*****
Like A Cloud, Like A Veil, The Continual Red-Coloured Dust Floats
Everywhere Above The Ruins, And, Athwart It, Here
And there, the sun
traces long, white beams, But at one point of the avenue, behind the
obelisks, it seems
To rise in clouds, this dust of Egypt, as if it
were smoke. For the workers of bronze are assembled there to-day and,
hour by hour, without ceasing, they dig in the sacred soil.
Ridiculously small and almost negligible by the side of the great
monoliths they dig and dig. Patiently they clear the ruins, and the
earth goes away in little parcels in rows of baskets carried by
children in the form of a chain. The periodical deposits of the Nile,
and the sand carried by the wind of the desert, had raised the soil by
about six yards since the time when Thebes ceased to live. But now men
are endeavouring to restore the ancient level. At first sight the task
seemed impossible, but they will achieve it in the end, even with
their simple means, these fellah toilers, who sing as they labour at
their incessant work of ants. Soon the grand hypostyle will be freed
from rubbish, and its columns, which even before seemed so tremendous,
uncovered now to the base, have added another twenty feet to their
height. A number of colossal statues, which lay asleep beneath this
shroud of earth and sand, have been brought back to the light, set
upright again and have resumed their watch in the intimidating
thoroughfares for a new period of quasi-eternity.
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