DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.10358#0506
468
PICTURESQUE PALESTINE.
scenery. We ride over miles of bare desert, with nothing to vary its yellow surface but huge
torn masses of granite and black syenite. Immense jagged volcanic rocks tower up on either
hand, and seem to have been intentionally thrown into the most impossible positions, balanced
upon one another in the most hazardous way, and broken and split and thrown together in the
strangest and weirdest shapes and combinations. It is one of the most extraordinary scenes in
Egypt, and its historical associations are scarcely less wonderful. For it was here that the
masons of Memphis and Thebes and Heliopolis came to quarry the granite for the coating of
the Third Pyramid, the Temple of the Sphinx, the obelisks, colossi, shrines and sanctuaries of
the great temples at Thebes, and indeed for every monument in Egypt. We may still see
what looks like an obelisk half cut out of the rock and then abandoned. Every obelisk in
Egypt was cut out of the solid rock just in the same manner,
from " Cleopatra's needle " to Hatasu's tall pillar at Karnak.
Hence, too, came the colossal statues of Rameses, the huge
sarcophagi of Apis, and countless other famous
monuments. How they were cut and engraved at
it
THE APPROACH TO PHILAE.
" In the time of the Ptolemies visitors from all parts of Egypt, travellers from distant lands, court functionaries from Alexandria, came annually in
crowds to pay their vows at the tomb of the god."
Aswan, and then floated down the river, and then rolled to the place where they were to stand,
is one of the marvels of this marvellous antiquity.
At length we reach the river again ; but now we are above the Cataract. A boat is
ready and assistance is clamorously proffered, and we row across to Philae. The approach to
the island is very beautiful. On either hand great bare shining rocks, black and grey, tower
against the sky, while between them, through an opening, appears the little island, with palms
in the foreground, and the well-preserved pylon of the Temple of I sis rising out of the green.
Philae is green, however, only by comparison with the general brownness. There is really little
verdure on the island, which is now wholly deserted ; and it suffers from the same parched,
barren aspect that is characteristic of all Upper Egypt. We cannot help missing the greenery
PICTURESQUE PALESTINE.
scenery. We ride over miles of bare desert, with nothing to vary its yellow surface but huge
torn masses of granite and black syenite. Immense jagged volcanic rocks tower up on either
hand, and seem to have been intentionally thrown into the most impossible positions, balanced
upon one another in the most hazardous way, and broken and split and thrown together in the
strangest and weirdest shapes and combinations. It is one of the most extraordinary scenes in
Egypt, and its historical associations are scarcely less wonderful. For it was here that the
masons of Memphis and Thebes and Heliopolis came to quarry the granite for the coating of
the Third Pyramid, the Temple of the Sphinx, the obelisks, colossi, shrines and sanctuaries of
the great temples at Thebes, and indeed for every monument in Egypt. We may still see
what looks like an obelisk half cut out of the rock and then abandoned. Every obelisk in
Egypt was cut out of the solid rock just in the same manner,
from " Cleopatra's needle " to Hatasu's tall pillar at Karnak.
Hence, too, came the colossal statues of Rameses, the huge
sarcophagi of Apis, and countless other famous
monuments. How they were cut and engraved at
it
THE APPROACH TO PHILAE.
" In the time of the Ptolemies visitors from all parts of Egypt, travellers from distant lands, court functionaries from Alexandria, came annually in
crowds to pay their vows at the tomb of the god."
Aswan, and then floated down the river, and then rolled to the place where they were to stand,
is one of the marvels of this marvellous antiquity.
At length we reach the river again ; but now we are above the Cataract. A boat is
ready and assistance is clamorously proffered, and we row across to Philae. The approach to
the island is very beautiful. On either hand great bare shining rocks, black and grey, tower
against the sky, while between them, through an opening, appears the little island, with palms
in the foreground, and the well-preserved pylon of the Temple of I sis rising out of the green.
Philae is green, however, only by comparison with the general brownness. There is really little
verdure on the island, which is now wholly deserted ; and it suffers from the same parched,
barren aspect that is characteristic of all Upper Egypt. We cannot help missing the greenery