DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6272#0034
32
VOYAGE UP THE NILE.
the other side of the river, and with some reason ; for I find,
since the time of Bruce, they have been here a wild robber race.
Worse, more hang-dog looking faces, I never have seen. One
who devastated the whole country, came to a village where
there were two or three soldiers, stripped them all, and told
them to go to Ibrahim Pacha and tell him it was he—giving
his name—and to catch him if he could. At Tehnah I
visited the site of the ancient Achoris: near here is the cele-
brated cave of Diana, and the worship of Diana was kept up in
this region. Every locality and mountain in Egypt has its
legend, and goddess protector. Here it was Diana ; and lying
in my boat, as we passed those mountains in the moonlight, I
could fancy the old Greco-Egyptian's worship of his goddess,
who he believed chased her prey over the hills ; or of the
older Egyptian to whom she was Diana-Lucina, and who
believed her the nurse of Horus; and the legend is, that flee-
ing from Typhon, she hid him in these caves. The site of
Artemidos Speos is just above, where her abode was; and
the moon lighting up these hills like day, I fancy we hear
the fleet horses of the goddess. Yes, like fair Greece, bright
Egypt had its beautiful mythology, but
" The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty,
That had their haunt in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
All these have vanished;
They live no longer in the faith of reason."
Schiller's Wallenstein.
The prodigy of the mountain of the birds is a legend that,
at a certain season and hour, large flocks of birds assemble in
VOYAGE UP THE NILE.
the other side of the river, and with some reason ; for I find,
since the time of Bruce, they have been here a wild robber race.
Worse, more hang-dog looking faces, I never have seen. One
who devastated the whole country, came to a village where
there were two or three soldiers, stripped them all, and told
them to go to Ibrahim Pacha and tell him it was he—giving
his name—and to catch him if he could. At Tehnah I
visited the site of the ancient Achoris: near here is the cele-
brated cave of Diana, and the worship of Diana was kept up in
this region. Every locality and mountain in Egypt has its
legend, and goddess protector. Here it was Diana ; and lying
in my boat, as we passed those mountains in the moonlight, I
could fancy the old Greco-Egyptian's worship of his goddess,
who he believed chased her prey over the hills ; or of the
older Egyptian to whom she was Diana-Lucina, and who
believed her the nurse of Horus; and the legend is, that flee-
ing from Typhon, she hid him in these caves. The site of
Artemidos Speos is just above, where her abode was; and
the moon lighting up these hills like day, I fancy we hear
the fleet horses of the goddess. Yes, like fair Greece, bright
Egypt had its beautiful mythology, but
" The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty,
That had their haunt in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
All these have vanished;
They live no longer in the faith of reason."
Schiller's Wallenstein.
The prodigy of the mountain of the birds is a legend that,
at a certain season and hour, large flocks of birds assemble in