the fallen fragments of the roof and a mass of superincumbent
earth; from his hiding-place, amidst which the jackal began to steal
forth, and wake the echoes of the ruins with his blood-curdling shriek;
while the shadowy bat flitted, spirit-like, from dusky pillar to pillar.
From the centre of the hall, whichever way we looked through the
deepening gloom, there seemed no end to the labyrinthine ruins. Obelisks
and columns, some erect in their pristine beauty, others fallen across,
and hurled together in hideous confusion, forming wild arcades of ruin;
enormous masses of prostrate walls and propylaea, seemed to have required
either to construct or to destroy them the power of a fabled race of
giants. Pillars, obelisks, and walls of this immense hall, were covered
with the forms of monarchs who reigned, and of the gods who were once
worshiped within it. Involuntarily the mind goes back, in gazing on
them, to the period of its original splendor, when Rameses in triumph
returned from his oriental conquests--pictures the pile in all its
completeness, the hall of a hundred and thirty columns with its superb
roof, glittering in all the vivid beauty of its paintings, thronged with
monarchs, and priests, and worshipers, and devoted to splendid and
gorgeous ceremonies.

[Illustration: GREAT HALL AT KARNAK.]

Next morning, after an early breakfast, I was again among the ruins of
the Great Hall, which I had but imperfectly surveyed the previous
evening. I give its dimensions from Wilkinson, with a description of the
rest of the temple. "It measures 170 feet by 329, supported by a
central avenue of twelve massive columns, 66 feet high (without the
pedestal and abacus) and 12 in diameter, besides a hundred and
twenty-two of smaller, or rather less gigantic dimensions, 41 feet 9
inches in height, and 27 feet 6 inches in circumference, distributed in
seven lines on either side of the former. The twelve central columns
were originally fourteen, but the two northernmost have been inclosed
within the front towers or popylaea, apparently in the time of Osirei
himself, the founder of the hall. The two at the other end were also
partly built into the projecting wall of the doorway, as appears from
their rough sides, which were left uneven for that purpose. Attached to
this are two other towers, closing the inner extremity of the hall,
beyond which are two obelisks, one still standing on its original site,
the other having been thrown down