He Would Hang The Charm About The Dog's Neck, And
I Was Then To Put Six Shots Into The Animal's Body.
He positively
assured me that the dog would be uninjured.
I half-promised to come
and, when night began to fall, looked vaguely about for a dog. At last
I found one, but it howled so dismally when I asked Ibrahim Ayyad to
take possession of it for experimental purposes, that I weakly gave up
the project, and left the magician clamoring for his hundred and
ninety-five piastres.
Its warlike aspect gives a special personality to Medinet-Abu. The
shield-shaped battlements; the courtyards, with their brutal columns,
narrowing as they recede towards the mountains; the heavy gateways,
with superimposed chambers; the towers; quadrangular bastion to
protect, inclined basement to resist the attacks of sappers and cause
projectiles to rebound - all these things contribute to this very
definite effect.
I have heard travelers on the Nile speak piteously of the confusion
wakened in their minds by a hurried survey of many temples, statues,
monuments, and tombs. But if one stays long enough this confusion
fades happily away, and one differentiates between the antique
personalities of Ancient Egypt almost as easily as one differentiates
between the personalities of one's familiar friends. Among these
personalities Medinet-Abu is the warrior, standing like Mentu, with
the solar disk, and the two plumes erect above his head of a hawk,
firmly planted at the foot of the Theban mountains, ready to repel all
enemies, to beat back all assaults, strong and determined, powerful
and brutally serene.
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