Its Antiquity Was Already
Legendary In The Time Of Alexander The Great, On Whose Behalf A Chapel
Was Added To It; And Later On, In The First Ages Of Christianity, A
Corner Of The Ruins Was Turned Into A Cathedral.
The tourists begin to
depart, for the lunch bell calls them to the neighbouring /tables
d'hote/; and while I
Wait till they shall be gone, I occupy myself in
following the bas-reliefs which are displayed for a length of more
than a hundred yards along the base of the walls. It is one long row
of people moving in their thousands all in the same direction - the
ritual procession of the God Amen. With the care which characterised
the Egyptians to draw everything from life so as to render it eternal,
there are represented here the smallest details of a day of festival
three or four thousand years ago. And how like it is to a holiday of
the people of to-day! Along the route of the procession are ranged
jugglers and sellers of drinks and fruits, and negro acrobats who walk
on their hands and twist themselves into all kinds of contortions. But
the procession itself was evidently of a magnificence such as we no
longer know. The number of musicians and priests, of corporations, of
emblems and banners, is quite bewildering. The God Amen himself came
by water, on the river, in his golden barge with its raised prow,
followed by the barques of all the other gods and goddesses of his
heaven.
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