sessing a novelty to us from the land of pale faces that enhanced the charms these pictures display, as well as the statues of the budding beauty of Isis and Athor, which we have seen; and the hue left by the sun upon their cheeks, seemed but an earnest of the ardor that must have kindled their hearts: "The imbrowning of the fruit that tells Brace's Harper's tomb, which is No. 11, suggests the idea: "And oh be blessed, ye men of yore, whose toil Too deep for day, its gardens without end; For man's Elysium, priests have realized." Alciphron. After Belzoni's tomb this is doubtless the most beautiful. Though the name designates it as the tomb of Amunmeses, and his queens, it was built also for another monarch of the twenty-first dynasty. On the columns figures and portraits of beautiful ladies speak the elegant figures and features of the two queens; the expression of Madame the Queen of Amunmeses, both face and form, fills you with the highest delight —colors so fresh, figure so tall, and graceful; indeed, Madame had good reason to be proud of her artist, and the artist proud of his subject. This must be a mistake! Raphael's touch is here—it was some master of his period that did this! Titian's colors outlasted by thousands of years! Oh art! art! you are eternal here. Some of the paintings are like the frescoes of Belzoni's tomb—some are intaglios. Here I found several of the names of my friends of Cairo, Alexandria, and Europe, among the hieroglyphics of the Pharaohs. The harper is here in a little room like a Catholic shrine, of which there are numbers in this tomb. It reminds me of David and his minstrelsy. Stories of the king are in the large room, his processions, his mythology, his judgment, his sarcophagus. In one room there are seats for a divan, like a Roman caenabulum, the purpose of which I have explained in another place.* Here were feasts in the sight of the dead, a sacrifice of a human victim, freshly painted stories, and paintings, where the master's hand left off, to recommence to-morrow—and the morrow took thought for the things of itself! Such were the underground palaces which this king prepared for his memory! The broken columns attest the persevering mutilations of Champollion and Lepsius, whom the inscriptions of German, French, and English travellers reprobate. One couplet unjustly ridicules Sir Gardner Wilkinson: a space is filled with names of persons of wealthier position from New-York, and other cities, and England. Here you may see the oxen treading out corn,t labors of the husbandmen, gatherings of fruits and grain, a monkey eating fruit, ploughs drawn by oxen two abreast, (the same used now in Egypt,) orchards, gardens, field sports, arts, trades, manufactures; sowers carrying seed in baskets ; * men transporting pillars and marble sculpture; a crowd transporting a colossal statue; slaughtering cattle, casting metals, &c. The tomb of Psammis, son of Pharaoh Necho, is one of the most magnificent in Thebes. It is 309 feet long, and contains the scenes of early Egyptian history, and the most beautiful and rich paintings. Most of all the tombs it was covered with mystical and idolatrous figures. The sacred boats, and sacred serpents, with their legs and human feet, and the Theban Triad, monsters, mysteries, astronomical and hierophantic processions of men carrying serpents, boats, mummies lying on a couch with serpents' heads, a barrow resting upon a snake, which people carried, emblematic of Kneph, or Cnuphis—the good divinity; the king offering to Anubis, Aroeris, Isis, Osiris, Ammon, Mouth, Chons—are all seen here. In one room is a well, or pitr which Belzoni explored thirty feet, and where doubtless there was a subterranean passage, in which the priests entered,, and held their licentious rites after the tomb was closed up; in the same style as the story in "Bel and the Dragon" relates. In the same room is the procession of Persians, Greeks, Jews, Egyptians, who are here to attest the victories and swell the triumph of Pharaoh Necho. The negroes are as distinct as those you would find in our streets, and the Jews as well marked as those of Chatham-street. Twelve steps lead again into the corridor, in which the names of Nechao and Psammuthis occur: Isis gives tokens of favor. * 1 Kings xix. 17; Deut. vxii. 10; Job i. 14, 15; x.viv. 3; Prov. xx. 4; 1 Sam. xiv. 4. HIEROPII ANTS-NEOPHYTES—INITIATION. 113 A handsome chamber follows: the king is offering to Anubis, Isis, Osiris; then comes a procession of captives, twelve long decorated square columns, on which I saw the name of a NewYork distinguished scholar ;* a chamber, with the hero at his devotions; a human sacrifice, with some of the heads struck off; -and one mutilated fallen column in a room for couches. Every variety of animals—elephants, bears, leopards, panthers, lynxes, giraffes, are seen; one man striking a crocodile; a bull-fight; one man numbering cattle, while his master and men are practising archery; a number of people, like Jews, are making bricks.t Here Egyptian overseers are overlooking the laborers, and among the rest a human sacrifice. Time will not suffice to enumerate the thousand illustrations of the Bible contained in these tombs. In the pages of Hengstenberg, Yates, and Osborn, they are referred to and dwelt upon. Forms and figures of beauty, luxurious couches, and fautettils, as if inviting to rest; arm-chairs, and chaises longues on a sort of pedestal, ascended by steps; a wooden bed-support; tables, with lions' paws for feet, like a modern piano; footstools, all are here. Here is the economy t of the householder; the butcher slaughtering the ox, the cook cutting up the joints of meat, the caldron suspended over the fire, the beggar at the door, waiting for his share. The young neophyte, like Orpheus, passed through fire, water, air; and the danger, being magnified to try his courage, when it came to the point proved to be no danger at all. It was only a humbug to try his pluck • and the priest, clapping him on his back, said, "You are a good fellow, and will make * Dr. A n t Hengstenberg. J Mrs. Romer. H one of us. Here is wine; here the food of pigs, calves, goats, which we keep for food, but for idols ostensibly to the herd." This Plato—this Orpheus, when they came here, went through. Such was Mithra's cave; such the night mysteries—the Orphic egg of the great temple; such Eleusis and its trials; such Elysium and its rewards. The priests waved their wands, and conjured, for the herd's benefit, monsters into gods; "While Reason like a grave-faced mummy stands, These things account for the mesmerism which we see in the tombs at Thebes. The priest is there represented as making the mesmeric passes over his subject. Their great Hermes was Joseph, who gained from his Chaldean ancestors—which they transmitted through the family of Shem—that knowledge of astrology and other subjects which were probably at that day imperfectly known in Egypt. He was their great Hermes. Such were the secrets of the priests at Heliopolis, where Joseph married the high priest's daughter; such the arcana of Memphis and the city of the dead; such "Diospolitan craft and Heliopolite lore." Among their mysteries was the great zodiac, which, the priest interpreted to the neophyte, showing the track of the sun among the spheres, the simple laws of astronomy which our children all know, the feasts in honor of his coming in the spring, and the songs of sorrow at darkness, the mysteries of Sais. Here also was their secret reign of eternal life, which we see the priests showering over the king at Medinet Habou—a mere sign of creation, artfully disguised by the |