30 ANCIENT EGYPT. 



The great hall of columns, lettered E on the ground plan, 

 is the most marvellous embodyment of architectural im- 

 pressiveness that ever emanated from human intelligence, 

 and is justly regarded as the masterpiece of all ages, alike 

 wonderful in its realization of the ideas of space, immensity, 

 and distance, as for the feelings of awe, reverence, and 

 bewilderment that it inspires ; the hall is the forest turned into 

 stone, and the roof glistening with stars the heavens above. 

 This, as it stands before you, is, I believe, the greatest hall 

 ever built, rising some 80 feet above the ground; and the 

 colossal character of the details is most striking. It measures 

 about 170 feet by 338 feet inside measurement, with an area 

 of more than 6,000 square yards. Of the fourteen gigantic 

 columns that formed the nave, twelve only are now visible, 

 the other two having been built into the pylon ; they measure 

 about 69 feet in height by 32 feet in circumference, requiring 

 six men, with outstretched arms, to span one of them. The 

 capitals, which are of the lotus-flower variety, are about 

 12 feet high, and the total size of the pillar is something like 

 that of the Column of Trajan — the shafts are slightly bulbous, 

 a characteristic of native Egyptian architecture after the 

 renaissance beginning with the xviith. dynasty. The archi- 

 traves connecting them are estimated to weigh about 60 tons 

 each. The columns, 122 in number, forming the aisles, though 

 still enormous, are shorter, being about 43 feet high, the shafts 

 33 feet, while the girth is about 27-^ feet. The capitals are of 

 the lotus-bud type. Many of the columns in the hall have 

 dry joints, and are kept in position merely by the super- 

 incumbent weight — they are not solid, two -thirds of their 

 diameter being filled in with cement. The reliefs are in 

 intaglio, in which the engraved subject is sunk beneath the 

 surface, being thus distinguished from a cameo, which is en- 

 graved in relief. 



The nave, of course, projects above the aisles, with clere- 

 story of muUioned windows, admitting but a dim religious 

 light, soft enough to tone down the effect of the somewhat 

 crude pigments employed in the decorations, some of which 



