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

PHIL^. 249
CHAPTER XII.
PIIILiE.—RUINS. AUGUSTAN ERA OF EGYPTIAN ART.— TEMPLE
OF ISIS. PORTRAIT OF CLEOPATRA. PHARAOh's BED. AN
ARRIVAL. RENCONTRE. DESCENT OF THE CATARACT. AN-
OTHER RENCONTRE. EGYPTIAN PEBBLES.
Es-souan, Dec. 20tli.
There is no spot in the whole course of the
Nile which we have traversed, that can be com-
pared in beauty with the Island of Phila?,—for,
as I have before told you, Egypt is not the land
of romantic scenery, and her antique temples
have derived no illusory charm from the localities
in which they are placed. Sameness character-
izes them all ; here rolls the river, and there
stretches the Desert, and between them rise the
solemn propyla, gloomy and grand, — with no
sacred grove to shade them, no muffling ivy,
no grey lichen to bind together the crumbling
avails,—not a weed or blade of grass springing up
round the base (^f the lofty columns to refresh
the eye with their wild verdure amidst those