DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0034
8
TRAVELS IN UPPER
Egypt, that ancient cradle of the sciences, where
the wonders of art and those of nature contended
for the prize of admiration, has heen the object of
philosophic excursion in ancient as in modern
times. From Herodotus * down to Volney, writers
of equal celebrity, the multiplied details respecting
a country, of which the surface of the whole globe
presents no paral lcl, demonstrate the curiosil y which
it generally excited. But this frequence of tra-
vellers cannot exclude my pretension to a place
among the rest, and I am not to be deterred from
speaking of Egypt by the number or renown of
those who have trodden the ground before me.
Barbarism and ruins have succeeded to the institu-
tions and the monuments of antiquity ; and the
difficulty attending the prosecution of research,
and of making observations, has not permitted mo-
dern travellers to examine every thing. There re-
mained after them, as there will still remain after
me, many objects, if not to be seen, at least to be
seen well. Besides, objects do not present them-
selves to all observers under the same point of view.
* M. Sonnini might have produced an authority at least as
respectable as that of Herodotus, and of still higher antiquity.
To Moses, the lawgiver of the Hebrews, mankind is indebted
for the earliest, most authentic and most interesting memoirs of
ancient Egypt, and he knew the country much better than
any traveller who has written since his time. But a reference
to Scripture would have degraded and sullied the pure and
philosophic page of a French republican.—H. H.
And
TRAVELS IN UPPER
Egypt, that ancient cradle of the sciences, where
the wonders of art and those of nature contended
for the prize of admiration, has heen the object of
philosophic excursion in ancient as in modern
times. From Herodotus * down to Volney, writers
of equal celebrity, the multiplied details respecting
a country, of which the surface of the whole globe
presents no paral lcl, demonstrate the curiosil y which
it generally excited. But this frequence of tra-
vellers cannot exclude my pretension to a place
among the rest, and I am not to be deterred from
speaking of Egypt by the number or renown of
those who have trodden the ground before me.
Barbarism and ruins have succeeded to the institu-
tions and the monuments of antiquity ; and the
difficulty attending the prosecution of research,
and of making observations, has not permitted mo-
dern travellers to examine every thing. There re-
mained after them, as there will still remain after
me, many objects, if not to be seen, at least to be
seen well. Besides, objects do not present them-
selves to all observers under the same point of view.
* M. Sonnini might have produced an authority at least as
respectable as that of Herodotus, and of still higher antiquity.
To Moses, the lawgiver of the Hebrews, mankind is indebted
for the earliest, most authentic and most interesting memoirs of
ancient Egypt, and he knew the country much better than
any traveller who has written since his time. But a reference
to Scripture would have degraded and sullied the pure and
philosophic page of a French republican.—H. H.
And