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| Title | Picturesque Palestine, Sinai, and Egypt, Vol. 2 |
| Creator (LCNAF) |
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| Publisher | D. Appleton and Company |
| Date | 1883 |
| Description | Index: Phoenicia and Lebanon / by the Rev. H. W. Jessup -- The Phoenician plain / by the Rev. Canon Tristram -- Acre, the key of Palestine, Mount Carmel and the river Kishon, Maritime cities and plains of Palestine / by Miss M. E. Rogers -- Lydda and Ramleh, Philistia / By Lt. Col. Warren -- The south country of Judaea / by the Rev. Canon Tristram -- The southern borderland and Dead Sea / by Professor Palmer -- Mount Hor and the cliffs of Edom, The convent of St. Catherine / by Miss M. E. Rogers -- Sinai / by the Rev. C. P. Clarke -- The land of Goshen, Cairo, Memphis, Thebes, Edfu and Philae / by S. Lane-Poole. |
| Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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| Genre (AAT) |
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| Language | English |
| Type (DCMI) |
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| Original Item Location | DS107 .W73 v.2 |
| Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b1703789~S11 |
| Digital Collection | Exotic Impressions: Views of Foreign Lands |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/exotic |
| Repository | Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room, William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://info.lib.uh.edu/about/campus-libraries-collections/william-r-jenkins-architecture-art-library |
| Use and Reproduction | No Copyright - United States |
| Identifier | exotic_201304_015 |
| Title | Page 408 |
| Format (IMT) |
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| File Name | exotic_201304_015_435.jpg |
| Transcript | 4o8 PICTURESQUE PALESTINE. the Nile, and in later days a special quarter for the Phoenician traders who brought their merchandise to Egypt So large was the city that even in the time of its decline it was half a day's journey to cross it from north to south. For five thousand years Memphis was the first or the second city of Egypt It was only second to Sais when Herodotus journeyed then-, and even when Alexandria was founded Memphis still stood next in rank. The Arab invasion and the building of Fustat at last destroyed it, for the inhabitants migrated to the new capital hard by. But long after this it was still a wonder to travellers, and that delightful writer, the learned physician 'Abd-el-Latif of Baghdad, describes Memphis as it was in the beginning of the thirteenth century with his quaint and graphic pencil. "Its .ruins," he says, 'l still present a crowd of wonders that bewilder the intellect, and which the most eloquent of men would vainly attempt to describe. The more one considers the city, the greater grows the admiration which it inspires, and each new glance at its ruins is a fresh cause of delight. Scarcely has it given birth to one idea when it suggests another still more marvellous; and when you believe you have thoroughly grasped it, Memphis at once convinces you that what you have conceived is still far behind the truth." The wonderful monolithic green chamber of brecchia verde, once the shrine of a golden statue with jewelled eyes, was still to be seen there-, and the sphinxes of the temple of Ptah, the Egyptian Vulcan, originator and fashioner of all things, and the walls and gates thereof, were still standing; but even there the insane greed of treasure-hunters had begun to work its disastrous effects. From the temples and tombs of Memphis to the ruins of Merv, the Oriental mind has associated the remains of antiquities with the presence of concealed treasure. 'Abd-el-Latif records with indignation the irreparable destruction wrought by "people without sense" in this childish pursuit, and tells how they mutilated the statues (whom they took for guardians of the tombs), bored holes, wrenched off metal-work, and split up monoliths, in the hope of discovering hidden wealth. Most of the tombs and Pyramids have been impiously broken into and pillaged of whatever they contained, though it could never have repaid the pains of excavation to vulgar burglars without archaeological instinct. And when treasure was no longer expected, a worse thing came upon the monuments of Egypt: they were used as building materials for the walls and mosques and citadel of Cairo. Columns and slabs were carried over the river to the new capital; the splendid masonry which had stood unshaken for five thousand years was used for the beautiful but unstable monuments of Arab art; and the wonderful ruins that excited the admiration of the old traveller of Baghdad are now vanished. Of all that splendour and beauty nothing remains; as we wander among the palms that fatten on the site of Memphis, a few fragments of what may have been the temple, and the great half-buried, half-drowned colossus of Rameses II. prone upon its face (see page 410)' are all that remain to remind us of the oldest city of the world. " The images have ceased out of Noph " (Ezek. xxx. 13). Even the Pyramids were not spared. 'Abd-el-Latif tells us how he saw the workmen of El Melik El-'Aziz, son of Saladin, employed in 1196 in pulling down the Third Pyramid |