tting everything, and rapt in the enjoyment of tropical airs, and
Eastern skies; hearing the plash of water from the everlasting _shadoof_,
and watching the tints and colours on the ranges of hills bordering the
Nile valley. All _my_ hills were green; the hues of those others were
enough of themselves to make an enchanted land. Still more, as I stopped
at the various old temples along the way, my feeling of enchantment
increased. I threaded the mazes of rubbish, and traced the plans of the
ruins of Thebes, till I was at home in every part of them. I studied the
hieroglyphics and the descriptions of the sculptures, till the names of
Thothmes III., and Amunoph III., and Sethos and Rameses, Miamun and
Rameses III., were as well known to me as the names of the friends whom
I met every Sunday evening. I even studied out the old Egyptian mythology,
the better to be able to understand the sculptures, as well as the
character of those ancient people who wrought them, and to be able to
fancy the sort of services that were celebrated by the priests in the
splendid enclosures of the temples.

And then I went higher up the Nile, and watched at the uncovering of
those wonderful colossal figures which stand, or sit, before the
temple of Abou-Simbel. I tried to imagine what manner of things such
large statues could be; I longed for one sight of the faces, said to
be so superb, which showed what the great Rameses looked like. Mamma
and papa could see them, that was a great joy. Belzoni was one of my
prime favourites; and I liked particularly to travel with him, both
there and at the Tombs of the Kings. There were some engravings
scattered through the various volumes, and a good many plans, which
helped me. I studied them faithfully, and got from them all they could
give me.

In the Tombs of the Kings, my childish imagination found, I think, its
highest point of revelling and delight. Those were something stranger,
more wonderful, and more splendid, even than Abou-Simbel and Karnak.
Many an evening, while the firelight from a Southern pine knot danced
on my page, I was gone on the wings of fancy thousands of miles away;
and went with discoverers or explorers up and down the passages and
halls and staircases and chambers, to which the entrance is from
_Biban el Malook_. I wandered over the empty sarcophagi; held my
breath at the pit's sides; and was never tired of going over the
scenes and sculptures done in such brilliant colours upon