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

284 MEUINET HABOU.
lief in the reality of the Pre-adamite Sultans !
Between the spot they occupy and the site of
Medinet Habou, the fragments of other colossi and
of sphinxes are scattered about—wrecks of the
glories of old Thebes— and like the fossil frag-
ments of animals, whose species have long since
become extinct, and whose quondam existence
is known to us only by those incomplete re-
mains, enabling us to form a judgment of what
the ivhole must have been in a perfect state.
From thence we came to Medinet Habou, a
beautiful pasticcio of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemies,
and the Caesars ; a mixed monument, so rich in
ornament that the mind becomes bewdldered in
endeavouring either to class its various parts, or
to retain them in the memory. Temples and
palaces are mingled together in tantalizing con-
fusion, amidst the ruins and rubbish of modern
towns and villages, which have been built among
them, and whose crumbling remains now choke
up the antique columns and peristyles, until
scarcely more than the capitals of some of them
are to be seen. The most ancient portion of Medi-
net Habou is the palace-temple, constructed by
the Pharaohs, Thothmes the First and Second,
and Thothmes Moeris, the third of that name
(the Pharaoh of the Exodus), fifteen hundred