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It was as if she had been suddenly transported to fairyland, and was treading among the colossal habitations of giants. On all sides were stupendous masses of rock, huge boulders of all colors white, yellow and red most fantastically shaped. There were lofty towers, strange, wind-wrought obelisks, pointed pinnacles, bizarre in shape as one sees in nightmares.
And the objective was always the same: to prolong indefinitely the perspectives of pylons, colossi and obelisks, continuing always this same artery of temples and palaces in the direction of the old Nile while the latter, on the contrary, receded slowly, from century to century, towards Libya.
Another thought had made his heart pulse faster and more joyously as he saw in the distance the pylons and obelisks of Tanis; for on countless marches through the silent wilderness and in many a lonely camp he had beheld in imagination a virgin of his own race, whom he had known as a singular child, stirred by marvellous thoughts, and whom, just before leading his troops to the Libyan war, he had again met, now a dignified maiden of stern and unapproachable beauty.
With these exceptions, they made the same use of the precious metals as we do ourselves. We gild the crosses and cupolas of our churches; they covered the doors of their temples, the lower part of their wall-surfaces, certain bas-reliefs, pyramidions of obelisks, and even whole obelisks, with plates of gold. The obelisks of Queen Hatshepsût at Karnak were coated with electrum.
In 1873, President Grant appointed Mr. Roosevelt a Commissioner to the Vienna Exposition and the Roosevelt family made another foreign tour. Hoping to benefit Theodore's asthma they went to Algiers, and up the Nile, where he was much more interested in the flocks of aquatic fowl than in the half-buried temples of Dendera or the obelisks and pylons of Karnak.
Like the tabernacle of Israel, the common people were not allowed to go farther than the outer court beyond the obelisks; only kings and priests being permitted to penetrate into the interior recesses, there to observe the ritual ceremonies of the mysterious Egyptian worship.
Three miles from the ship they succeeded, not without trouble, in climbing the iceberg, which was perhaps three hundred feet high. From this point their view extended over that desolated mass which looked like the ruins of a gigantic town with its beaten-down obelisks, its overthrown steeples and palaces turned upside down all in a lump in fact, a genuine chaos.
Where natural obelisks and steep taluses abound features which would have disappeared if the region had been moved by great shocks we may be sure that the field under inspection has for a great period been exempt from powerful shaking. Judged by this standard, we may safely say that the region occupied by the Appalachian Mountains has been exempt from serious trouble.
It was covered with ruins; graceful obelisks were shaded by the thick foliage of immense trees, and the soft light of the moon, beaming on the angles of the ruined monuments, gave to the whole scenery the hue of an Italian landscape. "Here we are safe," said Gabriel, "and to-morrow you will discover that my old resting-place is not deficient in comfort."
This summary process was as effectual in those simple days as was the seal ring of the great Haroun Alraschid among the true believers. The two parties being confronted before him, each produced a book of accounts, written in a language and character that would have puzzled any but a High Dutch commentator, or a learned decipherer of Egyptian obelisks.
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