(we can hardly call them ruins) in the world. Every writer who has
attempted to describe them avows his inability to convey any adequate
idea of their extent and grandeur. The long covered avenues of
sphinxes, the sculptured corridors, the columned aisles, the gates and
obelisks, and colossal statues, all silent in their desolation, fill
the beholder with awe." (See cut on page 463.)

There is no exaggeration in Champollion's words: "The imagination,
which, in Europe, rises far above our porticos, sinks abashed at the
foot of the 140 columns of the hypostyle hall at Karnac. The area of
this hall is 70,629 feet; the central columns are thirty-six feet in
circumference and sixty-two feet high, without reckoning the plinth
and abacus. They are covered with paintings and sculptures, the colors
of which are wonderfully fresh and vivid. If, as seems probable, the
great design of Egyptian architecture was to impress man with a
feeling of his own littleness, to inspire a sense of overwhelming awe
in the presence of the Deity, and at the same time to show that the
monarch was a being of superhuman greatness, these edifices were well
adapted to accomplish their purpose. The Egyptian beholder and
worshiper was not to be attracted and charmed, but overwhelmed. His
own nothingness and the terribleness of the power and the will of God
was what he was to feel. But, if the awfulness of Deity was thus
inculcated, the divine power of the Pharaoh was not less strikingly
set forth. He is seen seated amongst them, nourished from their
breasts, folded in their arms, admitted to familiar intercourse with
them. He is represented on the walls of the temple as of colossal
stature, while the noblest of his subjects are but pigmies in his
presence; with one hand he crushes hosts of his enemies, with the
other he grasps that of his patron deity.

"The Pharaoh was the earthly manifestation and avatar of the unseen
and mysterious power which oppressed the souls of man with terror. 'I
am Pharaoh,' 'By the life of Pharaoh,' 'Say unto Pharaoh whom art thou
like in thy greatness.' These familiar phrases of Scripture gain a new
emphasis of meaning as we remember them amongst these temple palaces."

Speaking of this magnificent temple, and of the avenue of sphinxes we
have just mentioned, Belzoni exclaims, that "on approaching it the
visitor is inspired with devotion and piety; their enormous size
strikes him with wonder and respect to the gods to whom t