In The Middle Of The
Group The Man Himself Is Represented, Sitting In An Armchair, And On
His Knee He Holds His Favourite Dancing-Girl.
Other girls posture
before him in a dance of the period; and on the ground sit musicians
touching tambourines and strangely fashioned harps.
All wear their
hair in a long plait, which falls below their shoulders like the
pigtail of the Chinese. It was the distinguishing mark of these kinds
of courtesans. And these little people had kept their pose in the
darkness for some three thousand years before the commencement of the
Christian era. . . . In order to show it to us better the group is
brought to the window, and the mournful light which enters from across
the infinite solitudes of the desert colours them yellow and shows us
in detail their little doll-like attitudes and their comical and
frightened appearance - frightened perhaps to find themselves so old
and issuing from so deep a night. They had not seen a setting of the
sun, such as they now regard with their queer eyes, too long and too
wide oepn, they had not seen such a thing for some five thousand
years. . . .
The habitation of the Apis, the lords of the necropolis, is little
more than two hundred yards away. We are told that the place is now
lighted up and that we may betake ourselves thither.
The descent is by a narrow, rapidly sloping passage, dug in the soil,
between banks of sand and broken stones.
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