"In all these pictures the men are represented with an ethnic and artistic truth that enables us easily to recognize their race and station. The animals are not only distinguishable, but the characteristic peculiarities of each species are seized with a power of generalization seldom, if ever, surpassed." "More striking than even the paintings are the portrait statues which have recently been discovered in the secret recesses of these tombs; nothing more wonderfully truthful and realistic has been done since that time till the invention of photography, and even that can hardly represent a man with such unflattering truthfulness as these old coloured terra-cotta portraits of the sleek rich men of the Pyramid period."

I now turn to the pages describing the buildings at Thebes.

'Though the Rhamession is so grand from its dimensions, and so beautiful from its design, it is far surpassed in every respect by the palace temple at Karnac, which is perhaps the noblest effort of architectural magnificence ever produced by the hand of man.

"Its principal dimensions are 1200 feet in length, by about 360 in width, and it covers therefore about 430,000 square feet, or nearly twice the area of St. Peter's at Rome, and more than four times that of any medieval cathedral existing. This, however, is not a fair way of estimating its dimensions, for our churches are buildings entirely under one roof; but at Karnac a considerable portion of the area was uncovered by any buildings, so that no such comparison is just. The great hypostile hall, however, is internally 340 feet by 170, and with its two pylons it covers more than 88,000 square feet, a greater area than the cathedral of Cologne, the largest of all our northern cathedrals; and when we consider that this is only a part of a great whole, we may fairly assert that the

entire structure is among the largest, as it undoubtedly is one of the most beautiful, buildings in the world.

"We have thus in this one temple a complete history of the style during the whole of its most flourishing period; and either for interest or for beauty it forms such a series as no other country and no other age can produce. Besides those buildings mentioned above, there are other temples to the North, to the East, and more especially to the South, and pylons connecting them, and avenues of sphinxes extending for miles, and enclosing walls and tanks and embankmentsmaking up such a group as no city ever possessed before or since. St. Peter with its colonnades and the Vatican make up an immense mass, but as insignificant in extent as in style when compared with this glory of ancient Thebes and its surrounding temples.

"The culminating point and climax of all this group of buildings is the hypostile hall of Manephthah.... No language can convey an idea of its beauty, and no artist has yet been able to reproduce its form so as to convey to those who have not seen it an idea of its grandeur. The mass of its central piers, illumined by a flood of light from the clerestory, and the smaller pillars of the wings gradually fading into obscurity, are so arranged and lighted as to convey an idea of infinite space; at the same time, the beauty and massiveness of the forms, and the brilliancy of their coloured decorations, all combine to stamp this as the greatest of man's architectural works, but such a one as it would be impossible to reproduce except in such a climate and in that individual style in which and for which it was created."

There is one more quotation from which I am unable to refrain.

"In all the conveniences and elegances of building they seem to have anticipated all that has been in those countries down

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to the present day. Indeed, in all probability, the ancient Egyptians surpassed the modern in those respects as much as they did in the more important forms of architecture."

True artistic power may display itself in a gem as well as in the design of a cathedral. The precious materials of which Egyptian jewellery was composed have naturally contributed to their destruction in former times, but there are still extant trinkets of marvellous beauty. A few years ago some peasants near Thebes dug up the coffin of the queen Aahhotep, wife of king Rames. This king's name is one of those which does not occur in the tablet of Abydos, but he is known from different records, and his picture is found at Qurnah in a tomb of the eighteenth dynasty. Queen Aahhotep was the ancestress of this dynasty. Her coffin contained treasures of jewellery, which were brought to Paris at the last General Exhibition, and are now objects of wonder and admiration to all who visit the Museum at Bulaq. Between the linen coverings, precious weapons and ornaments were found, daggers, a golden axe, a chain with three large golden bees and a breastplate, and on the body itself a golden chain, with a scarabaeus, armlets, a fillet for the brow and other objects. Two little barks in gold and silver, bronze axes bearing the name of her husband Rāmes, and great bangles for the ankles, lay immediately upon the wood of the coffin. The jewellers of Paris could not have produced more exquisite workmanship.

I must not omit to tell you that, to the practised eye of an archaeologist, every object of Egyptian art bears upon it as well defined a date as a mediaeval church window or porch. The astonishing identity which is visible through all the periods of Egyptian art is consistent with an immense amount of change which must exist wherever there is life. There are periods of splendour, progress and deterioration, and every age has its peculiar character. Birch, Lepsius or Mariette, would at once tell you the age of a statue, inscription or manuscript, without looking at the text which actually mentions the exact date.

Painting, as understood in these later centuries, was entirely unknown to the Egyptians, though they had coloured pictures; but the harmony of colours was thoroughly understood by them, and their employment of colour in architecture or generally in decoration puts our modern efforts to shame. "They were aware" (as Sir Gardner Wilkinson says) "that for decorative purposes the primary colours should predominate, and that secondary hues should be secondary in quantity and in position; their most usual combinations were therefore blue, red and green; and a fillet of white or yellow was introduced between them to obviate that false effect which is apt to convert red and blue into purple when placed together in immediate contact. When yellow was introduced, a due proportion of black was added to balance it, and for each colour was sought its

suitable companion; or if certain colours occasionally predominated in a part of the wall, the balance was restored by a greater quantity of others elsewhere, so that the due proportions of all were kept up, and the general effect was a perfect concord."

The earliest monuments show the use of a great variety of musical instruments-flutes, pipes, harps, guitars, lyres and tamburines-and they give representations of concerts in which human voices are combined with the sounds of several instruments.1 My learned friend Dr. Dümichen, himself an admirable musician, in noticing the presence not only of a monkey, but of hounds, at a concert in the tomb of Ptahhotep, is very much tempted to doubt the musical taste of that great dignitary of the fifth dynasty, and to suppose that he preferred the accompaniments of his canine friends. There is, however, I believe, reason to suppose that the picture is intended to represent dogs from the spirit-land, whose ears are no doubt attuned to the harmony of sweet sounds.

The Egyptians were not, as used on very insufficient evidence to be supposed, a sad or morose people. Their religion at least does not appear to have been "designed to make their pleasures less." The description of their

1 See Wilkinson, "Ancient Egyptians," Vol. I. p. 431; Carl Engel, "Music of the Most Ancient Nations," p. 180; and Lauth, "Ueber altägyptische Musik," in the Sitzungsberichte of the Munich Academy, 3rd July, 1869.