DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4372#0102
SG
the river during tins day's voyage presented little appearance of
cultivation. The extent of inundation varies continually with
the distance of the mountains on cither side. The principal
produce is dotira, barley, and green herbs. All the villagers
are employed in gathering in the former,on which alone they rely
tor their main sustenance throughout the year. We passed s<
ral sandy islands, on Whose gently sloping banks the crocodiles
were basking in the sun ; but they seldom let us come within
gunshot of them.
At Edfou we visited two Temples in a great state of preservation;
one of them is of the form the most generally used in Egypt, con-
sisting of high pyramidal Propyla, a Pronaos, Portico and Sekos;
the other is peripteral, and is particularly characterized by the
monstrous figure as described by J)enon, and which is repeated
on each of the four sides of the plinths of the columns: by this
type it is generally supposed the Egyptian priests must have in-
tended to personify Typhon, or the evil deity. Both these Tem-
ples, though well preserved, arc almost concealed among heaps
of dirt and rubbish, which appear to have been collected to u
greater height here than in the site of any of the other antient
towns in the Thebaid, perhaps on account of the unusually low
level of the natural soil: the first origin of these mounds is to be
traced to the policy of the antient sovereigns of the country,
among whose beneficent works, history informs us that they
raised artificially the site of the old cities, in order to place them
more above the reach of the inundations ; and the frail materials,
of which were constructed the ordinary residences of K-vptians,'
and the quantity of earthen-ware consumed, offered a ready
even in his time the Pyramids bore evident marks; and he enumerates this among the
other phaenoniena of Egypt, which tend to prove that the whole country was once co-
vered by the sea. iJeroJ. lib, ii. 12.
means
the river during tins day's voyage presented little appearance of
cultivation. The extent of inundation varies continually with
the distance of the mountains on cither side. The principal
produce is dotira, barley, and green herbs. All the villagers
are employed in gathering in the former,on which alone they rely
tor their main sustenance throughout the year. We passed s<
ral sandy islands, on Whose gently sloping banks the crocodiles
were basking in the sun ; but they seldom let us come within
gunshot of them.
At Edfou we visited two Temples in a great state of preservation;
one of them is of the form the most generally used in Egypt, con-
sisting of high pyramidal Propyla, a Pronaos, Portico and Sekos;
the other is peripteral, and is particularly characterized by the
monstrous figure as described by J)enon, and which is repeated
on each of the four sides of the plinths of the columns: by this
type it is generally supposed the Egyptian priests must have in-
tended to personify Typhon, or the evil deity. Both these Tem-
ples, though well preserved, arc almost concealed among heaps
of dirt and rubbish, which appear to have been collected to u
greater height here than in the site of any of the other antient
towns in the Thebaid, perhaps on account of the unusually low
level of the natural soil: the first origin of these mounds is to be
traced to the policy of the antient sovereigns of the country,
among whose beneficent works, history informs us that they
raised artificially the site of the old cities, in order to place them
more above the reach of the inundations ; and the frail materials,
of which were constructed the ordinary residences of K-vptians,'
and the quantity of earthen-ware consumed, offered a ready
even in his time the Pyramids bore evident marks; and he enumerates this among the
other phaenoniena of Egypt, which tend to prove that the whole country was once co-
vered by the sea. iJeroJ. lib, ii. 12.
means