A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

1 54 DISENCHANTMENT.
There, my first occuj3ation was to see what
Champollion said about it,
mortification— I discovered
when— judge of my
that my enthusiasm
had run riot mal dprojws ! for instead of find-
ing that my admiration was sanctioned by the
judgment of that high-priest of hieroglyphics,
I found that he declared Esneh to be of the
lowest order of Egyptian temjDles — enjin, as
they say in France, c'est la 'petite biere ! What
my unpractised eye had been revelling upon
as the supposed ovals of the Thothmes, the
Amenephons, and the Rhamses, Monsieur
Champollion, who read those hieroglyphics as
you and I would read the Morni7ig Post, has
pronounced to be those of Domitian, Trajan,
Claudius, Titus, &c. ; and all that is visible of
Esneh to belong to " des temps modernes—un
des monumens les plus r^cemment achev^s,"
in short, a miserable modern item in the re-
trospect of ages that one has to deal with in
this country, only dating from the time of the
Roman domination, a paltry eighteen hundred
years ago !
So, you see, what his learning
taught him to despise, my ignorance led me
to delight in ; and I much question whether
any of the monuments of high antiquity that
are before me, will occasion mc more wonder
—