DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11448#0190
i56
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS. [chap, xxh
_______,_*_
palm-trees bend over it to shadow it, and the sacred pigeon loves
this memorial of him whose life it saved."'* Hark ! over the
desert sounds the cry of the karawan,-)- chanting its solitary-
hymn, inspired by Heaven to remind the traveller of his prayer.
" Lak, lak, lak, la shariah Kalak, hi moolk" (to Thee, to Thee,
to Thee, belongs Almighty power, without partner). And see,
beside that well, where the aged and shrivelled trunk of a gigan-
tic sycamore is crowned with branches and leaves as fresh and
green as in its youth : that sacred tree sheltered the Holy Fam-
ily during their flight into Egypt ; beneath that tree they rested,
and the breath of the Child conferred immortality on its friendly
foliage.
There is a very wide, and wild, and lonely glen, near the
Mountain of the Birds, opening on the desert through a chasm
in the rocks : this is the Egyptian Esdraelon, where Typhon and
Osiris are to fight on the last day,—champions in the cause of
Destruction and Creation. In the mountain close at hand there
is a fissure of the rock, to which all the birds of the air resort at
daybreak once a year, and each insinuates its beak into that
cleft; when the destined victim comes, the fissure closes, and the
expiated fowls fly away until the following year.
With such stories every striking spot is rife, and they are told,
not with any doubt, or incredulity, as the Scotch and Irish pea-
sants relate their marvels, but with as much faith as if the nar-
rator had been eye-witness to the scenes that he relates. Com-
paratively few traditions survive concerning the ruins ; but the
Pyramids have their oral history, as compendious as any that has
yet been written, and perhaps as true. Their founder was Gian
ben Gian, the pre-Adamite monarch of the world, who also built
Baalbec and Istakar,^: in (what was to Jam) the neighborhood
The Pyramids have their spirits, too, like other mountains, and
that of the southern one appears in the shape of a beautiful girl,
who wanders there at sunset: she always keeps within its sha-
dow, and is only seen by surprise: her smile is glorious, but all
on whom it breaks go mad! Is it Arab malice, or a pre-Ada-
* See chapter ir El Islam. f The curlew
J Persepolis
THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS. [chap, xxh
_______,_*_
palm-trees bend over it to shadow it, and the sacred pigeon loves
this memorial of him whose life it saved."'* Hark ! over the
desert sounds the cry of the karawan,-)- chanting its solitary-
hymn, inspired by Heaven to remind the traveller of his prayer.
" Lak, lak, lak, la shariah Kalak, hi moolk" (to Thee, to Thee,
to Thee, belongs Almighty power, without partner). And see,
beside that well, where the aged and shrivelled trunk of a gigan-
tic sycamore is crowned with branches and leaves as fresh and
green as in its youth : that sacred tree sheltered the Holy Fam-
ily during their flight into Egypt ; beneath that tree they rested,
and the breath of the Child conferred immortality on its friendly
foliage.
There is a very wide, and wild, and lonely glen, near the
Mountain of the Birds, opening on the desert through a chasm
in the rocks : this is the Egyptian Esdraelon, where Typhon and
Osiris are to fight on the last day,—champions in the cause of
Destruction and Creation. In the mountain close at hand there
is a fissure of the rock, to which all the birds of the air resort at
daybreak once a year, and each insinuates its beak into that
cleft; when the destined victim comes, the fissure closes, and the
expiated fowls fly away until the following year.
With such stories every striking spot is rife, and they are told,
not with any doubt, or incredulity, as the Scotch and Irish pea-
sants relate their marvels, but with as much faith as if the nar-
rator had been eye-witness to the scenes that he relates. Com-
paratively few traditions survive concerning the ruins ; but the
Pyramids have their oral history, as compendious as any that has
yet been written, and perhaps as true. Their founder was Gian
ben Gian, the pre-Adamite monarch of the world, who also built
Baalbec and Istakar,^: in (what was to Jam) the neighborhood
The Pyramids have their spirits, too, like other mountains, and
that of the southern one appears in the shape of a beautiful girl,
who wanders there at sunset: she always keeps within its sha-
dow, and is only seen by surprise: her smile is glorious, but all
on whom it breaks go mad! Is it Arab malice, or a pre-Ada-
* See chapter ir El Islam. f The curlew
J Persepolis