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

TExMPLES OF IBSAMBOUL. 205
of saints executed in a most barbarous manner.
These are evidences of the temple having been
occupied and used as a place of worship by
the early Christians— perhaps by some of the
Fathers of the Church, who, after the schisms
of which Alexandria was the theatre, took re-
fuge in the desert, where they gathered round
them converts to the pure Gospel truths then
dawning upon mankind, whose sublime simpli-
city even in the midst of the perversions with
which fanatics and schismatics sought to cloud
them, must have put to shame the complicated
mysteries of Egyptian idolatry. The bats have
now almost effaced the traces of Christian con-
secration that lend a sacred interest to the walls
of this rude Speos ; and the stench created by
the myriads of those filthy creatures congre-
******
gated there, soon drove us back to our boat;
and again we went forward until nightfall.
I have just returned from exploring the two
Temples of Ibsamboul, those wonderful rock-
cut sanctuaries which for centuries remained a
dead letter to mankind, having been so com-
pletely buried in the drifting sands of the de-
sert that nothing save the head of one colossal
statue was left uncovered to excite the surmise