e of the dynamos? But look!
beyond there, at the bottom of the sanctuaries, in the part which should
be the holy of holies, that great fresco, now half effaced, but still
clearly visible on the wall--how unexpected and arresting it is! An
image of Christ! Christ crowned with the Byzantine aureole. It has
been painted on a coarse plaster, which seems to have been added by an
unskilful hand, and is wearing off and exposing the hieroglyphs beneath.
. . . This temple, in fact, almost indestructible by reason of its
massiveness, has passed through the hands of diverse masters. Its
antiquity was already legendary in the time of Alexander the Great, on
whose behalf a chapel was added to it; and later on, in the first ages
of Christianity, a corner of the ruins was turned into a cathedral.
The tourists begin to depart, for the lunch bell calls them to the
neighbouring _tables d'hote_; and while I wait till they shall be gone,
I occupy myself in following the bas-reliefs which are displayed for a
length of more than a hundred yards along the base of the walls. It
is one long row of people moving in their thousands all in the same
direction--the ritual procession of the God Amen. With the care which
characterised the Egyptians to draw everything from life so as to render
it eternal, there are represented here the smallest details of a day
of festival three or four thousand years ago. And how like it is to a
holiday of the people of to-day! Along the route of the procession are
ranged jugglers and sellers of drinks and fruits, and negro acrobats who
walk on their hands and twist themselves into all kinds of contortions.
But the procession itself was evidently of a magnificence such as we no
longer know. The number of musicians and priests, of corporations, of
emblems and banners, is quite bewildering. The God Amen himself came by
water, on the river, in his golden barge with its raised prow, followed
by the barques of all the other gods and goddesses of his heaven. The
reddish stone, carved with minute care, tells me all this, as it has
already told it to so many dead generations, so that I seem almost to
see it.

And now everybody has gone: the colonnades are empty and the noise of
the dynamos has ceased. Midday approaches with its torpor. The whole
temple seems to be ablaze with rays, and I watch the clear-cut shadows
cast by this forest of stone gradually shortening on the ground. The
sun, which just now shone, all smiles and g