dos preceded by many centuries the Valley of Jehosophat
of the Hebrews, the cemeteries around Mecca of the Moslems, and the holy
tombs beneath our oldest cathedrals! . . . Abydos! It behoves us to walk
here pensively and silently out of respect for all those thousands of
souls who formerly turned towards this place, with outstretched hands,
in the hour of death.

The first great temple--that which King Seti raised to the mysterious
Prince of the Other World, who in those days was called Osiris--is quite
close--a distance of little more than 200 yards in the glare of the
desert. We come upon it suddenly, so that it almost startles us, for
nothing warns us of its proximity. The sand from which it has been
exhumed, and which buried it for 2000 years, still rises almost to its
roof. Through an iron gate, guarded by two tall Bedouin guards in black
robes, we plunge at once into the shadow of enormous stones. We are in
the house of the god, in a forest of heavy Osiridean columns, surrounded
by a world of people in high coiffures, carved in bas-relief on the
pillars and walls--people who seem to be signalling one to another and
exchanging amongst themselves mysterious signs, silently and for ever.

But what is this noise in the sanctuary? It seems to be full of people.
There, sure enough, beyond a second row of columns, is quite a little
crowd talking loudly in English. I fancy that I can hear the clinking of
glasses and the tapping of knives and forks.

Oh! poor, poor temple, to what strange uses are you come. . . . This
excess of grotesqueness in profanation is more insulting surely than to
be sacked by barbarians! Behold a table set for some thirty guests, and
the guests themselves--of both sexes--merry and lighthearted, belong to
that special type of humanity which patronises Thomas Cook & Son (Egypt
Ltd.). They wear cork helmets, and the classic green spectacles; drink
whisky and soda, and eat voraciously sandwiches and other viands out of
greasy paper, which now litters the floor. And the women! Heavens! what
scarecrows they are! And this kind of thing, so the black-robed Bedouin
guards inform us, is repeated every day so long as the season lasts. A
luncheon in the temple of Osiris is part of the programme of pleasure
trips. Each day at noon a new band arrives, on heedless and unfortunate
donkeys. The tables and the crockery remain, of course, in the old
temple!

Let us escape quickly, if possible before the sight sha