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

212 TEMPLES OF IBSAMBOUL.
figures and legends, in the most beautiful pre-
servation. The entrance of our torch-bearers
disturbed a colony of bats settled in those desert-
ed chambers, whose evolutions, as they whirled
around us in circles, formed by no means an
agreeable welcome. We had reason to know
that the temple of Ibsamboul is the abode of
serpents also, for in the corner of one of the
dark lateral chambers, we found the skin cast by
one of those reptiles there, unbroken, and look-
ing like a silver network upon the finest white
gauze— a tissue wherewith to make a fairy's gar-
ment — and altogether so curious and beautiful
a thing, that I have brought it away with me.
After more than an hour passed in the great
temple, we repaired to the lesser one ; like its
stupendous consort excavated in the rock and
facing the river. It is of the same epoch, and
was dedicated by Nofr^-Ari, the queen of Rham-
ses the Great, to Isis, the great Egyptian god-
dess. The facade is ornamented with six colossal
statues, thirty-five feet in height, hewn out of the
rock, three at each side of the door, representing
duplicates of Rhamses, his queen, and their
eldest son; the queen having her daughters at
her feet, the Pharaoh the remainder of his sons
at his. The pronaos is supported by six square