central aisle, saw
in the immersing sunshine of the Osiride Court the fallen colossus of
the king, I was not struck to sadness.

Imagine the greatest figure in the world--such a figure as this Rameses
was in his day--with all might, all glory, all climbing power, all
vigor, tenacity of purpose, and granite strength of will concentrated
within it, struck suddenly down, and falling backward in a collapse of
which the thunder might shake the vitals of the earth, and you have this
prostrate colossus. Even now one seems to hear it fall, to feel the warm
soil trembling beneath one's feet as one approaches it. A row of statues
of enormous size, with arms crossed as if in resignation, glowing in the
sun, in color not gold or amber, but a delicate, desert yellow, watch
near it like servants of the dead. On a slightly lower level than there
it lies, and a little nearer the Nile. Only the upper half of the figure
is left, but its size is really terrific. This colossus was fifty-seven
feet high. It weighed eight hundred tons. Eight hundred tons of syenite
went to its making, and across the shoulders its breadth is, or was,
over twenty-two feet. But one does not think of measurements as one
looks upon it. It is stupendous. That is obvious and that is enough. Nor
does one think of its finish, of its beautiful, rich color, of any of
its details. One thinks of it as a tremendous personage laid low, as
the mightiest of the mighty fallen. One thinks of it as the dead Rameses
whose glory still looms over Egypt like a golden cloud that will not
disperse. One thinks of it as the soul that commanded, and lo! there
rose up above the sands, at the foot of the hills of Thebes, the
exultant Ramesseum.

XII

DEIR-EL-BAHARI

Place for Queen Hatshepsu! Surely she comes to a sound of flutes, a
merry noise of thin, bright music, backed by a clashing of barbaric
cymbals, along the corridors of the past; this queen who is shown upon
Egyptian walls dressed as a man, who is said to have worn a beard, and
who sent to the land of Punt the famous expedition which covered her
with glory and brought gold to the god Amun. To me most feminine she
seemed when I saw her temple at Deir-el-Bahari, with its brightness and
its suavity; its pretty shallowness and sunshine; its white, and blue,
and yellow, and red, and green and orange; all very trim and fanciful,
all very smart and delicate; full of finesse and laughter, and breathing
out to me of the twen