Mr. Taylor’s sympathy with all mankind led him to regard with sincere respect the daily religious ceremonies which his Moslem boatmen performed, with their faces toward Mecca. He often mentioned their punctuality and apparent sincerity2, and contrasted it with some of the formal, half-hearted proceedings3 in some Christian4 churches. His regard for conscientious5 worship, which appeared to characterize the ignorant Arabs, appears more striking to persons who have travelled the same route over which Mr. Taylor went, for it is so common a sight to see bigoted6, conceited7 Europeans ridiculing8 the prostrations, prayers, and gestures of the worshippers. The writer most keenly regrets having been compelled to witness the caricaturing of a Moslem at prayer, by a coarse, hard-hearted, brutal9 Christian countryman, while the sad and shocked[165] believers in Mahomet stood by, scarce able to resist the temptation to throw the Frank into the Nile. In the lovable, noble character of Mr. Taylor, there was no inclination10 to ridicule11 the conscientious belief of any man, and instinctively12 he kept silent and patiently endured the delay when the call to prayer took his employees from their labor13. In return for his sincere regard for them, he received the love and most faithful service of the natives. They stole nothing from him. They shielded him from enemies and affectionately cared for his health.
Thus, with friends for boatmen, an admirer for a guide, and a most agreeable comrade for a travelling companion, he floated along, inhaling14 from every breeze the essence of health and comfort. The banks were covered with the richest and rarest verdure, for it was the Egyptian spring. There were luxuriant grasses, palms and sugar-cane; there flourished wheat, cotton, maize15, hemp16, indigo17, tobacco, oranges, olives, and dates, springing from the richest soil which civilized18 man has yet seen. Harvests came and went in confused succession; the ripe fruit with blossom; threshing-floors piled with ripe dourra, while around, the new wheat seeking the sunlight, betokened19 a bounty20 munificent21 and inexhaustible. So prolific22 and speedy was the growth of the crops that the people could not, with their rude implements23, avail themselves of the full benefits of one harvest before its rank successors forced them to turn their labor into other[166] channels. Then, as now, the fields, for miles inland from the river, were checkered24 with canals, and the rude water-wheel and awkward “well-sweep” were kept in constant motion to supply the vast amount of water necessary to the irrigation of hundreds of square miles. There were goats, mules25, horses, and a variety of fowl26, and in the wild nooks a grand collection of birds of the gayest songs and plumage. The sky was clear, the air balmy, the breezes cool and light, the cabin of their boat was spacious27, and their beds comfortable. It was “a soothing28 experience for an aching heart.”
In the first week of December they arrived at Dendera, where stands in majestic29 completeness one of the most ancient temples of Egypt. It has for thousands of years been half buried in the earth, and at one time must have been nearly hid by the shifting sands of the desert which once surrounded the pile. The impression which the gigantic columns, sixty feet high, and the enormous blocks of stone, eight feet thick, gave to them, is doubtless shared in some degree by all travellers. As he walked through the shadowy recesses30, each aperture31 seeming like a deep cave in a rocky mountain, he was filled with a solemn sense of awe32 and sadness, which so overwhelmed him that he peered about the avenues in silence, and involuntarily stood on tip-toe. The sombre grandeur33 of the massive masonry34, the sacred associations connected with the ancient worship of Osiris and Isis, the wonderful[167] tales of wars, tyrannies, famines, plagues, Rameses, Moses, Pharaoh, Alexander, Ptolemy, Cambyses, and Napoleon, which those lofty statues could tell if their symmetrical lips could speak, awaken35 indescribable emotions, deep, thrilling, and permanent. Mr. Taylor saw a grace and an artistic36 merit in the stone figures, and in the hieroglyphics37 that adorned38 the temple, which few travellers detect or admit. To many travellers the figures on those old porches and halls seem rude and often out of proportion, and the writer confesses to having been one of the latter class. But Mr. Taylor’s appreciating scrutiny39 may be accounted for on the basis that with his poetical40 instincts and thorough culture in art, there were beauties in those works of ancient sculptors41, latent to others, but apparent and striking to him. But there is no disagreement as to the unspeakable solemnity of the place and the gloom of its lonely halls.
The next night they reached Luxor, and caught the first glimpse of those interesting ruins by moonlight. There, silent and stately, arose the great Colonnade42. There, quietly recalling the ancients, stood the twin Obelisk43 to the one at which Mr. Taylor had often looked in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, when as a boy he dreamed of distant Egypt. For seven miles around the Temple of Luxor are the ruins of ancient Thebes, within which were once the temples of Karnak, Luxor, Goorneh, Memnonium, and hundreds more, which now cumber44 the otherwise fertile plains.[168] Thebes, with its hundred gates, with its countless45 armies, with its wise men, its Colossus that sang in the morning sunlight, its avenues of sphinxes and gods in stone, lay broken, spurned46, and dead before them. The same moon looked down on them that gazed on the priests of Isis and the palace of its C?sars. No one can imagine anything so solemn and grand as to stand in the moonlight on the haunted plains of ancient Thebes! One may have thought the Coliseum at Rome impressive beyond description when seen in the favorable light of an autumn moon, but when compared with Thebes it is tame and insignificant47. Ages and ages before the rape48 of the Sabines, these temples had been constructed. They saw the morning of civilization; but now they are ruined and useless, the night seems best fitted for an appreciative49 view of them. Among the mighty50 colonnades51 whose columns are broken and falling, and around gigantic remains52 of ancient statues carved from a mountain of stone, Mr. Taylor wandered for two whole days. He scrutinized53 closely the long rows of ancient tombs, and stood in the rocky grave of Rameses I. The pictures on the walls of the tombs, the kind of rock, the original shape of the temples, the employments of the ancient races, the blue sky overhead, the clear atmosphere around, together with sketches54 of history and poetical allusions55, shared in the interesting letters which Mr. Taylor wrote from Thebes. Such scenes contain an inspiration and an education which make scholars and statesmen of such[169] as love history and appreciate the lessons those ruins teach. To one of Mr. Taylor’s disposition56, a visit to such a place was a privilege not to be lightly thrown away. He investigated everything, and in a manner bordering on recklessness he descended57 through small holes into dark subterranean58 tombs, and with equal hardihood walked the crumbling59 roofs and cornices of the lofty ruins. He looked with disgust on the evidences of spoliations which were to be seen in splintered columns and fragments of ancient frescoes60, and which were the work of scientific explorers. He regarded with a jealous anxiety the evidences of vandalism and decay, and wished sincerely that time and man would allow those precious relics61 of the old régime to remain forever intact. He appears to have regarded those massive wrecks62 as half-human, and sympathized with their forsaken63 and friendless condition.
But in all this antiquarian excitement, which usually occupies the undivided attention of less enthusiastic travellers, Mr. Taylor neglected not the living. He witnessed with interest the graces of the Arabian dancing-girls, noticed the features of the beggar-boys, the methods of teaching children the Koran, and the worn appearance of the water-carriers.
Leaving Luxor, they spent three or four days ascending64 the river to Assouan, and in visiting the villages, old temples, half-buried cities, and gorgeously decorated tombs in the mountain-sides, which are almost numberless in the valley of Upper Egypt. At[170] Assouan, he was most cordially received by the Governor and was given a friendly greeting by all the officials he met. From that town he made several excursions with his German friend, the most interesting of which was that to the cataract65 of the Nile and the island of Phil?. There he saw the celebrated66 temple of the time of the Ptolemies, which he looked upon as modern, because it was not over twenty-two hundred years old. But he felt sufficient interest in the ruins of the old city to describe that marvellous colonnade which has astonished so many visitors to the island of Phil?. The reader of his letters can detect, however, in Mr. Taylor’s description of columns, aisles67, roofs, walls, capitals, sculptures, monoliths, and colossi, a vein68 of sadness which may have colored his views. At all events the ruins of Phil? did not impress him as they seem to have affected69 other visitors. The fact that he was so soon to part with a companion for whom he felt a love like that of Jonathan for David, may have had more or less influence upon his capacity to enjoy scenery or the remains of antiquity70: for the writer looked upon Phil? as one of the most interesting localities of the lower Nile, and cannot but regard the ruined temple as one of the grandest in Egypt. They visited the fields, villages, the tombs, the ancient quarry71, wherein half-sculptured statues and columns still remain unmoved, and after a day of antiquarian research they rode back to their boat, as he said “with heavy hearts.” The next day[171] came the hour of parting; and these two men, one a young man, the other an elderly gentleman, who had been utter strangers forty days before, now clung to each other with the sincerest brotherly love and parted in tears. How little did Mr. Taylor think, as he saw the boat sailing away for Cairo with the Saxe-Coburg colors at the peak, where he had so long kept the Stars and Stripes, that they would meet again in the sunny southern lands of Europe, and that another person would join their company for life and make up what he termed “a sacred triad.” He thought then that the parting might be for all time. He was going into an unknown wilderness72, while his friend sought again the lands of civilization: it was a long time before either could dispel73 the gloom which their separation left about them.
PHIL? COLONNADE.
Mr. Taylor took another boat at Assouan and proceeded to Korosko, where, with the assistance of the Governor and a wild Arab chieftain, whose friendship was purchased by presents and sociability74, he secured the necessary camels and outfit75 for a trip across the desert. It was a hazardous76 undertaking77 for a stranger, alone, unknown, to traverse the desert. If he was murdered, none of the authorities would care, nor would his death become known. He might contract the terrible fever. He was liable to be eaten by wild beasts, and he ran great risk of dying of thirst or hunger on the hot sands of a trackless desert. The way had been travelled many times before, but was all the[172] more dangerous because of the opportunity it gave robbers to lie in wait for tourists. But he unhesitatingly entered upon the journey, trusting in the friendship of his Nubian and Arabian servants, and in his own ability to withstand the heat of the sands and the attacks of African fever. Camping in the desert sands, riding a dromedary in the scorching78 sun, living upon rudely prepared food, drinking lukewarm water, with the sight of bones and carcasses by the way to warn him, and the occasional appearance of sickly returning caravans79 to dishearten him, he passed that arm of the desert between the first cataract of the Nile and Abou-Hammed. Thence his little caravan80 of six camels followed the winding81 river to a small town, El Mekheyref, where he dismissed his friendly companions, excepting one, who had accompanied him from Cairo, and set sail again on the Nile. Everywhere he was received with kindness and hospitality by the natives and by the Governors. His servants were so much interested in his welfare that they told the natives that he was a high official in the country from which he came, and he was treated with the respect the Eastern people think is due to persons of high rank. All disclaimers from him were considered to be actuated by feelings of modesty82 and elevated him in the estimation of his entertainers.
His visit to Meroe was an interesting episode in his long pilgrimage, although he did not make such diligent83 search as an antiquarian among its crumbling[173] walls as he had done in some of the other ancient cities. Yet his descriptions of that place are most vivid pictures and convey an idea of the topography of the capital of that ancient kingdom in a manner most readable to the stranger and very important to students of history.
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1
Moslem
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| n.回教徒，穆罕默德信徒；adj.回教徒的，回教的 | |
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2
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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3
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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bigoted
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| adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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conceited
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| adj.自负的，骄傲自满的 | |
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ridiculing
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的现在分词 ) | |
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9
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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10
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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12
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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13
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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14
inhaling
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| v.吸入( inhale的现在分词 ) | |
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maize
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| n.玉米 | |
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hemp
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| n.大麻；纤维 | |
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indigo
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| n.靛青，靛蓝 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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betokened
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| v.预示，表示( betoken的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bounty
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| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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munificent
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| adj.慷慨的，大方的 | |
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prolific
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| adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的 | |
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23
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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24
checkered
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| adj.有方格图案的 | |
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mules
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| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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aperture
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| n.孔，隙，窄的缺口 | |
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32
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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hieroglyphics
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| n.pl.象形文字 | |
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adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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sculptors
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| 雕刻家，雕塑家( sculptor的名词复数 )； [天]玉夫座 | |
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colonnade
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| n.柱廊 | |
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obelisk
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| n.方尖塔 | |
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44
cumber
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| v.拖累，妨碍；n.妨害；拖累 | |
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45
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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46
spurned
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| v.一脚踢开，拒绝接受( spurn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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rape
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| n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸 | |
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appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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colonnades
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| n.石柱廊( colonnade的名词复数 ) | |
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52
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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53
scrutinized
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| v.仔细检查，详审( scrutinize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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56
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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57
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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subterranean
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| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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frescoes
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| n.壁画( fresco的名词复数 )；温壁画技法，湿壁画 | |
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relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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wrecks
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| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
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63
Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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cataract
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| n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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dispel
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| vt.驱走，驱散，消除 | |
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sociability
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| n.好交际，社交性，善于交际 | |
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outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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hazardous
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| adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的 | |
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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scorching
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| adj. 灼热的 | |
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caravans
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| （可供居住的）拖车（通常由机动车拖行）( caravan的名词复数 )； 篷车； （穿过沙漠地带的）旅行队（如商队） | |
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caravan
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| n.大蓬车；活动房屋 | |
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81
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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82
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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83
diligent
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| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
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