High on a brown hump of earth a buffalo
stood alone, languishing serenely in the sun, gazing at me through the
columns with light eyes that were full of a sort of folly of
contentment. Some goats tripped by, brown against the brown stone - the
dark brown earth of the native houses. Intimate life was here,
striking the note of coziness of Luxor. Here was none of the sadness
and the majesty of Denderah. Grand are the ruins of Luxor, noble is
the line of columns that boldly fronts the Nile, but Time has given
them naked to the air and to the sun, to children and to animals.
Instead of bats, the pigeons fly about them. There is no dreadful
darkness in their sanctuaries. Before them the life of the river,
behind them the life of the village flows and stirs. Upon them looks
down the Minaret of Abu Haggag; and as I sat in the sunshine, the
warmth of which began to lessen, I saw upon its lofty circular balcony
the figure of the muezzin. He leaned over, bending toward the temple
and the statues of Rameses II. and the happy dancers on the wall. He
opened his lips and cried to them:
"God is great. God is great . . . I bear witness that there is no god
but God. . . . I bear witness that Mohammed is the Apostle of God.
. . . Come to prayer! Come to prayer! . . . God is great. God is
great. There is no god but God."
He circled round the minaret. He cried to the Nile. He cried to the
Colossi sitting in their plain, and to the yellow precipices of the
mountains of Libya. He cried to Egypt:
"Come to prayer! Come to prayer! There is no god but God. There is no
god but God."
The days of the gods were dead, and their ruined temple echoed with
the proclamation of the one god of the Moslem world. "Come to prayer!
Come to prayer!" The sun began to sink.
"Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me."
The voice of the muezzin died away. There was a silence; and then, as
if in answer to the cry from the minaret, I heard the chime of the
angelus bell from the Catholic church of Luxor.
"Twilight and evening bell, and after that the dark."
I sat very still. The light was fading; all the yellow was fading,
too, from the columns and the temple walls. I stayed till it was dark;
and with the dark the old gods seemed to resume their interrupted
sway. And surely they, too, called to prayer.
