1X0 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

Bimple and sublime architectural style with the utmost elaboration of ornament. My blood pulsed fast and warm on my first view of the Roman Forum, but in Dendera I was so saddened and oppressed, that I scarcely dared speak for fear of betraying an unmanly weakness. My friend walked silently between the columns, with a face as rigidly sad as if he had just looked on the coffin of his nearest relative. Though such a mood was more painful than agreeable, it required some effort to leave the place, and after a stay of two hours, we still lingered in the portico and walked through the inner halls, under the spell of a fascination which we had hardly power to break.

The portico opens into a hall, supported by six beautiful columns, of smaller proportions, and lighted by a square aperture in the solid roof. On either side are chambers connected with dim and lofty passages, and beyond is the sanctuary and various other apartments, which receive no light from without. We examined their sculptures by the aid of torches, and our Arab attendants kindled large fires of dry corn stalks, which cast a strong red light on the walls. The temple is devoted to Athor, the Egyptian Venus, and her image is everywhere seen, receiving the homage of her worshippers. Even the dark stair case, leading to the roof—up which we climbed over heaps of sand and rubbish—is decorated throughout with processions of symbolical figures. The drawing has little of that grotesque stiffness which I expected to find in Egyptian sculptures, and the execution is so admirable in its gradations of light and shade, as to resemble, at a little distance, a monochromatic painting. The antiquarians view these remains with little interest, as they date from the comparatively recent era of the Ptolomies, at which time sculpture and architecture were od