Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Perhaps, When,
"The Rosy-Fingered Aurora Rendered Her Son, The Glorious Memnon,
Vocal,"* (* These Are The Words Of An Inscription, Which Attests That
Sounds Were Heard On The 13th Of The Month Pachon, In The Tenth Year
Of The Reign Of Antoninus.
See Monuments de l'Egypte Ancienne.) the
voice was that of a man hidden beneath the pedestal of the statue;
But
the observation of the natives of the Orinoco, which we relate, seems
to explain in a natural manner what gave rise to the Egyptian belief
of a stone that poured forth sounds at sunrise.
Almost at the same period at which I communicated these conjectures to
some of the learned of Europe, three French travellers, MM. Jomard,
Jollois, and Devilliers, were led to analogous ideas. They heard, at
sunrise, in a monument of granite, at the centre of the spot on which
stands the palace of Karnak, a noise resembling that of a string
breaking. Now this comparison is precisely that which the ancients
employed in speaking of the voice of Memnon. The French travellers
thought, like me, that the passage of rarefied air through the
fissures of a sonorous stone might have suggested to the Egyptian
priests the invention of the juggleries of the Memnomium.
We left the rock at four in the morning. The missionary had told us
that we should have great difficulty in passing the rapids and the
mouth of the Meta. The Indians rowed twelve hours and a half without
intermission, and during all that time, they took no other nourishment
than cassava and plantains.
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