DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0182
a valet's moralizing.
171
large. " That man," said he, " once talked, and
laughed, and sang, and danced, and ate maca-
roni." Among the paintings on the walls was
represented a heap of hands severed from the
arms, showing that the hero of the tomb had
played the tyrant in his brief hour on earth. I
dashed the scull against a stone, broke it in frag-
ments, and pocketed a piece as a memorial of a
king. Paul cut off one of the ears, and we left the
tomb.
Travellers and commentators concur in suppo-
sing that these magnificent excavations must have
been intended for other uses than the burial, each
of a single king. Perhaps, it is said, like the
chambers of imagery seen by the Jewish prophet,
they were the scene of idolatrous rites performed
" in the dark;" and, as the Israelites are known to
have been mere copyists of the Egyptians, these
tombs are supposed to illustrate the words of Eze-
kiel:—" Then said he to me, Son of man, dig now
in the wall; and when I had digged in the wall,
behold a door. And he said unto me, Go in, and
see the abominable things that they do there. So
I went in, and saw, and behold, every form of
creeping thing and abominable beasts, and all the
idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the
wall round about."—Ezek., viii., 8-10.
Amid the wrecks of former greatness which
tower above the plain of Thebes, the inhabitants
who now hover around the site of the ancient city
are perhaps the most miserable in Egypt. On one
side of the river they build their mud huts around
171
large. " That man," said he, " once talked, and
laughed, and sang, and danced, and ate maca-
roni." Among the paintings on the walls was
represented a heap of hands severed from the
arms, showing that the hero of the tomb had
played the tyrant in his brief hour on earth. I
dashed the scull against a stone, broke it in frag-
ments, and pocketed a piece as a memorial of a
king. Paul cut off one of the ears, and we left the
tomb.
Travellers and commentators concur in suppo-
sing that these magnificent excavations must have
been intended for other uses than the burial, each
of a single king. Perhaps, it is said, like the
chambers of imagery seen by the Jewish prophet,
they were the scene of idolatrous rites performed
" in the dark;" and, as the Israelites are known to
have been mere copyists of the Egyptians, these
tombs are supposed to illustrate the words of Eze-
kiel:—" Then said he to me, Son of man, dig now
in the wall; and when I had digged in the wall,
behold a door. And he said unto me, Go in, and
see the abominable things that they do there. So
I went in, and saw, and behold, every form of
creeping thing and abominable beasts, and all the
idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the
wall round about."—Ezek., viii., 8-10.
Amid the wrecks of former greatness which
tower above the plain of Thebes, the inhabitants
who now hover around the site of the ancient city
are perhaps the most miserable in Egypt. On one
side of the river they build their mud huts around