Travel
Diary of Mrs. R.P. Eaton:
Europe,
Egypt, and Palestine, ca. 1857
our glasses, fine views of massive columns seeming to rise
up out of the soil, in which indeed they are deeply imbedded.
These were a fashion of Luxor, and are long our boat was made
fast to the east bank only a few minutes’ walk from these
stupendous relics. After an early dinner we wandered
among them. Some of the mud cabins in the present village
of Thebes are built upon and among the grand old ruins of
the temple of Luxor. Magnificent columns covered
with hieroglyphics, and still standing in their original posi-
tions, are filled around and half covered with the accumu-
lated dust and filth of ages, while some are entirely obscured
by the wretched hovels that cluster about them, and can be
seen only by entering these repulsive abodes, amid yelp-
ing ears, braying donkeys, cackling fouls, and dirty Arabs.
But as you look upon these old pillars of stone, exquisitely
chiseled, wander through the halls that yet remain, and sur-
vey their vast gateways and colossal statues, you feel that
they who built them were men of genius and power.
One of the most beautiful objects here is an obelisk of
red granite, more than three thousand years old, and yet
its appearance and its hieroglyphics are still fresh and
unimpaired. Another of the same size firmly stood
near it, but now it adorns the Place de la Concorde
in Paris.
A mile and a half north of Luxor are the ruins of
Harnak, the grandest temple in Egypt, if not in the world.
I visited it just at evening, enjoying it as it turned as gorgeous a
sunset a mortal vision could desire. Ah! What varied scenes,
What splendid pageants, what age of Glory and decay, that setting
sun has witnessed here. It is impossible to describe harmak.
One must see it, or the will has no adequate idea of its Aston-
ishing magnitude or beauty. Such an array of massive gates,
towers, columns, obelisks, and statues is a perfect marvel. Think
of a temple including its famous halls and apartments, twelve
hundred feet long and about five hundred feet wide, its
massive walls rising like palisades, and its immense pillars
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