 | LETTER XVI. The pillar of fire, or, Israel in bondage |  |
16. LETTER XVI.
I have described my chariot ride through the
plain of tombs, along the magnificent causeway, which
extends from the Lake of the Dead to the feet of the
sphinx. All that I beheld of the grandeur of the monuments
showed, that the Egyptians of past generations
who built them, and lie buried here, were a populous
and powerful nation, in advance of all others in the arts
of life; since not only do the cities for the living, but
the “Homes of the Dead,” attest their taste and love
for the beautiful and sublime in nature and art. The
culmination of all Egyptian marvels in architecture is
the sphinx-guarded pyramidal temple.
We approached the central pylon along a paved
court, across which two hundred chariots could have
driven in a line. This court was entirely surrounded
by a double row of majestic columns, with the lotus-leaf
capitals I have before described. The vastness of their
proportions seemed to be increased by contrast with a
group of priests, who looked like pigmies in size as they
stood by their bases. The gigantic entablature, which
united their summits, was covered with sacred symbols,
richly colored, and crowned with statues of kings, hewn
these were mutilated by Time, which, indeed, had
thrown its mantle of decay over the whole,—pillars,
architecture, and sculpture; for this court is coeval
with the sphinx crouched at its entrance, and but a
little later than the two pyramids. In a few centuries,
decay will have brought the mighty fabric to the earth;
for, massive as it looks, it is built of brick, covered with
pictured stucco; but the pyramids of stone, which have
withstood the lapse of ages beyond history, will last as
long as the everlasting hills of granite from which their
enormous blocks were hewn.
Passing beneath the great portal, we found ourselves
in the sacred square of the temple of the Pyramids, and
I could now perceive the mighty design. Connected
by stupendous columnar wings, the pyramids rose in
sublime grandeur on either hand. Their summits shone
with the light of the setting sun, which, reflected from
the polished casing of the pictured tiles yet remaining
near the top, and that once covered the whole surface
from base to apex, lent a splendor to them indescribable.
On the opposite side of the quadrangle, formed by the
temple in front and the bases of the pyramids on the
two sides, is a dark grove of palms, intermingled with
statues and altars; and beyond rise the dark hills
of Libya—a fitting and solemn background to the
scene.
About the summits of the Queen's Pyramid, which is
a little smaller than the other, though it appears to be
of equal height, from the superior elevation of the platform
of rock on which it stands, soared flocks of the
white ibis, their snow-white wings flashing like pinions
height they looked no larger than sparrows.
A statue of Horus, whose name I had also seen inscribed
on the tablet of the temple of the Sphinx, rose
a colossal monolith in the centre of the quadrangle,
with one of Thoth upon his right, and another of Anubis
on his left hand. These figures were symbolical of the
funereal use of the pyramids between which they stood.
After walking around the columned avenue of this
great mausoleum, we began the ascent of the larger
pyramid, known as that of Cheops; the other bearing
the name of Chephres, as the high-priest informs me;
and the third, which towers in its own unaided grandeur
farther to the south, being that of Pharaoh-Men-Cherines.
We found the ascent extremely difficult—indeed, in
ancient times it must have been impossible, when its
polished and beautiful casing remained entire; but this
having been removed by time and accident in many
places, and purposely in others, a path, if it may be so
termed, is made to the summit. We were aided by
attendants of the temple, who from long practice ascend
with ease, assisting also those strangers who would
climb the perilous height.
As we reached half-way, a block, which had been
removed from its place either by the irresistible force
of a sirocco from the desert, or by lightning, gave the
high-priest and myself a welcome resting-place.
As we stood here a few moments, I looked down
upon the prospect below. The sight at first made me
dizzy, for we were elevated four hundred feet above the
base. I seemed to be suspended upon wings above
an abyss, and a dreadful desire to throw myself out
eyes and clung firmly to the attendant. It soon passed
off, and I gazed down upon the vast quadrangle, the
persons in which looked no bigger than ants, while the
three colossi of the gods, in the centre, were reduced to
the natural size of men.
Opposite, not six hundred cubits distant, stood Chephres.
From each pyramid swept the avenues of columns
and the great wall connecting both with the central
temple and its pylon. From the grove of palms, curled
up into the pure orange-colored atmosphere a blue cloud
of incense, where some priest offered at one of its shrines.
Again we mounted upwards, and, after incredible
fatigue, gained the summit—not without peril, for a slip
of the foot or the hand, each block being as high as a
man's neck, would prove fatal. Indeed, more than one
life has been lost in falling down the side of the pyramid.
A prince of Midian, a country in Arabia, lost his
life last century by losing his hold and falling from
Chephres, which is more difficult of ascent than Cheops,
(or Chuphu), as the priests there call its name.
How shall I describe to you, my dear mother, the
scene which burst upon my vision, as I gazed about me
from this mountain-like elevation! As I ascended, the
prospect of the country enlarged at every step, but
now I seemed to behold the earth itself spread out
beneath me. The place where we stood, which looks
from below like a sharp apex, is a platform several
cubits across, on which twenty men could stand or
move about with ease.
I can give you no adequate conception of the scene I
beheld. First, the valley of the Nile was visible, extending
resembling a green belt a few miles wide, through
which the river flowed like a silver band—while upon
its borders countless cities were set like precious stones.
It was a gorgeous and magnificent assemblage of cities,
temples, palaces, obelisks, villas, gardens, monuments,
avenues of trees and sphinxes, sepulchres, aqueducts,
statue-lined causeways, galleys and pleasure barges,
chariots, horses, and multitudes of people. Nor should
I omit what now became visible in one field of view, to
the north and south. I mean not less than one hundred
pyramids, all much smaller than the mighty triad, but
each, had not the others been up-builded, would have
been a marvel of grandeur.
“Those are all tombs of kings, but of a later age
than this one,” said the hierarch, looking towards them.
“Each monarch, at the commencement of his reign, laid
the foundation of a pyramid. He built first a small
one, containing his sarcophagus and sepulchral chamber.
Then every year he added to the outside a complete
layer of stones, which, after many years, extended its
base, and increased its elevation in like proportions.
Therefore the size of the pyramids marks the age to
which the king lived.”
“Then,” said I, “the kings who built the multitude
of lesser pyramids, which we behold in the distance,
must have had much shorter lives than the builders of
these vast piles.”
“You are right, O prince,” he said. “When the
pyramid, on which we now stand, and its companions
were builded, men's lives were of the duration of a thou
sand years”
“That was before the traditional deluge?” I replied,
with surprise and interest.
“True, O Prince of Tyre!” he answered. “These
two great pyramids, say our sacred books, were the
work of the giants who lived in the days before the flood
of Noachis, or Noah. They are the tombs of their
kings, and were centuries in being built according to
our years. And when the gods brought the unknown
oceans over the earth, to punish the nations which living
so long became as wise as the gods, but at the same time
grew as wicked as wise, these vast sepulchres withstood,
like the lesser hills, the waters of desolation, and remained
in ruinous grandeur, not only as witnesses of the
flood, but monuments of a past people whose towers, as
well as tombs, reached unto the heavens. You see
these pyramids, and how they are now defaced by the
billows that dashed against and over them. Anciently,
when they were completed, their whole surfaces were
encased with beautiful tiles of the brightest blue and
purest white, inlaid alternately in perfect squares.
Upon this magnificent encasing was inscribed, in pictorial
signs, the history of man; but no person has ever
interpreted them. You see, my prince, that here, at the
top, are a few strata still remaining of this rich encasement;
all the rest having been destroyed by the deluge
—by the abrasion of the waves, and the hurling against
its sides of mighty ships, driven by the huge and angry
billows which rolled like a boiling sea across the earth
Thus you behold these vast structures, as it were in
ruins, yet still retaining fragmentary portions of their
original glory and beauty. When the waters departed,
the gods limited the lives of men to one hundred years;
have erected are comparatively small in magnitude.”
“But the third, was it not built before the flood?”
“I did not intend you should so understand,” he answered.
“It was commenced before the flood by the
king who was destroyed thereby. But the son of the
wise and good Prince Noah completed it during the
several hundred years that he lived—as did his father
also—after the flood; for it was only the lives of their
descendants that were to be limited. Thus Amun, says
tradition, finished the third pyramid, but did not encase
it, as the art was lost by the deluge which had destroyed
those who were skilled in it. There are other accounts,
my prince, but they either come near this one, or so far
differ from it that they are entitled to no credit.”
“It is your opinion, then, O high-priest, that these
two pyramids were built by the giants of the ages before
the great deluge?” I asked.
“I have no other one,” he replied firmly. “When the
age of man was shortened to one hundred years from
one thousand, his stature was also lessened. Hence the
men of the ages since the flood cannot build a pyramid
like one of these. All the power of engines and art
cannot uprear such stones six hundred feet into the air.
This is giants' work.”
“Then you believe that there were giants in the earth
in the days before the flood?” I said, doubtingly.
“These pyramids attest the fact,” he replied, with an
impressive gesture of his right hand towards the opposite
one. “Noah himself, says tradition, and his sons, Chephres,
Chufu, and Amun or Men-Cherines, were gigantic,
and are worshipped as gods, as you know, not only here
the seas, under various names. In the third pyramid
Amun was entombed. In the second is Chephres,
or Chefret, who, when an aged king, was brought from
the place where he died, and placed in a sarcophagus
above the chamber where lay the king who found sepulture
there before the flood. Within the pyramid on
which we are, rest the sacred bones of the Prince-god
Noah, who, at the age of nine hundred and fifty years,
came hither to be buried by the side of his eldest son
Chephres. `Such a mourning of the nations, all of whom
sprung from his loins, the earth never knew, and will
never witness more,' say the sacred scrolls of the temples.
All kings, and queens, and princes, and lords, and
nobles, of every realm followed the embalmed body of
their father and deity; and King Menes, his grandson,
went up from Egypt with all the hosts of the land to
meet the funeral procession, and to receive the divine
body. Cheops is but another name for Noah. Here
also is entombed Menes.”
Such, my dear mother, is the priestly tradition of the
pyramids. We, of Tyre, have a myth that the Father
of the Flood is buried in Damascus; but though Egyptians
love to concentrate all history around their own
land, and make Egypt the cradle of the human race,
yet as this tradition seems to be better founded than ours,
and as they can point to the grand tombs of these kings
of the flood, I am ready to concede to her the honor
which she claims of being the place of sepulture of the
giants who survived the deluge. And what fitter tombs,
than these eternal mountains of granite, could the progenitors
of the race repose in! Fit sepulchres are they,
was gigantic, and whose lives extended through a thousand
years!
But I must return to the prospect from the summit of
this mausoleum of giants. The sun was near the horizon,
and sent his level and mingled rose, golden, and purple
beams aslant across the valley. The air was perfectly
clear, and our view unimpeded in all directions.
To the south, along the verdant plain of the Nile, the
pyramids shone in the sun as if sheathed with plates of
gold. Palms, temples, obelisks in pairs, and pylones
were mingled with them in the richest confusion; while
as far as the eye could penetrate they receded into
the desert, till their size was diminished by distance to
shining mounds.
Turning my eyes to the west, the yellow plain of Libya,
with its rocky hills inclosing the verdant valley of the
Nile in that direction, rolled away to the edge of the
horizon, an arid, undulating, illimitable expanse, which,
under the sun, blazed like a lake of fire from the burning
reflection of its sands. The contrast of this realm
of desolation, and its storm-piled drifts of gray, brown,
and dusky sand, lying so near the groves, and green
fields, and blooming gardens which surrounded the pyramids
and extended to the base of the ridge, was very
remarkable. One part looked like the abode of Osiris,
full of beauty, and light, and happiness: the other like
that of Typhon, or the spirit of evil, who strove, ever
battling with his storms of sand, to invade, overwhelm,
and desolate these scenes of beauty! And, ere many
centuries, his arid hosts threaten to sweep past the pyramids,
and to overleap the very gates of Memphis! But
presenting a pleasing contrast, with its perennial
green, to the desolate and savage realm of the desert:
Luxuriantly covered with verdure; bright with golden
wheat-fields, charming green meadows, foliage of every
variety; groups of trees rising from a thousand courts;
countless villages everywhere, and myriads of brilliant
lakes, it was a scene of unmixed beauty. Jizeh, a little
to the east, with its temple-palaces and gardens, filled
the view. Farther east lay, first, the glorious city of
Apis, its squares, avenues, lakes, groves, fanes, and
monuments, all open to the eye like a magnificent
picture. Beyond the glittering Nile, the banks of which
were rich with fertility and adorned with villas, I beheld
Raamses, and still farther Pythom, the treasure-cities,
in the fair expanse of the land of Goshen,—alas! beautiful
only to the eye, for upon it rests the dark shadow of
Hebrew bondage; and south, a few miles, after a thousand
scenes of rural beauty fill the vision, towers, like
the throne of the kingdom, the city of the Lord of the
Sun, its gorgeous temple and forest of obelisks flinging
back the sunbeams with a splendor that fills the soul
with wonder and delight!
“O happy, glorious, mighty Egypt! what a blessed
and favored land art thou! With one foot upon the
seven mouths of thy mighty river, another upon
Ethiopia, and thy head in the clouds, all nations bow
down to thy might and greatness! Leader of the
kingdoms of the earth! what a future is thine, if
thy kings and rulers are true to thee and to themselves!”
The hierarch heard me utter these words, for I spake
the magnificence of her power.
“The future of Egypt, my prince, no man can foresee.
But the sacred books contain a prophecy, that
during one cycle of a soul, three thousand years, she
will be a nation despised and ruled by kings of another
race, and all that will remain to her will be her defaced
pyramids and temples; the marvel of which will bring
strangers from the ends of the earth, curious to gaze
upon these mute witnesses of her ancient power and
glory.”
“The gods forbid!” I said warmly.
“The gods,” he answered, “govern the earth, and do
what they will with its kingdoms. These sacred papyri
also speak of Tyre and prophesy its desolation, and say
that the empire of commerce shall be removed to an
unknown world beyond the great sea of the West, and
that a race yet unborn shall sway the destinies of the
earth, and another religion shall prevail in the hearts of
men.”
“What are these papyri?” I asked.
“Books which have been handed down from the first
kings, who in their turn received them from the ancient
gods.”
I turned away sorrowfully at the thought of this prediction,
my dear mother. The idea that Tyre, which
now sits a queen upon the shores of her sea, will ever
be desolate, is not possible for me to conceive. May
her prosperity and peace be prolonged to the ends of
the ages!
We now turned to descend this elevation, from
whence the heart of Egypt lay open before us. The
side of the pyramid was fearful. The projections which
were to receive our feet were not apparent; and we
commenced the descent with the greatest caution, being
obliged to lower ourselves from block to block; and
where the encasement of tiles remained, we were sustained
by the iron heads of short spears with which each
of us was provided, a hook being secured at the opposite
end.
At length we reached the broad terrace which surrounds
the pyramid, and upon which are statues and
small sphinxes facing outward. Between two of large
size, representing Osiris and Isis, we descended a broad
flight of steps to an ancient gate, which, as I was told,
led to the entrance of the pyramid. The passage, however,
has not been opened for many centuries—the piety
of the Pharaohs permitting the mighty dead to rest in
their granite tumuli undisturbed by curiosity or cupidity.
When we had crossed the court, the priest ascended
with me one of the towers of the pylon. From thence
he showed me a mass of rock lying in a position which
answered, in reference to the main pyramid, to that
which the sphinx occupied.
“Seest thou, O prince,” he said, “that isolated rock?
The ancients intended to chisel it also into a sphinx to
match this one, for they used to place them in pairs,
like their obelisks. But the grand conception has never
been carried out; and you perceive that our noble queen,
Amense, is erecting the pyramid of her years so near, that
it in part stands upon it. Two such sphinxes crouched
in front of Cheops would have been an entrance to
therein. Instead of carrying out this original design,
the great temple and colossal wings have been built,
and the avenue from the sphinx so turned aside by
a slight angle, as to terminate at the central pylon;
thereby making one sphinx answer the purpose of two,
but at the sacrifice of proportion; for the twofold
grandeur of the combined pyramids lessens the impression
of the single sphinx, while the two reposing before
Cheops alone, would have been in keeping with its majesty.”
As it was now sunset, we hastened to our chariot and
drove back to the city, along the magnificent causeway
I have before described.
Upon my return to the palace of the high-priest, and
after describing to his beautiful daughter, Luxora, the
incidents of my visit, she said, with an arch smile—
“You ought not, O Sesostris, to have come away
without seeing the emerald table of Hermes!”
“I heard nothing of it, lady,” I answered. “I have,
moreover, seen splendor enough for one day. What
and where is this table?”
“In the central chamber of the great pyramid. The
people of Egypt believe the tradition, and so also have
some of its kings.”
“What is the tradition?” I asked. “But first, do
you believe it?”
“With all my heart. I never doubted it since I was
a child,” she answered, smiling, yet with a tone of sincerity.
“My father thinks if it were true, it would
have been removed when the god Noachis was placed
there.”
“It is not in the chamber of the sarcophagus, sister,”
said Osiria, the sister younger than Luxora—a maiden
remarkable for her sprightliness and intelligence; “it
is in a vault of crystal under the pyramid.”
“You are right, my dear sister,” replied the elder,
gracefully. “I will tell the prince the legend.”
“Then I will tell him mine,” said Osiria, with an arch
look. “I know he will like mine the best.”
“Because he likes you the best, is it?” her sister replied,
playfully. “But have a care, Osiria; our guest
is betrothed to a great princess in his own country.”
“That need not prevent him from being my good
friend in this,” responded Osiria, pleasantly.
“Your tradition, noble Luxora?” I asked.
“It is this. In the ancient days of the earth, before
the deluge of the gods, the thrice great Hermes, who
knew all the secrets of alchemy, engraved them upon
an emerald table and placed it in a cave, which he
sealed up. His motive for doing this was both to preserve
them and to conceal them from men—for the race
of man had grown so wicked, that they made use of
what they knew of alchemy to injure one another and
defy the deities, answering back the thunder of heaven
with thunders of their own. Over this cave the first
pyramid was built, and there the emerald table, with
all its secrets, so dear to our sex, has remained to this
hour!”
I thanked Luxora for her legend, and assured her
that I had quite as much curiosity to see the wonderful
emerald as she had.
“But if it were discovered,” said Osiria, “who could
read and understand the writing upon it? Now, O
it will be agreeable to you to hear all that is said
about them.”
“I will listen with the greatest pleasure,” I answered.
But, dear mother, I will here close this long letter,
and reserve, for the commencement of my next, the
smgular tradition related to me by Osiria.
| LETTER XVI. The pillar of fire, or, Israel in bondage | |