42 EXTRACT FROM A JOURNAL, DURTKCr 



plating the heautifiil monument before us, yet we 

 had conceived but an inadequate idea of its > aried 

 perfections ; so many objects occurred to arrest our 

 attention, each discovering some peculiar attraction, 

 that it would have afforded ample occup ition during 

 our remaining- stay at Gbmie, to have bestowed on 

 each the consideration they merited; a circum- 

 stance which greatly damped the anxiety I had be- 

 fore felt to visit Thebes, wh^re such an infinit}- of 

 matter presents itself to the inquisitive tra.veller. 



Oar Indian followers, who had atteftded us, be- 

 held the scene before them with a degree of admira- 

 tion bordering on veneration, arising not only from 

 the affinity they traced in several of the figures to 

 their own deities, but from their conviction of its 

 being the work of some Racshas, who they con- 

 ceived had visited the ^arth to transmit to an ad- 

 miring posterity a testimony of supernatural talents. 



I shall dismiss this subject b}'^ observing, that 

 though the conten:iplation of these surprising mo- 

 numents of the genius of the ancient Egyptians cre- 

 ates a high idea of their civilization, and respect for 

 their antiquity and progress in arts, it is obvious they 

 are greatly indebted to a beneficent providence, 

 which by placing them in a temperature, where the 

 frequent and sudden transitions of climate seldom 

 if ever occur, has given to their works a permanence 

 they could never have derived from the combined 

 power and art of man ; though it must be allowed, 

 that, notwithstanding the apparent aridity of the 

 atmosphere, owing to the almost perpetual absence 

 of rain, the exhalations* from the circumjacent in- 



* ft 



It is au opinion in Egypt, that the tail of these dews, not only 

 averts the plague, but cures those vvlio are aftected with it. 



N. B. Son IN I, in vol. Ill, of his Travels in E^i/pf, gives very 

 correct «'ielineviliM)s of soaie of the most icmalkable sculptures of 

 this lo'iple. 



