. William H. Seward's travels around the world. once supported that glorious city of have come too late, by thousands of years, to verify the descrip-tions given of it by the poets and historians of old. There areno longer a hundred gates here, nor is there one gate, nor awall, nor a trace of a wall. There are no monuments by which wecould decide the disputed question whether the Diospolis, situatedon the east bank of the Nile, and including Luxor and Karnak,was the whole of Thebes, or whether it extended across the river,and included the Colossi, the Memnonium, and the Necropolis
. William H. Seward's travels around the world. once supported that glorious city of have come too late, by thousands of years, to verify the descrip-tions given of it by the poets and historians of old. There areno longer a hundred gates here, nor is there one gate, nor awall, nor a trace of a wall. There are no monuments by which wecould decide the disputed question whether the Diospolis, situatedon the east bank of the Nile, and including Luxor and Karnak,was the whole of Thebes, or whether it extended across the river,and included the Colossi, the Memnonium, and the Necropolis. We must first note, not what Thebes was, but what it is deck is forty feet perpendicularly below the top of the was no wharf, no dock, no bund, no ghaut; there is nostone stairway, there is no wooden one. In anticipation of ourcoming, the sheik (governor), by direction of Sultan Pacha, has ex-cavated steps in the loose, dry earth. They will serve us perhapsto reach the summit, but they will need to be repaired for our re-. THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR. 535 turn. Moreover, we are having a grand reception. Ali MuradEffendi, the loyal United States consul, although he is a true Mus-sulman, has not only displayed the broad and bright United Statesflag at his house-top, but also the gorgeous banner of Brazil, andat this moment he is pouring down upon us, with a single rustymusket, a Federal salute of eighteen guns, from his balcony. Allthe people of Thebes are on the bank to receive us. They consistof twelve mule-drivers, with their mules; twelve donkey-drivers,with their asses; ten or a dozen manufacturers and vendors ofantiquities and relics, and with an outside attendance of asmany fellahs, brought here by the unusual sight of bonfires kin-dled on the bank. We ascend, we reach the summit, we standupon the sacred plain, we dismiss the muleteers and donkey-boys for the night, we thread our way through a musty Arab vil-lage to the consulate. In the upper chambers we pay
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Keywords: ., bookcentury180, bookdecade1870, booksubjectvoyagesaroundtheworld
