Through An Iron Gate, Guarded By Two Tall Bedouin Guards In
Black Robes, We Plunge At Once Into The Shadow Of Enormous Stones.
We
are in the house of the god, in a forest of heavy Osiridean columns,
surrounded by a world
Of people in high coiffures, carved in bas-
relief on the pillars and walls - people who seem to be signalling one
to another and exchanging amongst themselves mysterious signs,
silently and for ever.
But what is this noise in the sanctuary? It seems to be full of
people. There, sure enough, beyond a second row of columns, is quite a
little crowd talking loudly in English. I fancy that I can hear the
clinking of glasses and the tapping of knives and forks.
Oh! poor, poor temple, to what strange uses are you come. . . . This
excess of grotesqueness in profanation is more insulting surely than
to be sacked by barbarians! Behold a table set for some thirty guests,
and the guests themselves - of both sexes - merry and lighthearted,
belong to that special type of humanity which patronises Thomas Cook &
Son (Egypt Ltd.). They wear cork helmets, and the classic green
spectacles; drink whisky and soda, and eat voraciously sandwiches and
other viands out of greasy paper, which now litters the floor. And the
women! Heavens! what scarecrows they are! And this kind of thing, so
the black-robed Bedouin guards inform us, is repeated every day so
long as the season lasts. A luncheon in the temple of Osiris is part
of the programme of pleasure trips.
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