138 . JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

use their more familiar titles, Sesostris and Memnon— it is less bewildering, in a historical point of view, to the unstudied tourist, than most of the other temples of Egypt. The sanctuary, which stands nearest the Nile, is still protected by the ancient stone quay, though the river has made rapid advances, and threatens finally to undermine Luxor as it has already undermined the temples of Antseopolis and Antinoe. I rode into what were once the sacred chambers, but the pillars and sculptures were covered with filth, and the Arabs had built in, around and upon them, like the clay nests of the cliff-sparrow.

The peristyle of majestic Osiride pillars, in front of the portico, as well as the portico itself, are buried to half their depth, and so surrounded by hovels, that to get an idea of their arrangement you must make the tour of a number of hen-houses and asses' stalls. The pillars are now employed as dryingposts for the buffalo dung which the Arabs use as fuel.

Proceeding towards the entrance, the next court, which is tolerably free from incumbrances, contains a colonnade of two rows of lotus-crowned columns, twenty-eight feet in circumference. They still uphold their architraves of giant blocks of sandstone, and rising high above the miserable dwellings of the village, are visible from every part of the plain of Thebes.

The English Vice-Consul, Mustapha Agha, occupies a house between two of these pillars. We returned the visit he had paid us on our arrival, and were regaled with the everlasting coffee and shebook, than which there is no more grateful refreshment. He gave us the agreeable news that Mr. Murray was endeavoring to persuade the Pasha to have Karnak cleared of its rubbish and preserved from further spoliation. If I possessed despotic power — and I then wished it for the first time