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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 469 |
| Format (IMT) |
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| File Name | exotic_201304_015_497.jpg |
| Transcript | 468 PICTURESQUE PALESTLNE. scenery. We ride over miles of bare desert, with nothing to vary its yellow surface but huge torn masses of granite and black syenite. Immense jagged volcanic rocks tower up on either hand, and seem to have been intentionally thrown into the most impossible positions, balanced upon one another in the most hazardous way, and broken and split and thrown together in the strangest and weirdest shapes and combinations. It is one of the most extraordinary scenes in Egypt, and its historical associations are scarcely less wonderful. For it was here that the masons of Memphis and Thebes and Heliopolis came to quarry the granite for the coating of the Third Pyramid, the Temple of the Sphinx, the obelisks, colossi, shrines and sanctuaries of the great temples at Thebes, and indeed for every monument in Egypt. We may still see what looks like an obelisk half cut out of the rock and then abandoned. Every obelisk in Egypt was cut out of the solid rock just in the same manner, from " Cleopatra's needle " to Hatasu's tall pillar at Karnak. Hence, too, came the colossal statues of Rameses, the huge sarcophagi of Apis, and countless other famous monuments. How they were cut and engraved at THE APPROACH TO PHIL^. *( In the time of the Ptolemies visitors from all parts of Egypt, travellers from distant lands, court functionaries from Alexandria, came annually in crowds to pay their vows at the tomb of the god." Aswan, and then floated down the river, and then rolled to the place where they were to stand, is one of the marvels of this marvellous antiquity. At length we reach the river again ; but now we are above the Cataract. A boat is ready and assistance is clamorously proffered, and we row across to Philae. The approach to the island is very beautiful. On either hand great bare shining rocks, black and grey, tower against the sky, while between them, through an opening, appears the little island, with palms in the foreground, and the well-preserved pylon of the Temple of Isis rising out of the green. Philae is green, however, only by comparison with the general brownness. There is really little verdure on the island, which is now wholly deserted; and it suffers from the same parched, barren aspect that is characteristic of all Upper Egypt. We cannot help missing the greenery |