what is left of the Ramesseum is,
as it were, only the backbone of the entire structure, one
can still walk from end to end of the building, and still
recognize every feature of this description. We turn our
backs on the wrecked towers of the first propylon; cross-
ing what was once the first court-yard, wo leave to the
left the fallen colossus; we enter the second court-yard, and
see before us the three entrances to the hall of pillars and
the remains of two other statues; we walk up the
central avenue of the great hall, and see above our
heads architraves studded with yellow stars upon a
ground color so luminously blue that it almost matches
the sky; thence, passing through a chamber lined with
sculptures, we come to the library, upon the door-jambs
of which Ohampollion found the figures of Tlioth and
Saf, the lord of letters and the lady of the sacred books;*,
finally, among such fragments of sculptured decoration
as yet remain, we find the king making offerings to a hiero-
glyphed list of gods as well as to his deified ancestors; wc
see the train of captives, and the piles of severed hands; f
and we discover an immense battle-piece, which is in fact
a replica of the famous battle-piece at Abou Simbel. This
subject, like its Nubian prototype, yet preserves some of
its color. The enemy are shown to be fair-skinned and
light-haired, and wear the same Syrian robes; and the
river, more green than that at Abou Simbel, is painted in
zigzags in the same manner. The king, alone in his

Vienna; see "Hist. d'Egypte," chap, x, p. 213, ed. 1859. Another
claimant to this identification is found in a king named Se-Mentu,
whose cartouches were found by Marietta on soma small gold tablets
at Tanis.

* Letter xiv, p. 235, Lcttra d'jZf/ypte; Paris, 18C8. See also chap,
xviii, of the present work; p. 319.

f See Champollion, Letter xiv, foot note, p. 418.