erous harem,
the crowds of civil functionaries and military and naval officers
in their embroidered Nizam uniforms, the vast number of pages and
pipe-bearers, and other inferior but richly attired attendants, the
splendid military music, for which Mehemet Ali has an absolute passion,
the beautiful Arabian horses and high-bred dromedaries, altogether form
a blending of splendour and luxury which easily recall the golden days
of Bagdad and its romantic Caliph.

Yet this Court is never seen to greater advantage than in the delicious
summer palace in the gardens of Shoubra. During the festival of the
Bairam the Pasha usually holds his state in this enchanted spot, nor is
it easy to forget that strange and brilliant scene. The banqueting-rooms
were all open and illuminated, the colonnade was full of guests in
gorgeous groups, some standing and conversing, some seated on small
Persian carpets smoking pipes beyond all price, and some young grandees
lounging, in their crimson shawls and scarlet vests, over the white
balustrade, and flinging their glowing shadows over the moonlit water:
from every quarter came bursts of melody, and each moment the river
breeze brought gusts of perfume on its odorous wings.

THE VALLEY OF THEBES

UPPER EGYPT is a river flowing through a desert; the banks on each side
affording a narrow margin of extreme fertility. Rocks of granite and
hills of sand form, at slight intervals, through a course of sev-earl
hundred miles, a chain of valleys, reaching from the rapids of the Nile
to the vicinity of Cairo. In one of these valleys, the broadest and the
most picturesque, about half-way between the cataracts and the modern
capital, we find the most ancient, the most considerable, and the most
celebrated of architectural remains. For indeed no Greek, or Sicilian,
or Latin city--Athens, or Agrigentum, or Rome; nor the platforms of
Persepolis, nor the columns of Palmyra, can vie for a moment in extent,
variety, and sublime dimensions, with the ruins of ancient Thebes.

These remains may be classed, generally, in four considerable divisions:
two of these great quarters of ruins being situated on each side of the
river Nile--Karnak and Luxor towards the Red Sea; the Memnonion and
Medcenet Habu towards the great Libyan Desert. On this side, also, are
the cemeteries of the great city--the mummy-caves of Gornou, two miles
in extent; above them, excavated in the mountains, are the tombs of the
queens; and