it to spring into being fully grown, as Athena sprang from the brow of Zeus. The young monarch still deified the disc of the sun, but with the name of Ammon he would have nothing to do. He went to the extent of changing his own name, which of course embodied a reference to the god, from Amenhotep to Ikhnaton (Splendor-of-the-Sun'sDisc), and he removed himself and his court from Thebes to a new site now occupied by the village which bears the name Tell el Amarna. Tradition says that he derived the impulse to this new and monotheistic cult from his mother, the famous Queen Tii, who is alleged by some to have been a woman of foreign birth. There survive several hymns written for the new god in Ikhnaton's time which bear a striking resemblance to the old poems of the Hebrews preserved in our own Bible. But the new religion did not venture to associate with its new god any such ethical concept as we now imply in the notion of deity. Ikhnaton's advance, while considerable, did not go so far. But even so it proved too advanced for the times, and when the king died without issue worthy to carry on the government his faith perished with him, Ammon returned to his throne, and Thebes once more became great. The new city, built by a dreamer's fiat, perished from the earth, leaving little but some distant tombs in the rock and a bit of pavement once the pride and glory of Ikhnaton's palace. Such fragments of the palace floor as remain are wonderfully fresh and vivid in their decoration, and if I mistake not, this is the only surviving relic of an actual habitation- especially a royal one-that we have seen in Egypt. Our explorations have had more to do with temples and tombs. But here at last we came upon a floor once trod by living men and as bright and clean as if it still were used. It is of stucco, and in any climate but that of Egypt would have perished miserably years ago. As it is, one may still see in it not only the marks of its ancient columns, but the highly creditable paintings with which the artists adorned it. These are pictures of animals, fish, and vegetable life such as one finds in a marsh, and the drawing is worthy to be compared with the best in ancient Egypt. Enough of it remains to furnish forth several connecting rooms in the lowly shed that now shields them from the weather, an humble but useful successor to the old palace of Ikhnaton. The whole work is significant of the fact that Ikhnaton's reign was marked, not only by a new religious tendency, but also by a distinct revolution in art— a revolt from the set conventions of the Imperial period toward the lively realism which had so distinguished the painters and sculptors of the Memphian times. The tombs, including Ikhnaton's own, which are impossible of visitation from the Nile steamers because of the brevity of their stay, are said to afford further examples of the realism of the period - examples which reveal a lamentable tendency toward exaggeration, more especially in the matter of portraying the excessive spareness of the monarch, who was a person of a leanness truly marvelous. These we had no opportunity to see. As for the famous Tell el Amarna letters, inscribed in cuneiform characters on bricks, none exist longer in the spot where they were found, but have been scattered among the museums of the world, including at least one in America. So ends our Nile cruise. Behind us lies an enchanted country, and before us the haunts of men. We have seen our last great temple, our last rosy pylon, our last painted and sculptured tombs. The colossi of Rameses and of Memnon, the desolation of the desert valleys, the terraced cliffs glowing in the sunset, the villages huddling under the palms, the peasants toiling at the shadouf-all these have blended in a mellow memory. Before us loom the massive pyramids that stride in an imposing line along the western shore, all purple in the twilight haze under a cloudless firmament where blazes a single star. At the bank the black feluccas are mooring |