24* TRAVELS IN UPPER 



an extravagant price, although it was a trifling 

 thing, an amulet of baked earth representing a 

 figure with two faces. But the possessor had the 

 address to attach an imaginary value to it, and to 

 draw thence a small revenue, founded, like all 

 others of the same sort, on folly and credulity. 

 The women considered this talisman carried about 

 tliem, as an infallible means of procuring safe 

 deliverance in child-birth, and they even paid 

 thirty medinas for the hire of it for a single day. 



The western part of the ancient city of Thebes 

 does not yield in magnificence to that which is se- 

 parated from it by the Nile ; but the monuments 

 are not so well preserved, and the wrecks are there 

 heaped up in the greatest confusion. Some pieces 

 stillremain as unshaken witnesses of the astonishing 

 solidity of the edifices which were there constructed. 

 The front of the walls of an ancient temple quite 

 covered over with hieroglyphics is yet to be seen ; 

 a superb portico, colossal statues, among which 

 are to be distinj^uished fragments of the statue of 

 Mcmnon, which uttered sounds at the rising of the 

 sun, and which was considered in former times as a 

 miracle. I could only hastily view, with looks of 

 admiration, these valuable remains, the greater part 

 of which I only perceived from afar ; [ shall there- 

 fore dwell no longer on them here, than it was pos- 

 sible for me to remnin on the places themselves. 



I was 



