corn-measure. The walls and pillars are covered with the most interesting sculptured 
representations of the victories of Remeses, painted in vivid colours and in excellent 
preservation; across the roof are repetitions of the sacred falcon.” 
The principal decorations of the interior are the historical subjects, relating to 
the conquests of Remeses II., represented in the great hall. A large tablet, containing 
the date of his first year, extends over great part of the north wall; another, between 
the two last pillars on the opposite side of this hall, of his thirty-fifth year, has been 
added long after the Temple was completed. 
Belzoni’s Travels. Eoberts’s Journal. 
RUINS OF LUXOR, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST. 
This view of the Temple of Luxor is seen by the traveller, as he descends the Nile, 
and is taken from one of the fertile islands which lie in the river nearly opposite to 
the Temple. On this side of the city lay the port of Thebes, formerly protected 
by a mole; and, whatever may have been the splendour and power of Remeses the 
Great, a fleet could in a very small degree have contributed to its acquisition or its 
defence. The imagination may fill the land with pictures of the life and activity of its 
crowded and warlike inhabitants; but there could have been no navy on its waters, 
nor any vessels, except the boats which ferried the inhabitants from shore to shore, 
or gay pleasure-seekers in their splendid craft, or the grave but grand processions of 
the great dead of the city when taken to their resting-place in the Biban El Maloolc, or 
the necropolis of the priesthood, situated amidst the Libyan hills, which are seen in 
this sketch. On this side of the propylon is seen the minaret of the mosque of a 
celebrated Sheikh, named Abd Alhajaj, amidst structures that have braved more than 
thirty centuries, and looks like ill-assorted company; but not quite so outrageous 
in its contrast as the vile mud-huts that form “the Arab village of Luqsor, which 
has kennelled itself in the lordly halls of the Pharaohs.” In the foreground of the 
sketch is a shadoof, one of the simple means of raising water from the Nile for 
irrigation, seen everywhere on its banks, but which is a source of excessive labour 
and waste of energy to the Fellahs, who are employed to work them. 
Bonomi’s Notes. 
Wathen’s Arts and Antiquities of Egypt. 
