That evening, we had the promise of another temple for the next morning's work. We reached Dakkeh, the Pselchê of Strabo, at 10 P.M.: but we could not moor under the western bank, from the strength of the wind, and were obliged to stand across to the other shore.
The morning of the 10th was bright and cool, and we were early ashore, where we saw a good deal besides the temple. A village, small, but not so minute as usual, stands near the bank; and its inhabitants are good-looking and apparently prosperous. I saw, from the top of the propylon, a large patch of fertile land lying back on the edge of the Desert, or in it. A canal or ditch carried water from the river to this land, where there were two or more sakias to lift it. At least, I saw a belt of flourishing castor-oil plants and other shrubs extending from the river to where they met the sakias. Further in the Desert I observed more of those grey expanses which tell of cultivable soil beneath, and of former irrigation. This must have been a flourishing district once; and it is not a distressed one now.
The women were much adorned with beads, – blue, black, and white. Some would permit us to examine them: others fled and hid themselves behind huts or walls, on our merely looking in their faces: and of these none was so swift as the best-dressed woman of them all. She had looped back, with her blue necklace, the mantle she wore on her head, to leave her hands and eyes free for making her bread. Of all the scamperers she was the swiftest when our party began to look about them. A mother and daughter sat on the ground within a small enclosure, grinding millet with the antique quhern: a pretty sight, and a dexterously-managed, though slow process. Several of the women had brass nose-rings, which to my eyes look about as barbarous and ugly as ear-rings; and no more. When we come to the piercing flesh to insert ornaments, I do not see that it matters much whether the ear or nose is pierced. The insertion is surely the barbarism.
While I was on the top of the propylon of Dakkeh, I saw far off to the north-west a wide stretch of blue waters, with the reflection of shores and trees. Rather wondering how such a lake or reach of the river could be there, while the Nile seemed to be flowing northeast, and observing that these waters were bluer than those of the river, I asked myself whether this could possibly be the mirage, by which I had promised myself never to be deceived. My first thought was of mirage: but a little further study nearly convinced me that it was real water, – either a lake left by the inundation, or a reach of the river brought there by a sudden bend. I was still sufficiently uncertain to wish my friends to come up and see: though the reflection of the groves and clumps on the banks was as perfect as possible in every line. Just as I was going down to call my party, I saw a man's head and shoulders come up out of the midst of the lake: – a very large head and shoulders, – such as a man might have who was near at hand. The sensation was strange, and not very agreeable. The distant blue lake took itself off in flakes. The head and shoulders belonged to a man walking across the sand below: and the groves and clumps and well-cut banks resolved themselves into scrubby bushes, patches of coarse grass, and simple stones. This was the best mirage I have ever seen, for its beauty and the completeness of the deception. I saw many afterwards in the Desert; and a very fine one in the plain of Damascus: but my heart never beat again as it did on the top of the Dakkeh propylon. – I had a noble view of the Desert and the Nile from that height; and it was only sixty-nine steps of winding stair that I had to ascend. These propyla were the watch-towers and bulwarks of the temples in the old days when the temples of the Deities were the fortifications of the country. If the inhabitants had known early enough the advantage of citadels and garrisons, perhaps the Shepherd Race might never have possessed the country; or would at least have found their conquest of it more difficult than, according to Manetho, they did. »It came to pass,« says Manetho (as Josephus cites him), »I know not how, that God was displeased with us; and there came up from the East, in a strange manner, men of an ignoble race, who had the confidence to invade our country, and easily subdued it by their power without a battle. And when they had our rulers in their hands, they burnt our cities, and demolished the temples of the gods, and inflicted every kind of barbarity upon the inhabitants, slaying some, and reducing the wives and children of others to slavery.« It could scarcely have happened that these Shepherds, »of an ignoble race,« would have captured the country »without a battle,« and laid hands on the rulers, if there had been such citadels as the later built temples, and such watch-towers and bulwarks as these massive propyla. Whenever I went up one of them, and looked out through the loop-holes in the thick walls, I felt that these erections were for military, full as much as religious purposes. Indeed, it is clear that the ideas were scarcely separable, after war had once made havoc in the valley of the Nile. As for the non-military purposes of these propyla; – they gave admission through the portal in the centre to the visitors to the temple, whether they came in the ordinary way, or in the processions which were so imposing in the olden times. It must have been a fine sight, from the loop-holes or parapets of these great flanking towers, – the approach or departure of the procession of the day, – the banners bearing the symbol of god or hero; the boat-shrine borne by the shaven and white-robed priests, in whose hands lay most of the power, and in whose heads all the learning, of their age. To see them marching in between the sphinxes of the avenue, followed by the crowd bearing offerings; the men with oxen, cakes, and fruits, and the women with turtle-doves and incense, – all this must have been a treat to many a sacerdotal watchman at this height. – Such a one had probably charge of the flags which were hoisted on these occasions on the propyla. There are on many of these towers, wide perpendicular grooves, occupied by what look like ladders of hieroglyphic figures. These grooves held the flag-staves on festival days, when the banners, covered with symbols, were set floating in the air. – These propyla were good stations from which to give out news of the rising or sinking of the Nile: and they were probably also used for observatories. They were a great acquisition to the country when introduced or invented; and their introduction earlier might, perhaps, as I have said, have materially changed the destinies of the nation. The instances are not few in which these flanking towers have been added to a pylon of a much earlier date.
The interest of this temple is not in its antiquity. It is of various dates; and none of them older than the times of the Ptolemies. The interest lies in the traces of the different builders and occupants of this temple, and in the history (according to Diodorus) of the Ethiopian king who built the adytum, – the most sacred part of it. This king Ergamun, who lived within half a century before our era, had his doubts about the rectitude and reasonableness of the method by which the length of kings' reigns was settled in Ethiopia. Hitherto, the custom had been for the priests to send word to their brother, the king, when the gods wished him to enter their presence: and every king, thus far, had quietly destroyed himself, on receiving the intimation. Ergamun abolished the custom, – not waiting, as far as appears, or his summons, but going up to »a high place« with his troops, when he slew the priests in their temple, and reformed some of the institutions which no one had hitherto dared to touch. Sir G. Wilkinson points out the fact51 that a somewhat resembling custom still remains in a higher region of Ethiopia, where it is thought shocking that a king should die a natural death; that is, like other people. The kings of this tribe, when they believe themselves about to die, send word to their ministers, who immediately cause them to be strangled. This is reported by the expedition sent by the present ruler of Egypt to explore the sources of the White Nile.
Though Ergamun was not willing to take the word of the priests for the will of the gods, he appears to have been forward in the service of his deities, to whom he is seen presenting offerings, and whom he proudly acknowledges as his patrons, guardians, and nourishers. The old adytum, built by him, looks hoary and crumbling, more so than the more ancient temples we have seen; but the sculptures are plainly distinguishable. It is much blackened by fires; but in one corner, where the sculptures are protected by a block of stone which has fallen across, I found a very clear group, – of the king standing between Ra and Thoth, the god of intellect and the arts, concerning whom Socrates relates a curious anecdote in the Phaedrus52 of Plato. The two gods are holding vases aloft, from which they pour each a stream of the emblem of Life; – immortalising »the ever-living Ergamun,« as his cartouche calls him. Under the cornice are four decorative borders, on the four sides