FACADE OF THE PRONAOS OF THE TEMPLE OF EDFOU. 
This is taken from the side opposite to a former view of the Grand Court, and 
exhibits more of the cloistered colonnade which surrounds three of its sides, by which 
the pronaos was approached. Around this cloister the priests ambulated, sheltered 
from the burning sun of Egypt, and where now a poor weaver is seen at work, 
shadowed by the screen which had sheltered the Pharaohs from the same sun— 
unchanged in its thousands of courses since the erection of the Temple; and unchanged 
in its effects and influence from a period long antecedent to the existence of any 
temple, any people, any social state in the land of Egypt. 
There are no ruins so complete in the valley of the Nile as those of Edfou, none 
by which the decorative taste of its architects can be so justly appreciated. Karnak 
is more severe than Dendera, more florid than Edfou—less severe than the former, 
this is more beautiful and pure than the latter. 
Not one of the temples of Egypt made a stronger impression for its beauty and 
picturesqueness upon our Artist than that of Edfou. He had visited it in his ascent 
of the Nile, and on his return he says:—“It has not lost by the temples that I have 
seen, but, on the contrary, gained in the impression it gives me of its extent and 
regularity, its massive proportions, and the beauty of its sculpture; and surpasses 
all above it for its colossal size and the excellent preservation it is in, excepting 
where it has been wantonly injured. I made two large drawings of the portico, 
and then from the latter looking across the court, or dromos, towards the propylon; 
but the heat which I endured, even under the protection of an umbrella, was intolerable, 
though this was in November.” In every situation in which it is viewed it is a 
picture. It has breadth in its parts; the columns, though massive and half buried, 
are exquisite in form. The beautiful variety in the capitals of the columns, though 
they vary as next to each other, yet they are uniform in those on one side of the 
facade of the pronaos corresponding to those on the other; but this variety is carried 
throughout the colonnade which surrounds the dromos, or court. Many are much 
injured, but not so much by time as by the violence of the conquerors of Egypt. 
There is no temple of Egypt so desecrated by the hovels of the inhabitants as 
this. Everywhere they fill up corners, hang on cornices, and cover roofs. Fortunately, 
within the dromos, the Pasha has expelled them, and cleared the corridors to make 
granaries of corn, and the impression of its beauty is left nearly undisturbed. 
