 | LETTER XIV. The pillar of fire, or, Israel in bondage |  |
14. LETTER XIV.
I will now describe to you my visit, with the
prince, to the most remarkable shrine in Egypt. While
the worship of Osiris, at On, is a series of splendid
pageantries, but little differing from the gorgeous sun-worship
which you witnessed some years ago at Baalbec,
the rites of Apis are as solemn and severe as the
temple in which they are celebrated is grand and
majestic.
The temple itself is a massive and imposing edifice,
of reddish Elephantine stone. It is of vast proportions,
and the effect produced is that of a mountain of rock
hewn into a temple, as travellers say temples are cut
out of the face of cliffs in Idumea-Arabia. Its expression
is majesty and grandeur. It occupies the whole of
one side of the vast square described by me in my last
letter.
As we were about to ascend to the gate, I was startled
by a loud and menacing cry from many voices, and,
looking around, perceived a Tyrian mariner, recognized
by me as such by his dress, who was flying across the
square with wings of fear. A crowd, which momentarily
increased, pursued him swiftly with execrations and
he was as pale as a corpse. Seeing that he was a
Phœnician, I felt interested in him, and by a gesture
drew him towards me. He fell at my feet, crying—
“Save me, O my prince!”
“What hast thou done?” I demanded.
“Only killed one of their cats, my lord!”
The throng came rushing on, like a stormy wave,
uttering fearful cries.
“May I try and protect him, O Remeses,” I asked,
for I knew that, if taken, he would be slain for destroying
one of their sacred animals.
“I will see if I can; but I fear my interposition will
not be heeded in a case like this,” he replied. At the
same time he deprecatingly waved his hand to the infuriated
populace, which had in a few moments increased
to a thousand people.
“No, not even for the prince! He has killed a
sacred animal. By our laws he also must die. We will
sacrifice him to the gods!”
In vain I entreated, and Remeses interposed. The
wretched man was torn from our presence by as many
hands as could seize him, thrown down the steps of the
temple, and trampled upon by the furious crowd, until
nothing like a human shape remained. The formless
mass was then divided into pieces, and carried to a
temple where numerous sacred cats are kept, in order
to be given to them to devour. Such is the terrible
death they inflict upon one who by accident kills a cat
or an ibis!
“The power of the State is weak when contending
with the mad strength of superstition,” remarked Remeses,
brazen bulls. Entering through a majestic doorway,
we came into an avenue of vast columns, the size of
which impressed me with awe. The temple was originally
erected to Pthah, anciently the chief deity of
Memphis, and dedicated in the present reign to the
sacred bull, whose apartment is the original adytum of
the temple.
The worship of Apis and Mnevis, the bulls consecrated
to Osiris, exhibits the highest point to which the
worship of animals in Egypt has reached, and it was with
no little interest I felt myself advancing into the presence
of this deified animal. We were met, at the entrance
of the avenue of columns, by two priests in white
linen robes, over which was a crimson scarf, the sacred
color of Apis. They had tall caps on their heads, and
each carried a sort of crook. They received the prince
with prostrations. Going one before and one behind us,
they escorted us along the gloomy and solemn avenue of
sculptured columns, until we came to a brazen door. A
priest opened it, and we entered a magnificent peristyle
court supported by caryatides twelve cubits in height,
representing the forms of Egyptian women. We remained
in this grand hall a few moments, when a door
on the opposite side opened and the sacred bull appeared.
He was conducted by a priest, who led him
by a gold chain fastened to his horns, which were garlanded
with flowers. The animal was large, noble-looking,
and jet-black in color, with the exception of a
square spot of white upon his forehead. Upon his
shoulder was the resemblance of a vulture, and the hairs
were double in his tail! These being the sacred marks
also the mark of a scarabæus on his tongue.
The deity stalked proudly forth, slowly heaving up
and down his huge head and thick neck,—a look of
barbaric power and grandeur glancing from his eye.
The curator of the sacred animal led him once around
the hall, the Egyptians prostrating themselves as he
passed them, and even Remeses, instinctively, from
custom, bending his head. When he stopped, the
prince advanced to him, and taking a jewelled collar
from a casket which he brought with him, he said to
the high-priest—who, with a censer of incense, prepared
to invoke the god—
“My lord priest of Apis: I, Remeses the prince, as
a token of my gratitude to the god, of whom the sacred
bull is the emblem, for the restoration of my mother,
the queen, do make to the temple an offering of this
jewelled collar for the sacred bull.”
“His sacred majesty, my lord prince, accepts, with
condescension and grace, your offering,” answered the
gorgeously attired high-priest. He then passed the necklace
through the cloud of incense thrice, and going up
to the bull, fastened the costly gift about his neck,
already decorated with the price of a kingdom, while
his forehead glittered like a mass of diamonds. A cool
draft of wind passing through the open hall, a priest
(at least two hundred attendant priests were assembled
there to witness the prince's offering) brought a covering
or housing of silver and gold tissue, magnificently
embroidered, and threw it over the god.
The prince now, at the request of the queen, proceeded
to obtain an omen as to the success of his army.
cake, of which he is very fond, which the animal took
from his palm and ate. At this good omen there was a
murmur of satisfaction; for a refusal to eat is accounted
a bad omen. Remeses smiled as if gratified. Could it
be that he had faith in the omen? I know not. Much
must be allowed to the customs of a lifetime! Trained
to all these rituals from a child, had the philosophy of
his later years wholly destroyed in him all faith and confidence
in the gods of his mother and his country? The
priest now asked a question aloud, addressed to the god:
“Will the Prince of Egypt, O sacred Apis, be a successful
king, when he shall come to the throne?”
The reply to the question was to be found in the first
words Remeses should hear spoken by any one when he
left the temple. He immediately departed from the
peristyle, and we returned through the solemn avenue
to the portico. As we descended the steps, a seller of
small images of the bull called out, in reply to something
said by another—
“He will never get there!”
“Mark those words, Sesostris!” he said, not unimpressed
by them; “my mother is to outlive me, or
Mœris will seize the throne from me!”
“Do you put faith in this omen?”
“I know not what to answer you, my Sesostris. You
have, no doubt,” he added, “after all I have said, marvelled
at my offering to Apis. But it is hard to destroy
early impressions, even with philosophy, especially if the
mind has no certain revelation to cling to, when it casts
off its superstitions. But here I must leave you, at the
door of the hierarch's palace. This noble priest is head
you have seen, is devoted to Apis,—or rather the two
temples subsist side by side. You saw him last week at
our palace. He has asked you to be his guest while
here. Honor his invitation, and he will not only teach
you much that you desire to know, but will visit with
you the great pyramidal temple of Cheops.”
Having entered the palace, and placed me under the
hospitality of the noble Egyptian hierarch therein, the
prince took leave of me. I would like to describe to
you the taste and elegance of this abode, my dear mother;
its gardens, fountains, flower-courts, paintings, and rich
furniture. But I must first say a little more about the
god Apis, who holds so prominent a place in the mythology
of Egypt. In the hieroglyphic legends he is
called Hapi, and his figurative sign on the monuments
is a bull with a globe of the sun upon his head, and the
hieroglyphic cruciform emblem of Life drawn near it.
Numerous bronze figures of this bull are cast, whereupon
they are consecrated, distributed over Egypt, and placed
in the tombs of the priests. The time to which the sacred
books limit the life of Apis is twenty-five years, which
is a mystic number here; and if his representative does
not die a natural death by that time, he is driven to the
great fountain of the temple, where the priests were accustomed
to bathe him (for he is fed and tended with
the greatest delicacy, luxury, and servility by his priestly
curators), and there, with hymns chanted and incense
burning, they drown him amid many rites and ceremonies,
all of which are written in the forty-two books of
papyrus kept in the sacred archives of the oldest temple.
No sooner does the god expire, than certain priests,
other bull; for they believe that the soul of Osiris has
migrated into another body of one of these animals, or
“Lords of Egypt,” as I have heard them called. This
belief of the constant transfer of himself by Osiris from
the body of one bull to another, is but the expression of
a popular notion here, that souls of men transmigrate
from body to body; and my opinion is confirmed by a
scene depicted in the judgment-hall of Osiris, where the
god is represented as sending a soul, whose evil deeds
outweighed his good ones, back to earth, and condemning
it to enter the body of a hog, and so begin anew,
from the lowest animal condition, to rise by successive
transmigrations through other beasts, higher and higher,
until he became man again, when, if he had acquired
virtue in his probation, he was admitted to the houses
of the gods and became immortal.
The prince assures me that the belief in the transmigration
of souls is almost universal in the Thebaïd, as
well as among the lower orders in the northern nomes;
and that the universal reverence for animals is, without
doubt, in a great measure to be traced to this sentiment.
A monstrous doctrine of the perpetual incarnation of
deity in the form, not of man, but of the brute, seems to
be the groundwork of all religious faith in Egypt. This
idea is the key to the mysteries, inconsistencies, and
grossness of their outward worship; the interpreter of
their animal Pantheon.
“There is a tradition,” said to me, to-day, the prince-priest
Misrai, with whom I am now remaining, “that
when Osiris came down to earth, in order to benefit the
human race by teaching them the wisdom of the gods,
when he took refuge in the body of a bull, who protected
and concealed him. After his return to the heavens, he
ordained that divine honors should be paid to the bull
forever.”
This account, my dear mother, is a more satisfactory
myth than any other, if any can be so; and recognizes
incarnation as the principle of the worship of Apis.
This universal idea in the minds of men, that the Creator
once dwelt in the body of a creature, would lead one
to believe, that in ages past the Infinite had descended
from heaven for the good of men, and dwelt in a body;
or that, responding to this universal idea, he may yet do
it. Perhaps, dear mother, the worship of Osiris under
the form of Apis, may be the foreshadowing and type
of what is yet really to come—a dispensation, preparing
men for the actual coming of the Invisible in a visible
form. What a day of glory and splendor for earth,
should this prove true! The conception, dear mother,
is not my own; it is a thought of the great, and wise,
and good Remeses, who, if ever men are deified, deserves
a place, after death, among the gods. His vast
and earnest mind, enriched with all the stores of knowledge
that man can compass, seems as if it derived inspiration
from the heavens. His conversation is deeper
than the sacred books; the ideas of his soul more wonderful
than the mysteries of the temple!
The priests who seek another bull, discover him by
certain signs mentioned in their sacred books. These I
have already described. In the mean while, a public
lamentation is performed, as if Osiris, that is, “the Lord
of Heaven,” had died, and the mourning lasts until the
swift messengers in all the cities, and is hailed with the
wildest rejoicings. The scribes who have found the
young calf which is to be the new god, keep it with its
mother in a small temple facing the rising sun, and feed
it with milk for four months. When that term is expired,
a grand procession of priests, scribes, prophets,
and interpreters of omens, headed by the high-priest,
and often by the king, as hereditary priest of his realm,
proceed to the temple or house of the sacred calf, at the
time of the new moon—the slender and delicate horns
of which symbolize those of the juvenile Apis.
With
chants and musical instruments playing, they escort him
to a gorgeously decorated baris or barge, rowed by
twelve oars, and place him in a gilded cabin on costly
mats. They then convey him in great pomp and with
loud rejoicings to Memphis. Here the whole city receives
him with trumpets blowing and shouts of welcome;
garlands are cast upon his neck by young girls,
and flowers strewed before him by the virgins of the
temple.
Thus escorted, the “Living Soul of Osiris” is conducted
to the temple provided for him, which is now, as
I have before observed, an appendage to the Temple of
Pthah or Vulcan, an edifice remarkable for its architectural
beauty, its extent, and the richness of its decorations;
indeed, the most magnificent temple in the city.
A festival of many days succeeds, and the young deity
is then led in solemn procession throughout the city,
that all the people may see him. These come out of
their houses to welcome him, with gifts, as he passes.
Mothers press their children forward towards the sacred
believe, conveys the power to them of predicting future
events. Returned to his sacred adytum, he henceforth
reigns as a god, daintily fed, and reverently served.
Pleasure-gardens and rooms for recreation are provided
for him when he would exercise.
At the death of Apis, all the priests are immediately
excluded from the temple, which is given up to profound
solitude and silence, as if it also mourned, in solemn
desolation, the loss of its god. His obsequies are celebrated
on a scale of grandeur and expenditure hardly
conceivable. Sometimes the rich treasury of the temple,
though filled with the accumulated gold of a quarter
of a century, is exhausted. Upon the death of the last
Apis, the priests expended one hundred talents of gold
in his obsequies, and Prince Mœris, who seeks every
opportunity to make a show of piety, and to please the
Egyptians, gave them fifty talents more, to enable them
to defray the enormous costs of the funeral of the god.
The burial-place of the Serapis, as the name is on the
mausoleum (formed by pronouncing together Osiris-Apis),
is outside of the western pylon of the city. We
approached it through a paved avenue, with lions ranged
on each side of it. It consists of a vast gallery, hewn in a
rocky spur of the Libyan cliff, twenty feet in height, and
two thousand long. I visited this tomb yesterday, accompanied
by the high-priest. He showed me the series of
chambers on the sides of this sepulchral hall, where each
embalmed Apis was deposited in a sarcophagus of
granite fifteen feet in length. There were sixty of these
sarcophagi, showing the permanency and age of this
system of worship. They were adorned with royal
to Apis. One of these bore the inscription, “To the
god Osiris-Apis, the Lord of the Soul of Osiris, and
emblem of the Sun, by Amense, Queen and upholder
of the two kingdoms.”
In front of the sculptured entrance of this hall of the
dead god is the Sarapeum, a funeral temple for perpetual
obsequies. It has a vestibule of noble proportions, its
columns being of the delicately blue-veined alabaster
from the quarries in the south. On each side of the
doorway is a crouching lion, with a tablet above one, upon
which a king is represented making an offering. Within
the vestibule stand, in half circle, twelve statues of ancient
kings. In a circle above these sit, with altars before each,
as many gods. Upon a pedestal in the centre stands the
statue of the Pharaoh who erected this beautiful edifice.
Thus, my dear mother, have I endeavored, as you
requested, to present before your mind a clear view of
the system of theology, and the forms of worship of the
Egyptians. To evolve from the contradictory and
vague traditions a reasonable faith; to select from the
countless myths a dominating idea; to separate the true
from the false, to bring harmony out of what, regarded
as a whole, is confusion; to know what is local, what
national in rites, and to reconcile all the theories of
Osiris with one another, is a task far from easy to perform.
At first, I believed I should never be able to
arrive at any system in these multifarious traditions and
usages, but I think that my researches have given me
an insight into the difficulties of their religion, and
enabled me, in a great measure, to unravel the tangled
thread of their mythology.
I will now resume my pen, which, since writing the
above, I laid down to partake of a banquet with the
priest, my princely host, at which I met many of the
great lords of Memphis, namely—the lord-keeper of the
royal signet, the lord of the wardrobe and rings of the
queen's palace, and the lord of the treasury. These
men of rank I well knew, having met them before at the
table of the queen. There were also strangers whom I
had not met before—men of elegant address, and in rich
apparel, each with the signet of his office on his left
hand; among others, the lord of the nilometer, who
reports the progress of the elevation of the river in the
annual overflows, and by which all Lower Egypt is
governed in its agricultural work; the president of the
engravers on hard stones, an officer of trust and high
honor; the governors of several nomes, in their gold
collars and chains; the lord of the house of silver; the
president of architects; the lord of sculptors; the president
of the school of art and color; with other men of
dignity. There were also high-priests of several fanes,
of Athor, of Pthah, of Horus, of Maut, and of Amun.
Besides these gentlemen, there was a large company of
noble ladies, their wives and daughters, who came to the
banquet by invitation of the Princess Nelisa, the superb
and dark-eyed wife of the Prince Hierarch, and one of
the most magnificent and queenly women (next to the
queen herself) I have seen in this land of beautiful
women.
It was a splendid banquet. The Lady Nelisa presided
with matchless dignity and grace. But I have
already described a banquet to you. This was similar
in display and the mode of entertaining the guests.
I was seated opposite the daughter of the Priest of
Mars, of whose beauty I have before spoken. She asked
many questions, in the most captivating way, about
Tyre, and yourself, and the Phœnician ladies generally.
She smiled, and looked surprised, when I informed her
that I was betrothed to the fair Princess Thamonda, and
asked me if she were as fair as the women of Egypt. She
inquired if Damascus had always been a part of Phœ
nicia, and how large your kingdom was. When I told
her that your kingdom was composed of several lesser
kingdoms, once independent, but now united far east of
Libanus, under your crown, she inquired if you were a
warlike queen to make such conquests. I replied that
this union of the free cities of Phœnicia, and of the
cities of Cœle-Syria under your sceptre, was a voluntary
one, partly for union against the kings of Philistia,
partly from a desire to be under so powerful and wise
a queen. She said that if the danger were passed,
or you were no more, the kings of these independent
cities might dissolve the bonds, and so diminish the
splendor of the crown which I was to wear. To this
I replied, that to be king of Tyre and its peninsula
was a glory that would meet my ambition. “Yes,”
said she, “for Tyre is the key of the riches of the
earth!”
I repeat this conversation, dear mother, in order to
show you that the high-born daughters of Egypt are not
only affable and sensible, but that they possess no little
knowledge of other lands, and take an interest in countries
friendly to their own. The grace and beauty of
this maiden, as well as her modesty, rendered her conversation
attractive and pleasing. She is to become the
when he returns from the Ethiopian war.
My visit to the pyramids I will now describe, dear
mother, although in a letter to the Princess Thamonda I
have given a very full account of it. Accompanied by
the hierarch and a few young lords—his friends and
mine—we rode in chariots out of the gate of the city,
passed the guards, who made obeisance to the high-priest,
and entered upon an avenue (what noble avenues
are everywhere!) of trees growing upon a raised and
terraced mound which bounded each side of it. The
mound was emerald-green with verdancy, and the
color of the foliage of the palms, acacias, and tamarisk
trees was enriched by the bright sunshine as seen
through the pure atmosphere. At intervals we passed
a pair of obelisks, or through a grand pylon of granite.
Then we came to a beautiful lake—the Lake of the
Dead—where we passed a procession of shrines. Every
nome and all large cities have such a lake. I will here
state its use, which, like every thing in Egypt, is a
religious one. It is connected with the passage of the
dead from this world to the next; for the Egyptians not
only believe in a future state, but that rewards or punishments
await the soul. When a person of distinction
dies, after the second or third day his body is taken
charge of by embalmers, a class of persons whose occupation
it is to embalm the dead. They have houses in
a quarter of the city set apart for this purpose. Here
the friends of the dead are shown three models of as
many different modes of embalmment, of which they
choose one, according to the expense they are willing to
incur. “The most honorable and most costly,” said
of the Dead, towards which a procession was moving
from the city, when we came before it, “is that in
which the body is made to resemble Osiris. And a
custom prevails among us, that the operator who first
wounds the body with the sharp embalming flint, preparatory
to embalming, is odious by the act, and is
compelled to take to flight, pursued with execrations
and pelted with stones. No doubt the man we saw
flying out of a house this morning, as we passed, was
one of these incisors.”
The body remains seventy days, if that of a person of
rank, at the embalmers. It is then either taken to the
house, to be detained a longer or shorter time—according
to the attachment of relatives, and their reluctance
to part with it—or is prepared for entombment. During
the interval of seventy days, the mourners continue
their signs of lamentation, which often are excessive in
degree, such as tearing off raiment, beating the breast,
and pouring dust upon the head. The pomp of the
burial of the Pharaohs, I am informed, is inconceivably
grand and imposing. The whole realm joins in the
rites and processions, and every temple is crowded with
sacrificers and incense-burners.
We stopped our chariots to witness the funeral procession
advance to the shore of the lake, from the wide
street leading from Memphis.
First came seven musicians, playing a solemn dirge
upon lyres, flutes, and harps with four chords. Then
servants carrying vases of flowers; and others followed,
bearing baskets containing gilded cakes, fruit, and crystal
goblets of wine. Two boys led a red calf for sacrifice
three snow-white geese, also for sacrifice. Others bore
beautiful chairs, tablets, napkins, and numerous articles
of a household description; while others still, held little
shrines, containing the household gods or effigies of their
ancestors. Seven men carrying daggers, fans, sandals,
and bows, each having a napkin on his shoulder, followed.
Next I saw eight men appear, supporting a table; and
lying upon it, as offerings, were embroidered couches
and lounges, richly inlaid boxes, and an ivory chariot
with silver panels, which, with the foregoing articles, the
high-priest informed me had belonged to the deceased,
who, from the cartouch on the chariot, was Rathmes,
“lord of the royal gardens.”
Behind this chariot came the charioteer, with a pair
of horses caparisoned with harness for driving, but which
he led on foot out of respect to his late master.
Then came a venerable man, with the features and
beard of the Hebrew race. Surprised to see one of
these people anywhere, save with an implement of toil
in his hand, or bowed down to the earth under a burden,
I looked more closely, and recognized the face of the
head gardener, Amrami, or Amram, whom I had often
seen in the queen's garden, and whom Remeses had
taken, as it were, into his service, as he was his foster-father;
for it is no uncommon thing with the nobles to
have Hebrew nurses for their infants; on the contrary,
they are preferred. When Remeses was an infant, it
seems, therefore, that the wife of this fine-looking old
Hebrew was his foster-mother, or nurse. I have before
spoken of the striking resemblance he bears to Remeses.
Were he his father (if I may so speak of a prince in
greater likeness.
This venerable man, who must be full seventy years
of age, bore in his hand a bunch of flowers, inverted
and trailing, in token that his lord was no more. He
was followed by not less than fifty under-gardeners, four
or five of whom had Hebrew lineaments, but the rest
were Egyptians and Persians,—the latter celebrated for
the culture of flowers, which are so lavishly used here
in all the ceremonies of society and rites of religion.
After them followed four men, each bearing aloft a
vase of gold, upon a sort of canopy, with other offerings;
then came a large bronze chest, borne by priests, containing
the money left to their temple by the deceased.
Then, in succession, one who bore his arms; another, a
pruning-hook of silver; another, his fans; a fourth, his
signets, jewelled collars, and necklaces, displayed upon
a cushion of blue silk, adorned with needle-work; and
a fifth, the other insignia peculiar to a noble who had
been intrusted with the supervision of all the royal gardens
in the Memphite kingdom.
Now came four trumpeters and a cymbal-player, performing
a martial air, in which voices of men mingled,
called “The Hymn of Heroes.”
Next appeared a decorated barge or baris,—a small,
sacred boat, carried by six men, whom I saw elevate to
view the mysterious “Eye of Osiris;” while others carried
a tray of blue images, representing the deceased under
the form of that god, also of the sacred bird emblematic
of the soul. Following these were twelve men, bearing,
upon yokes balanced across the shoulders, baskets and
cases filled with flowers and crystal bottles for libation.
upon their brows, beating their bared breasts, and throwing
dust upon their heads,—now lamenting the dead, now
praising his virtues.
Then came the officiating priest, his sacred leopard-skin
cast over his shoulders, bearing in his hand the
censer and vase of libation, and accompanied by his
attendants holding the various implements required for
the occasion. Behind this priest came a car, without
wheels, drawn by four white oxen and seven men, yoked
to it, while beside them walked a chief officer, who
regulated the movements of the procession. Upon this
car was the consecrated boat, containing the ark or
hearse. The pontiff of the Temple of Horus walked by
the sarcophagus, which was decked with flowers, and
richly painted with various emblems. A panel, left open
on one side, exposed to view the head of the mummy.
Finally came the male relatives of the dead, and his
friends. In his honor the queen's grand-chamberlain
and the master of horse marched together in silence, and
with solemn steps, leaning on their long sticks. Other
men followed, whose rich dresses, and long walking-canes,
which are the peculiar mark of an Egyptian gentleman,
showed them to be persons of distinction. A
little in the rear of these walked a young man, who
dropped a lotus-flower from a basket at every few steps,
and closed the long procession.
In no country but this, where rain seldom falls, and
it is always pleasant in the open air, could such a procession
safely appear bearing wares so delicate and
frail. The only danger to be apprehended is from
storms of sand from the desert beyond the pyramids, of
sufficient warning.
This letter is quite long enough, dear mother, and I
close it, with wishes for your happiness, and assurances
of the filial devotion of
| LETTER XIV. The pillar of fire, or, Israel in bondage | |