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Updated: June 29, 2025
Such difficulties were, in fact, a frequent source of inspiration; and Philae shows with what skill the Egyptians extracted every element of beauty and picturesqueness from enforced disorder. The idea of the rock-cut temple must have occurred to the Egyptians at an early period.
These gentlemen, one of whom was a Russian, I think, tried to get the guard to let me see the place with them, but he hesitated, and required them to give him a paper stating that I was there with them. Later, when I got to the place where the tickets were sold, I learned that Philae Island was open for visitors without a ticket. Perhaps the guard thought he would get some "backshish" from me.
Biddy said that she had asked to have some coffee kept hot for me. I needed it! That is what delayed our start for Philae and is, I suppose, why everything that took place there afterward happened exactly as it did. If we had left the Dam an hour earlier, there would have been no excuse to stop for sunset at the temple which those who love it call the "Pearl of Egypt."
Now, the waters which once rushed down are prisoned by the Great Dam, and stand enslaved, to wall the temple round like a great pearl in a crystal case. She is the true Bride of the Nile; for, as long ago the fairest of maidens gave herself to the water as a sacrifice, so Philae gives herself for the life of the people.
We English people have effected that curious introduction, and we greatly pride ourselves upon it. We have presented Sir William Garstin, and Mr. John Blue, and Mr. Fitz Maurice, and other clever, hard-working men to the fabled Lady of Philae, and they have given her a gift: a dam two thousand yards in length, upon which tourists go smiling on trolleys.
Under the gleaming moon, the exquisite temple of Philae perched on its high rock above the river, the fires on the shore, the masts of the dahabiehs twinkling with lights, and the barbarous songs floating across the water, gave the feeling of past centuries to the scene.
The cow is frequently so employed. The Hindus have the image of a cow in nearly every temple, the deity corresponding to the Grecian Venus. In the temple of Philae in Egypt, Isis is represented with the horns and ears of a cow joined to a beautiful woman. The cow is still sacred in many parts of Africa.
In the submerged temple of Philae lies the bridal chamber of the beloved Osiris and his wife Isis. None of all this was lost upon Michael, whose nature was ever tuned to the concert pitch of his surroundings. Assuan affected him as a gorgeous orchestra affects a lover of Wagner. But the sound of the hotel band, bringing a waltz to a close, made Mrs.
Philae now, when out of the water, as it was all the time when I was last in Egypt, looks like a thing stricken with some creeping malady one of those maladies which begin in the lower members of a body, and work their way gradually but inexorably upward to the trunk, until they attain the heart.
His worship was unknown at Abydos in the earlier temples, and is not mentioned at the cataracts; though in later times he became the leading deity of Abydos and of Philae.
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