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

TEMPLES OF IBSAMBOUL. 213
pillars, three and three, to which are affixed Isis-
headed Caryatides, the face broad and unmeaning
and destitute of all beauty. A vestibule succeeds
the pronaos, and then comes the sanctuary, at the
furthermost end of which, in a niche, is a muti-
lated and almost effaced statue with a cow's head,
no doubt representing the goddess Isis under her
cow-like attributes. A broad band of hieroglyphics
runs round all the doors, and the mystical bas-
reliefs which ornament this temple are coloured,
and in high preservation. Its facade is quite
disengaged from any of those sand drifts that
still obstruct and deface so much of the exterior
of the great temple, and were it not for the vici-
nity of its stupendous neighbour, the lesser temple
of Ibsamboul would pass for a colossal creation.
Now, then, I have for the first time, been en-
abled to form a distinct idea of the interior dis-
position of an Egyptian temple in all its parts
and if what I have just beheld has appeared to
me imposing, almost overpoweringly grand, in
its actual state of ruin and desolation, how must
it have shown when the shrine still contained its
idols—when those vast portals, thrown open, re-
vealed to the wondering eyes of the multitude
the interior of the rude rock, cut into chambers
of beauty succeeding each other into dim per-
;