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

20G TEMPLES OF IBSAMBOUL.
and curiosity of Nile voyagers. None among
them, however, had the spirit to undertake a
clearance of the accumulated sand, and ascer-
tain whether it buried merely a solitary statue^
or whether a temple or a tomb were hidden
beneath that avalanche, until in the year 1817,
Belzoni, accompanied by Captains Irby and
Mangles, volunteered to effect an excavation.
To their enterprise, then, is the scientific w^orld
indebted for the discovery of one of the most
magnificent specimens of Egyptian art exist-
ing in the valley of the Nile—a monument
which Champollion attributes to the best epoch
of Pharaonic civilization, and classes w4th the
glorious ruins of Thebes, as greatest and best
of all that remains of a wonderful age, and a
no less wonderful people. Honoured be the
names of those enterprising individuals whose
labours have enabled all succeeding pilgrims of
the Nile to visit these mighty shrines ! They
ought to be classed with the names of the
discoverers of new countries; for old as are
the temples they have restored to the light
of the sun, the entrance to them had been
for so many centuries closed to mankind, that
they were new as unknown lands to the actual
generation.