DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6272#0099
96 VOYAGE UP THE NILE.
torsos, some standing, some fallen down, of beautiful sculpture
and proportion, displaying art and preservation that no Par-
thenon can boast of. How splendid a ruin !
On through this temple of art, the victorious hero, the
builder sovereign of the palace is ever before you; now himself
receiving, now offering gifts to the gods, who are sculptured
so finely: and now you enter a building of light stone struc-
ture, and finer sculpture. The victorious conqueror is here
too. He sits, with his queen by his side, on the right hand of
the opposite wall as you enter, but he has returned from a
richer, a more genial clime, than even this sunny Said—from
the region of tropical Asia. His captives have a Perso-Indian
head-dress, and his companions are bearing trees, whose
thick foliage, and hanging fruits, show the rich luxuriance of
an equatorial growth. A cameleopard, as finely sculptured
as if by an artist of the Zoological Gardens, forms part of the
spoils of the conquered India ; and the priests of Thoth
stand with tablets, recording his victories, and the number of
victims he has slain, on the fruit of a tree ; and his pencil has
half painted his cartouche.
And that door, where led that ? Take up Diodorus ; he
describes all you have seen—battles, statues, colossi, and all:
and what stood here in that door, leading toward the moun-
tain 1 There, where ruins are fast disappearing, stood that
glorious library of Thebes, and the Grecian coming hither,
like us, a traveller, found written over the famous threshold,
inscribed in golden letters, (would that it were written there in
bright diamonds !) the magical words :
" Medicine for the mind—pharmacy for the soul."
What a joy that here princes, priests, sages, and their
torsos, some standing, some fallen down, of beautiful sculpture
and proportion, displaying art and preservation that no Par-
thenon can boast of. How splendid a ruin !
On through this temple of art, the victorious hero, the
builder sovereign of the palace is ever before you; now himself
receiving, now offering gifts to the gods, who are sculptured
so finely: and now you enter a building of light stone struc-
ture, and finer sculpture. The victorious conqueror is here
too. He sits, with his queen by his side, on the right hand of
the opposite wall as you enter, but he has returned from a
richer, a more genial clime, than even this sunny Said—from
the region of tropical Asia. His captives have a Perso-Indian
head-dress, and his companions are bearing trees, whose
thick foliage, and hanging fruits, show the rich luxuriance of
an equatorial growth. A cameleopard, as finely sculptured
as if by an artist of the Zoological Gardens, forms part of the
spoils of the conquered India ; and the priests of Thoth
stand with tablets, recording his victories, and the number of
victims he has slain, on the fruit of a tree ; and his pencil has
half painted his cartouche.
And that door, where led that ? Take up Diodorus ; he
describes all you have seen—battles, statues, colossi, and all:
and what stood here in that door, leading toward the moun-
tain 1 There, where ruins are fast disappearing, stood that
glorious library of Thebes, and the Grecian coming hither,
like us, a traveller, found written over the famous threshold,
inscribed in golden letters, (would that it were written there in
bright diamonds !) the magical words :
" Medicine for the mind—pharmacy for the soul."
What a joy that here princes, priests, sages, and their