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

BET-OUALLY.
247
scope of my comprehension. At a short distance,
rendered immeasurably long by the nature of the
soil to be passed over in order to reach it, is the
little spcos or rock-cut temple of Bet-Oually,
only consisting of a pronaos and an adytum of
very small dimensions, but bearing on their walls
sculptures which are precious from their execu-
tion, being of the good old time when Rhamses
Sesostris was—not King— but Prince Royal of
Egypt. They represent his campaigns against
the Arabs, and his victorious return to Thebes
with captives and spoils in the shape of gold
chains, panthers' skins, elephants' teeth, ostriches'
feathers, and living lions, monkeys, and giraffes,
which he presents to his father, Osirei, the reign-
ino- Pharaoh. This is a beautiful little bit of art;
o
and after the glare and grandeur of Kalabschi,
it is like refreshing one's eyes with one of the
cabinet pictures of the old masters in the Louvre,
after returning from seeing the vast crudities of
the Versailles galleries.
This morning we visited our last Nubian tem-
ple before reaching Philoe, where we expect to
be in a few hours. Debod is but of little im-
portance in the scale of architectural beauty, and
has never been completed. Its original construc-
tion is of considerable antiquity, being about the