And In Old Egypt, Therefore, Each One,
At The Hour Of Death, Turned His Thoughts To These Stones And Sands,
In The Ardent Hope That He Might Be Able To Sleep Near The Remains Of
His God.
And when the place was becoming crowded with sleepers, those
who could obtain no place there conceived the idea
Of having humble
obelisks planted on the holy ground, which at least should tell their
names; or even recommended that their mummies might be there for some
weeks, even if they were afterwards removed. And thus, funeral
processions passed to and fro without ceasing through the cornfields
that separate the Nile from the desert. Abydos! In the sad human dream
dominated by the thought of dissolution, Abydos preceded by many
centuries the Valley of Jehosophat of the Hebrews, the cemeteries
around Mecca of the Moslems, and the holy tombs beneath our oldest
cathedrals! . . . Abydos! It behoves us to walk here pensively and
silently out of respect for all those thousands of souls who formerly
turned towards this place, with outstretched hands, in the hour of
death.
The first great temple - that which King Seti raised to the mysterious
Prince of the Other World, who in those days was called Osiris - is
quite close - a distance of little more than 200 yards in the glare of
the desert. We come upon it suddenly, so that it almost startles us,
for nothing warns us of its proximity. The sand from which it has been
exhumed, and which buried it for 2000 years, still rises almost to its
roof.
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