religion, which lost all its strength and all its empire from the moment in which Cambyses violated the sanctuaries, overthrew the divinities, and emptied the treasures; each declare that these temples contained the essence, so to say, of all, from which emanated all. "M. Denon's researches his observations, and his labours, were stopped by the eagerness of the shech of the village to deliver the neighbourhood of the presence of the French: as soon as it was day-break be brought the contributions; and the General recalling the troops, M. Denon's expedition was terminated. "He had taken the copy of an inscription, sculptured in fair and large Grecian character, placed, like that of Kus, on the listels of the right and left of the corona of one of the doors of the circumvallation, to the south of the temple: here follows the inscription, with the exception of some errors, produced by the destruction of the letters: ΥΡΙΕΡ ΑΥΤΟΚΙΑΤΟΡΣΚΑΙΣΡΟΣΑΘΕ ΟΥΝΙΟΥΔΙΟΣΕΑΕΥΣ :: U : : : ΡΑΣ POTEPINIONAIOYOKTAIOYHTмON ΟΣΚΑΙ ΜΑΡΚΟΥΚΛΩΔΙΟΥΠΟΣΤΟΜ ΟΥΕΠΙΣΤΡΑΤΗΓΟΥ ΤΡΥΦΩΝΟΣ ΣΤΡ ΑΤΗΓΟΥΝΤΟΣΟΙ ΑΠΟΤΗΣ ΜΗΤΡΟΠ ΟΛΕΩΣ : : : ΟΧΝΟΜΟΥΤΟΠΡΟΠΥΛΟ ΝΙΣΙΛΘΕΑΙ ΜΕΓΣΤΗΙΚΑΙΤΟΙΣΣΥΝ ΝΟΙΣΙΘΕΟΙΣΕΤΟΥΣΛΑΚΑΙΣΑΡΟΣΟ ΩΥΘΣΕΒΑΣΤΗΙ. "Below is the same inscription, with the words separated, and the letters restituted by persons whom M. Denon has consulted, and the translation which they have made : ΥΠΕΡ ΑΥΤΟΚΡΑΤΟΡΟΣ ΚΑΙΣΑΡΟΣ ΘΕΟΥ ΥΙΟΥΔΙΟΣ ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΟΥ ΣΩΤΗΡΙΑΣ ΡΟΤ ΕΠΙ ΠΟΠΛΙΟΥ ΟΚΤΑΟΥΙΟΥ ΗΓΕΜΟΝΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΜΑΡΚΟΥ ΚΛΩΔΙΟΥ ΠΟΣΤΟΥΜΟΥ ΕΠΙ ΣΤΡΑΤΗΓΟΥ ΤΡΥΦΩΝΟΣ ΣΥΡΑΤΗΤΟΥΝΤΟΣ ΟΙ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΣ ΜΗΤΡΟΠΟΛΕΩΣ ΙΕΡΩΣΑΝ ΕΚ ΝΟΜΟΥ ΤΟ ΠΡΟΠΥΛΟΝ ΙΣΙΔΙ ΘΕΑΙ ΜΕΓΙΣΤΗΙ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥΣ ΣΥΝΝΑΟΙΣ ΘΕΟΙΣ ΕΤΟΥΣ ΛΑ ΚΑΙΣΑΡΟΣ ΘΩΥΘ ΣΕΒΑΣΤΗΣ. FOR THE CONSERVATION OF THE TROOPS, THE ENVOYS OF ΤΗΣ METROPOLIS CONSECRATED, IN VIRTUE OF A LAW, THE PROPYLÆUM TO ISIS, MOST GREAT GODDESS, AND TO THE GODS HONOURFD IN THIS SAME TEMPLE, IN THE YEAR OF CESAR XXXI, THE COLLEGE OF PRIESTS TO THE EMPRESS. "There is another inscription on the listel of the cornice: but M. Denon was never able to distinguish the characters with the precision necessary for copying them: these few Grecian characters, in the midst of so innumerable Egyptian inscriptions, appear extraordinary and contras tine. "The following are among the hieroglyphics on this temple: a sculp ture in the little temple, which is behind the greater, represents a figure that appears to bear a club, on which is a serpent, and which appears ready to crush the little Orus, who is succoured by the emblem of Isis, the borns of a cow, the measure of the Nile, signifying the inundation which saves the earth from the attempts of Typhon, that is, the wind of the desert. On the walls of the great temple, one of the two thousand sculp. tures represents Orus offering an oblation to Isis and Osiris, or the earth returning thanks for the benefactions of the heavens. On the portico is a sculptured temple with a pediment. the general absence of rain in Egypt, It has been said, that on account of that no pitched roofs have belonged The representation of this pedimented to the architecture of that country, temple is held by a person who is in the act of making an offering, this therefore was a votive temple, an Egyptian temple, as may be judged from its door, and possibly one erected in a country remote from Egypt. With respect to the fourteen barks, bearing fourteen balls or disks, it is possible that they signify the lunar months the number fourteen was consecrated. On the frieze of the door, which is under the portico of Apoll EMPEROR CESAR, GOD, SON OF nopolismagna, at Edfù, there are fourteen divinities ready to ascend fourteen empty steps, which terminate at an astronomical sign, consisting of an eye on the prow of a vessel in the disk of the moon, sustained by a prop OF THE terminating in the flower of a lotus, JUPITER, AUTHOR OF OUR LIBERTY, WHEN PUBLIUS OCTAVIUS BEING GOVERNOR, MARCUS CLAUDIUS POSTHUMUS COMMANDANTGENERAL, TRYPHON, AND COMMANDANT - PARTICULAR behind which is a little divinity. The same number of steps, the same num"ber of divinities, the same sign, and the same little god, are sculptured on each extremity of the ceiling of the portico of Tintyra, and on the steps of the stairs, which ascend from the platform of the cella to the platform of the portico. In the low-relief of Apollinopolis the figures have their legs engaged; in that of Tintyra they are alternately the figures of men and the figures of women. In the picture which occupies one half of the ceiling of the third chamber of the apartment, which is on the top of the great temple, are three figures of wo men, which, in a singular manner, stretch out their arms to reach a little figure of Osiris. From the arms, which proceed from the brain, it appears that the Egyptians had conventional signs, by which they expressed certain things, and to which they made the most sacred laws of nature and of art subservient; that the state of the arts among them must not be judged of from their emblematical figures; that they had an art apart, but that it was held within limits, and bound to consecrated purposes by rules exceedingly severe; whence it has happened that their productions of unconfined genius are so rare, that, before the French expedition, it was not known that they existed. On the ceiling of the chamber parallel to that which contains the zodiac, is a picture containing the figure of a wo man of thirty feet in height, and which possibly represents the year, a conjecture which is supported by the figures on her arms and her body; here is a globe with legs, which may signify the course of the earth and the revolution of the year; the same globe, passing from the figure of the sun to another figure, may be the earth between day and night; a bent figure in a globe, between a man and a woman, may be that of the earth, which presents one side to the day, while it presents the contrary to night, and the man and woman may be Osiris and Isis, who superintend and regulate its movements; but all this is conjecture; the whole may be something very different: the writing which is about it, once understood, would probably discover the truth. Beneath the woman is a figure which turns its feet over its head, and VOL. I. that possibly signifies the earth, which turns on its own axis; on each extended hand of this figure is a disk, containing the figure of Osiris, or the sun at the tropics, approaching each pole in the progress of the year; and from the figure project rays, bearing divisions of the year, and its influences on the earth; in fact, a sort of almanack. "It is very difficult to conceive the purpose of this little apartment, the ceilings of the several chambers of which we have just described: it may have been an oratory, an observatory, a sanctuary, or a place of residence: to judge from the subjects with which it is sculptured, it might be believed to have been a place of study, sacred to astronomy, or, perhaps, it was wholly devoted to the sepulture of some illustrious personage, decorated with the discoveries which resulted from the studies of his life. It is entered by a little door, which opens into an apartment without a cover, and which has the appearance of an inclosed court, adorned with the same labour as the other parts. Against the lateral wall of the right chamber is represented a couched mummy, under which is a long inscription. A door from the court enters into the chamber, on the ceiling of which is the planisphere, and which is illuminated by two large casement windows. The adjoining chamber is almost entirely dark, receiving light only by its door, which opens from the first chamber." p. 93–101. To this succeeds an account of Kefth or Kophtos, commencing with the following supposition: Was Kopthos the antique name of this town? and have the Kopths taken their name from Kopthos, in which their zeal assembled them, and induced them to indure the obstinate and disastrous siege in the time of the persecution of Diocletian? The different ruins of two temples of high antiquity are here evidently distinguishable, as well as those of a Chris tian church, in which the taste and execution are certainly less worthy of remark than the magnificence and richness of the materials employed in its construction. The fragments of the columns and pilasters in porphyry and granite, spread over an immense site, attest the opulence and luxury of these primitive believers; but the 4 E 586 Denon's Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt. During M. Denon's stay in Egypt he experienced the effects of the Kamseen, or hurricane, of which he gives the following description, together with an account of a cloud of locusts which succeeded it. "M. Denon had frequently heard mention of the Kamseen, which may be called the hurricane of Egypt and of the desert, and which is not more terrible in its results than in the spectacle it presents. Half the season in which it occurs had passed, when, on the evening of the seventeenth of May, he felt himself as if swooning from a suffocating heat; the motion of the atmosphere seemed to be suspended. At the instant in which he went to bathe, as a remedy for this painful sensation, he was struck, on reaching the bank of the Nile, with a sight of a novel nature: this was a light and colours which he had never before witnessed; the sun, without being concealed, seemed to have been robbed of its rays; duller than the moon, it emitted only a white and shadowless light; the water appeared muddy, and no longer reflected its rays; every thing had changed its aspect; it was the shore that was luminous; the atmosphere was dull, and seemed opake; a yellow horizon caused the trees to appear of a discoloured blue; the flights of birds flew before the clouds; the frighted quadrupeds fled into the country, and the inhabitants, who followed them hallooing, were unable to recollect them. The wind, which elevated the enormous mass, and which occasioned it to advance, had not yet reached M. Denon and his friends; they thought that entering the water, which was still calm, would be a means of avoiding the mass of dust which was coming from the south-west; but scarcely had they entered the river when it suddenly swelled as if it would have left its bed, the waves passed over their heads, the earth moved from under their feet, their clothes fled with the strand, which appeared to be carried obliged to leave the water imme Egypt to a constant serenity of the dust proceeded, with the same cir- these whirls of dust, the winds of the "Two days after this disaster, infor land, stopping at every blade of corn, to devour it, and then flying to a fresh prey. In a season when the corn is delicate, this is a true plague: as meagre, as active, and as rigorous as the Bedûins, they are equally a production of the desert: it would be interesting to discover how they live and re-produce in a region thus arid. It was, perhaps, the rain which had fallen in the valleys that had hatched them, and produced this emigration, as certain winds give birth to gnats. The wind having changed to a direction contrary to that of their flight, they returned into the desert. They are of a rosecolour, speckled with black, wild, strong, and difficultly caught." p. 103-106. M. Denon made a journey to Kosseir, on the banks of the Red Sea, and gives us the following account of the camel, which, slow as he is in his action, "in rising, lifts his hind legs with the greatest suddenness, as soon as his rider is on his saddle, throws him first forward, then backward, and it is not till after his fourth motion, when he is completely on his legs, that he who mounts him finds himself upright: no one sat out the first shock; each laughed at his neighbour; a second attempt was made, and we departed." p. 112. On his journey he observes, "I had dreaded the rolling gait of the camel, and the vivacity of the dromedary had made me apprehensive of being thrown over his head; but I was soon undeceived; once on the saddle, nothing more is necessary than to yield to the motion, and it is presently found to be the best possible mounting for a long journey, and so much the more so as it requires no attention, except when a new direction is to be taken, and this occurs but seldom in the desert, and in the march of a caravan. The camel stumbles little, and falls never, unless where there is water. The dromedaries are among camels what greyhounds are among dogs; they serve only for the saddle; they have a ring infibulated between their nostrils, though which is passed a packthread, which serves as a bridle for stopping him, turning him, or causing him to kneel down when his rider is desirous of descending. The pace of the dromedary is quick. The width of the angles formed by his long legs, and the softened spring of his fleshy foot, renders his trot more gentle, and yet as rapid as that of the swiftest horse." p. 112, 113. The author observes in another place, that the swiftness of the dromedary is such, that he himself rode one at the rate of a league in less than a quarter of an hour. We meet with the following account of the ichneumon in this volume. "What is said of the antipathy of the ichneumon to the crocodile, and of its not only eating its eggs, but, when the mouth of the latter is open, leaping into its throat and devouring its intestines, is one of the ridiculous fables of which the crocodile is the subject. These two animals never have any occasion to quarrel; they do not inhabit the same shallows: there are no crocodiles in Lower Egypt; there are no ichneumons in Upper. "The ichneumon, known also under the name of the rat of Pharaoh, is of the family of the mangoustes: he generally dwells among the reeds, and affects marshes near villages, from which he steals chickens and eggs: : I have seen ichneumons of the size of an otter, and with the same coat." p. 151, 152. Many descriptions of the remains of the ancient buildings of Egypt, and the hieroglyphical representations which are still visible, are given in the course of this work, but they are too long for us to transcribe. The appendix contains illustrations of the map of Egypt, and of the plan of Alexandria, a short account of the country, and the measurement of the pillar of Pompey, with the means used for that purpose. It is a mechanical provision, of which this is the undisputed use; and it is sufficient, and not more than sufficient, for the purpose which it has to execute. The head of an ox or a horse is a heavy weight, acting at the end of a long lever, (consequently with a great purchase) and in a direction nearly perpendicular to the joints of the supporting neck. From such a force, so advantageously ap. plied, the bones of the neck would be in constant danger of dislocation, if they were not fortified by this strong tape. No such organ is found in the human subject, because, from the erect position of the head, (the pressure of it acting nearly in the direction of the spine) the junction of the vertebræ appears to be sufficiently secure without it. The care of the Creator is seen where it is wanted. This cautionary expedient is limited to quadrupeds." p. 260, 261. The second instance is " The oil with which birds prune their feathers, and the organ by which it is generated; it is a specific provision for the winged creation. On each side of the rump of birds is observed a small nipple, yielding upon pressure a butter like substance, which the bird extracts by pinching the pap with its bill. With this oil or ointment, thus procured, the bird dresses its coat, and repeats the action as often as its own sensations teach it that it is in any part wanted, or as the excretion may be sufficient for the expence." p. 261. The air bladder of a fish is next noticed, and the fang of a viper is thus described. It is a perforated tooth, loose at the root; in its quiet state lying down flat upon the jaw, but furnished with a muscle, which, with a jerk, and by the pluck as it were of a string, suddenly erects it. Under the tooth, close to its root, and communicating with the perforation, lies a small bag containing the venom. When the fang is raised, the closing of the jaw presses its root against the bag underneath; and the force of this compression sends out the fluid, and with a considerable impetus, through the tube in the middle of the tooth. "What more unequivocal or ef fectual apparatus could be devised for the double purpose of at once inflicting the wound and injecting the poison? Yet, though lodged in the mouth, it is so constituted, as, in its inoffensive and quiescent state, not to interfere with the animal's ordinary office of receiving its food." p. 263. The author then proceeds to the bag of the opossum, and the structure of the class of certain birds, ar "the middle claw of the heron and cormorant, which is toothed and notched like a saw. These birds are great fishers, and these notches assist them in holding their slippery prey." p. 267. The stomach of the camel, the tongue of the woodpecker, and the tusks of the babyrouessa, or Indian hog, are noticed in succession. The last named animal has "two beat teeth more than half a yard long, growing upwards, and, which is the singularity, from the upper jaw. These instruments are not wanted for defence; that service being provided for by two tusks issuing from the under jaw, and resembling those of the common boar. Nor does this animal use them for defence. They might seem therefore to be both a superfluity, and an incumbrance. But observe the event. The animal hitches one of these bent upper teeth upon the branch of a tree, and thea suffers its whole body to swing from it. This is its manner of taking repose, and of consulting for its safety. It continues the whole night suspended by its tooth, both easy in its posture, and secure, being out of the reach of animals which hunt it for prey." p. 271. Chap. XIV. Prospective contri vances. The subject of this chapter is thus defined. The providing of things beforehand, which are not to be used until a considerable time afterwards. The human teeth, the milk of the female parent, the eye, which is of no use at the time it is formed, and the lungs, are the instances by which the subject is illustrated. Chap. XV. Relations. The author recurs to his original simile of the watch, and shews the correspondence of the different parts to each other, and then proceeds to describe the animal economy, noticing, "1. There are, what, in one form or other, belong to all ani mals, the parts and powers which successively act upon their food. Compare this action with the process of a manufactory. In man and qua |