DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2873#0018
VIEW IN THE INTERIOR OF THE HALL OF COLUMNS, KARNAC
EFOFiE I ascended the Nile, a photographic friend, whom I met at Cairo, discouraged me
|J greatly about Karnac. The place, he said, was impregnable—that it was idle to plant a
y\ camera against it—such vast and shapeless masses of rain packed together as tight as it
spaj would stow, and built in on all sides with tremendous blank walls. I say I was discouraged;
■T nevertheless, I brought up my artillery boldly, and fired away right and left—with what
success I leave my readers to judge—and yet I think my friend's representations must have
S?' somewhat unmanned me; for on my first journey I attempted no interior view of the great hall,
fete which is the chief ornament and wonder of Karnac, and indeed of Egypt. On the contrary, I wrote
\"i that " the pillars are so strangely crowded together, and their height is so great, as to render it quite
impossible to obtain a photograph within the hall itself!" But if the reader will turn back (six
pictures) he will find that I crept round the outer wall, and took advantage of dilapidations therein effected
by some former warrior, obtaining a shot across the hall, which was not altogether ineffective. And
whilst the reader is there, he may perhaps like to revise what is said about this great hall. Think of the
dimensions — 350 feet long, by 150. One hundred, and thirty-four columns, such as are here represented,
still standing. The centre avenue 75 feet high, and 36 feet in circumference. Why, there is many a snug
little sitting-room not more than 12 feet square: the base of one of those columns would not stand in its area!
Well, on my late journey I seem to have recovered my self-possession. But I will relate how, step-
by-step, I forced the enemy's positions. First, as my cavalcade of donkeys and Arabs (designedly so placed
o-entle reader!) pattered along from Luxor in a whirlwind of dust, I sounded a hasty "halt!" as we
neared the beautiful pylon gateway of the Ptolemaic period, and although by no means regardless of the
grim old sphynxes that guard it, I planted my engines, and " Cook the approaches." Then I entered the
sacred enclosure, turned sharp round to the right, and carried off the pair of huge fellows who flank the
remains of the glorious "Granite Pylon." Wheeling round my tackle, I possessed myself of an extent of
the most deplorably ruinous territory that the world knows (see Supplementary Volume, 21st View), and then I
approached the enemy's stronghold—that great centre of temples and shrines, whose nucleus was formed
nearly 4000 vears ago, and to which a period of twenty centuries added its industry and its wealth.
Passin"- under the great unfinished pylon, I entered the "Court of Shishak," and welcomed into the fore-
ground of my picture those cheese-like piles of prostrate column-stones, which have been the delight of
artists from time immemorial, but which the enlightened governor of Egypt has lately entirely swept away,
that ho might have a clear carriage-drive through the temple! Then, burning with ambition—yet with
much fearfulness__I entered that dark vista which you see in the centre of my last picture, and turning
down one of the side aisles, I pointed my camera at a double line of those dingy old immensities—indestructi-
,, __indescribable, and hitherto deemed impossible! Not so! I trust the reader will consider that I
btained a worthy picture to close our volume upon Egypt, and that he will do me the pleasure to accompany
me through my further travels in Nubia and Ethiopia.—Farewell!
EFOFiE I ascended the Nile, a photographic friend, whom I met at Cairo, discouraged me
|J greatly about Karnac. The place, he said, was impregnable—that it was idle to plant a
y\ camera against it—such vast and shapeless masses of rain packed together as tight as it
spaj would stow, and built in on all sides with tremendous blank walls. I say I was discouraged;
■T nevertheless, I brought up my artillery boldly, and fired away right and left—with what
success I leave my readers to judge—and yet I think my friend's representations must have
S?' somewhat unmanned me; for on my first journey I attempted no interior view of the great hall,
fete which is the chief ornament and wonder of Karnac, and indeed of Egypt. On the contrary, I wrote
\"i that " the pillars are so strangely crowded together, and their height is so great, as to render it quite
impossible to obtain a photograph within the hall itself!" But if the reader will turn back (six
pictures) he will find that I crept round the outer wall, and took advantage of dilapidations therein effected
by some former warrior, obtaining a shot across the hall, which was not altogether ineffective. And
whilst the reader is there, he may perhaps like to revise what is said about this great hall. Think of the
dimensions — 350 feet long, by 150. One hundred, and thirty-four columns, such as are here represented,
still standing. The centre avenue 75 feet high, and 36 feet in circumference. Why, there is many a snug
little sitting-room not more than 12 feet square: the base of one of those columns would not stand in its area!
Well, on my late journey I seem to have recovered my self-possession. But I will relate how, step-
by-step, I forced the enemy's positions. First, as my cavalcade of donkeys and Arabs (designedly so placed
o-entle reader!) pattered along from Luxor in a whirlwind of dust, I sounded a hasty "halt!" as we
neared the beautiful pylon gateway of the Ptolemaic period, and although by no means regardless of the
grim old sphynxes that guard it, I planted my engines, and " Cook the approaches." Then I entered the
sacred enclosure, turned sharp round to the right, and carried off the pair of huge fellows who flank the
remains of the glorious "Granite Pylon." Wheeling round my tackle, I possessed myself of an extent of
the most deplorably ruinous territory that the world knows (see Supplementary Volume, 21st View), and then I
approached the enemy's stronghold—that great centre of temples and shrines, whose nucleus was formed
nearly 4000 vears ago, and to which a period of twenty centuries added its industry and its wealth.
Passin"- under the great unfinished pylon, I entered the "Court of Shishak," and welcomed into the fore-
ground of my picture those cheese-like piles of prostrate column-stones, which have been the delight of
artists from time immemorial, but which the enlightened governor of Egypt has lately entirely swept away,
that ho might have a clear carriage-drive through the temple! Then, burning with ambition—yet with
much fearfulness__I entered that dark vista which you see in the centre of my last picture, and turning
down one of the side aisles, I pointed my camera at a double line of those dingy old immensities—indestructi-
,, __indescribable, and hitherto deemed impossible! Not so! I trust the reader will consider that I
btained a worthy picture to close our volume upon Egypt, and that he will do me the pleasure to accompany
me through my further travels in Nubia and Ethiopia.—Farewell!