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Germans, in particular, for the absorption of information of this kind. The common practice is for Raschid to talk in English --but he is besieged by the Teutonic members immediately after, and even when we are ready to start for home they always crowd around him for one more draft from the well of his wisdom. Raschid is a patient man. Every day, despite his explicit warning, the expedition is held up at the door of some tomb or temple by the failure of some of the party to bring along their monument tickets comprehensive passes bought in advance at Cairo and required at every wicket-gate in all Egypt before you can go in. To-day three old ladies forgot theirs and were immensely tickled to be let in just the same as Raschid's "wives."

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Behind the pronaos at Dendera comes the hypostyle hall - and here begins the temple proper. The Greeks would call this part of the shrine the "cella." It is a complicated building divided into many parts and possessing many little side rooms which the experts now denominate storerooms, treasuries, and laboratories. With these one has small concern, being much more impressed with the hypostyle hall in the midst of the temple-a lofty apartment, once traversed by the formal processions sacred to the goddess Hathor, and supported as to its roof by some more of those magnificent pillars, Hathor-crowned as

before. Light is admitted by apertures in the roof, for little illumination could ever hope to penetrate from the northern front. In this we took more than a passing interest because it was our first hypostyle hall— name long productive of awe-struck expectancy because of the celebrity of the great halls of Karnak. Doubtless that in the latter temple is immensely more extensive, but it will be difficult, surely, to afford a more impressive sight than that dim and lofty corridor in Hathor's fane.

Penetrating still farther into the shrine, you come to a series of great antechambers, facing the last of which is the actual sanctuary of the goddess herself. It occupies the very centre of the building and is open only at the front. When the religion was in its power, only the king might penetrate to the Holy of Holies- and he but once a year. All about the central chamber we found a narrow corridor, from which opened a dozen small apartments once used by the priests for various purposes, doubtless in part as robing-rooms and storehouses for the temple treasure. Everywhere was the omnipresent hieroglyphic record, a sealed book save for the interpretations of Raschid, representing the various phases of the worship - the goddess carried in procession in her silver boat, attended by priests and dignitaries.

I cannot now remember all that he told us, and I

am not sure that it would be worth while. One would be hopelessly dazed if one attempted to memorize all these carved and painted representations that adorn the walls of Egypt. But I have gained, I think, a lively conception of the Egyptian temples as they stood in the later days- majestic stone buildings, totally inclosed in high outer walls, and containing, after passing many courts and antechambers, one dark and narrow cell in the heart of the huge structure, which was the very pulse of the machine, so to speak the sacred place where abode the god or goddess, and where none might go save only the high priest and devotee of the god.

Taken as a stupendous whole, such a temple is highly impressive, its golden-brown stones mellowed by time, its majestic proportions fully satisfying the eye, and its grand propylon admirably setting off the picture. To have seen one of these great places of worship in the time of its glory, the throng of worshipers streaming to and fro, the royal priest advancing in procession with all the attendant trappings, and the banners of state flapping from the six tall staves that once were set before the massive pylon — must it not have been truly glorious and inspiring? At Dendera one is permitted to ascend to the roof above and to the crypts beneath — and each is well worth doing. From the roof, which is reached by a

long and gradual staircase in the massive thickness of the wall, you may gaze far out over the billowing desert to infinite distances under the glare of the sun, or back toward the river over that carpet of vivid green. Besides, you get a better idea than before of the massiveness of the temple with its roof of solid stone. In one corner of the level roof there is also a tiny and graceful shrine sacred to Isis and Osiris, for one might not ignore those potent deities even in joyous Dendera. And in the inclosure below there lies in abject ruin, half buried in the intruding débris, a so-called "birth house" devoted to the children of the goddess.

Everybody goes down to the crypt, -or nearly everybody, although the way thither is very narrow and excessively steep, not to say fearsomely dark. Our Seventy had a difficult time deciding which should go first, for the dragoman would admit no more than fifteen or twenty at a time, owing to the constricted quarters below and the difficulty of seeing well what decoration remains. Our party descended in successive squads with many squeals. By the light of magnesium wire we were allowed to view some very ancient paintings on the stone walls which are as fresh and fair as if laid on yesterday; but it is the freshness that is chiefly remarkable. Merely as art, neither the paintings nor the carvings on the walls

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