 been built into the walls of mud structures and imbedded (for who shall say how many centuries?) in a sepulchre of ignoble clay. Last of all, Mustapha Aga, the kindly and popular old British Consul, whose hospitality will long be remembered by English travellers, died about twelve months since, and the house in which he entertained so many English visitors, and upon which he set so high a value, is even now in course of demolition.
6 The size of these stones not being given in any of our books, I paced the length of one of the shadows, and (allowing for so much more at each end as would be needed to reach to the centres of the two capitals on which it rested) found the block above must measure at least 25 feet in length. The measurements of the Great Hall are, in plain figures, 170 feet in length by 329 in breadth. It contains 134 columns, of which the central twelve stand 62 feet high in the shaft (or about 70 with the plinth and abacus), and measure 34 feet 6 inches in circumference. The smaller columns stand 42 feet 5 inches in the shaft, and measure 28 feet in circumference. All are buried to a depth of between six or seven feet in the alluvial deposits of between three and four thousand annual inundations.
7 It has been calculated that every stone of these huge Pharaonic temples cost at least one human life.
8 i.e. Per Amen, or Pa-Amen ; – one of the ancient names of Thebes, which was the city especially dedicated to Amen. Also Apt, or Abot, or Apetou, by some ascribed to an Indo-Germanic root signifying Abode. Another name for Thebes, and probably the one most in use, was Uas.