Eastern Life. Harriet Martineau

by the torches of visitors, and perhaps by Arab fires. But the bright colours, of which traces yet remain, may have much ameliorated the work in its own day. Across the usual corridor, with its usual pair of chambers, inhabited by bats, lies the Holy Place. It has an altar in the middle, and a recess with four figures. The goddess Anouké, crowned with her circlet of feathers, and Athor are here.

      This temple extends only one hundred and thirty feet into the rock. Its position and external portico are its most striking features.

      We returned by the village, and certainly should not have found out for ourselves that the people are the savages they are reputed to be. They appeared friendly, cheerful, and well-fed. We looked into some houses, and found the interiors very clean. Many of the graves of their cemetery have jars at the head, which are duly filled with water every Friday, – the Mohammedan Sabbath. The door of a yard which we passed in the village had an iron knocker, of a thoroughly modern appearance. I wonder how it came there.

      There was a strong wind this evening, and the boat rolled so much as to allow of neither writing nor reading in comfort. We were not sorry therefore to moor below Dendoor at 10 P.M., and enjoy the prospect of a quiet night, and another temple before breakfast.

       1 Appendix C.

       2 Hypaethral – open to the sky.

       3 Ipsamboul.

       4 Herodotus tells us (ii. 128) that the Egyptians so hated the Pharaohs who built the two largest pyramids that they would not pronounce their names; but called those edifices »by the name of the shepherd Philitis, who in those times led his flocks to pasture in their neighbourhood.« Is the slyness of this notice attributable to the priests or the prudential historian?

       5 Herod. ii. 143.

       6 Herod. ii. 144, 146.

       7 Herod. ii. 145.

       8 Bunsen, »Egypt's Place in the World's History.«

       9 Herod. ii. 99.

       10 Herod. ii. 100.

       11 Herod. ii. 125.

       12 Supposed about B. C. 1706.

       13 B. C. 1556.

       14 Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, i. p. 54.

       15 Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, i. p. 55.

       16 Pictorial History of Palestine, i. p. 186.

       17 It is probable that no one will contend for the accuracy of the numbers as they stand in the Mosaic history; for taking the longest term assigned for the residence of the Hebrews in Egypt – 430 years – and supposing the most rapid rate of increase known in the world, their numbers could not have amounted to one-third of that assigned.

       18 Sharpe's History of Egypt, p. 37.

       19 Herod. ii. 154.

       20 Herod. ii. 30.

       21 Herod. iv. 42. A strong indication of the truth of this story is found in the simple remark of Herodotus that he cannot believe the navigators in one of their assertions, that they had the sun on their right hand.

       22 In Critias.

       23 Herod. iii. 25.

       24 Herod. iii, 27.

       25 Herod. iii. 29.

       26 Proclus says that Socrates, as well as Plato, learned the doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul from the Egyptians. If so, his great master, Anaxagoras, was probably – almost certainly – the channel through which he received it.

       27 Not the geometrician.

       28 Herod. ii. 104.

       29 Herod. ii. 77.

       30 Herod. ii. 95.

       31 Herod. ii. 81.

       32 Herod. ii. 92

       33 Herod. ii. 35.

       34 Herod. ii. 37.

       35 Herod. ii. 91.

       36 Penny Cyclopaedia; Article: COPTIC LANGUAGE.

       37 Plutarch de Is. ix.

       38 In Timaeo.

       39 Diod. i. 74.

       40 Herod. ii. 164.

       41 Herod. ii. 84.

       42 Herod. ii. 35.

       43 Sharpe's History of Egypt, p. 146.

       44 Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, iv. 387.

       45 Relation de l'Egypte. Livre i. ch. 4.

       46 Herod. ii. 4, 50, 58, 146.

       47 Manetho says that Amun means »concealment.«

       48 Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, v. 435.

       49 Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, iv. 388.

       50 Cromwell to Vice-Admiral Goodson at Jamaica: – »Make yourselves as strong as you can to beat the Spaniard, who will doubtless send a good force into the Indies. I hope, by this time, the Lord may have blessed you to have light upon some of their vessels – whether by burning them in their harbours or otherwise.« – Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, vol. iii. p. 156.

       51 Wilkinson's Modem Egypt and Thebes, ii, 319.

       52 Phaedr. Tayl. Trans., p. 364.

       53 Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, iv. 230.