File:Egypt and its monuments (1908) (14590417148).jpg

Identifier: egyptitsmonument00hich (find matches)
Title: Egypt and its monuments
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Hichens, Robert Smythe, 1864-1950
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Century Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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high Nile not yet subsided ! But Egypt is thefavored land of a spring that is already alert at the endof November, and in December is pushing forth itsgreen. The Nile has sunk away from the feet of theColossi that it has bathed through many days. It hasfreed the plain to the fellaheen, though still it keeps myisland in its clasp. And Hapi, or Kam-wra, the GreatExtender, and Ra, have made this wonderful springto bloom on the dark earth before the ChristiansChristmas. What a pastoral it is, this plain of Thebes, in thedawn of day! Think of the reed flute, I have said,not because you will hear it, as you ride toward themountains, but because its voice would be utterly inplace here, in this arcady of Egypt, playing no taran-tella, but one of those songs, half bird-like, and halfsadly, mysteriously human, which come from the soulof the East. Instead of it, you may catch distant criesfrom the bank of the river, where the shadoof-mantoils, lifting ever the water and his voice, the one to io8
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COLOSSI OF MEMNON earth, the other, it seems, to sky; and the creaking layof the water-wheel, which pervades Upper Egypt likean atmosphere, and which, though perhaps at first itirritates, at last seems to you the sound of the soul ofthe river, of the sunshine, and the soil. Much of the land looks painted. So flat is it, soyoung are the growing crops, that they are like a coat-ing of green paint spread over a mighty canvas. Butthe doura rises higher than the heads of the nakedchildren who stand among it to watch you canter past.And in the far distance you see dim groups of trees—sycamores and acacias, tamarisks and palms. Beyondthem is the very heart of this land of sand and ruinsand gold: Medinet-Abu, the Ramesseum, Deir-el-Medinet, Kurna, Deir-el-Bahari, the tombs of the kings,the tombs of the queens and of the princes. In thestrip of bare land at the foot of those hard, and yet po-etic, mountains, have been dug up treasures the fame ofwhich has gone to the ends of the world. But t

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