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Through this you pass into colonnaded courts, which in any other place would command undivided attention, until you at length arrive in front of a second propylon. Ascending a flight of steps, you enter the great hall of Karnak. The area of this hall is nearly fifty-eight thousand square feet, and it has recently been calculated that four such churches as our St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields might stand side by side in this unrivalled chamber without occupying the whole space. The roof, formed of single stones–compared with which the masses at Stonehenge would appear almost bricks–has fallen in; but the one hundred and thirty-four colossal columns which supported it, and which are considerably above thirty feet in circumference, still remain, and with the walls and propyla are completely covered with sculptured forms.

I shall not attempt to describe any other part of Karnak;-the memory aches with the effort. There are many buildings attached to it, larger than most temples; and infinite number of gates and obelisks, and colossi; but the imagination cannot refrain from calling up some sacred or heroic procession, moving from Luxor to Karnak, in melodious pomp, through the great avenue of sphinxes, and ranging themselves in groups around the gigantic columns of this sublime structure. What feudal splendour, and what Gothic ceremonies; what tilts and tournaments, and what ecclesiastical festivals, could rival the vast, the beautiful, and the solemn magnificence of the old Egyptians?

Crossing the river to Western Thebes, we arrive at two seated colossi, one of which is the famous musical statue of Memnon. It is fine to see him still seated on his throne, dignified and serene, on the plain of Thebes. This colossus is fifty feet in height; and its base is covered with inscriptions of Greek and Roman travellers, vouching that they had listened to the wild sunrise melody. This statue and its remaining companion, though now isolated in their situation, were once part of an enormous temple, the ruins of which yet remain, and the plan of which may yet be traced.

The Memnonion itself is now near at hand. In the colossal Caryatides we recognise the vast genius that excavated the rocks of Ipsambul, and supported a cavern temple upon the heads of giants. From the Memnonion came the statue that is now in the British Museum. But this figure, though a fine specimen of Egyptian sculpture, sinks, so far as magnitude is concerned, into insignificance, when compared with the statue of the supposed Sesostris, which, broken off at the waist, now lies prostrate in the precincts of the sanctuary. This is, probably, the most huge colossus that the Egyptians ever constructed. The fragment is of red granite, and of admirable workmanship. Unfortunately, the face is entirely obliterated. It lies upon its back, and in its fall has destroyed all the temple within reach. It measures more than sixty feet round the shoulders, the breadth of the instep is nearly seven feet, and the hieroglyphical figures engraven on the arm are large enough for a man to walk in.

Perhaps the most interesting group of ruins at Thebes is the quarter of Medoenet Habu, for here, among other vast remains, is that of a palace; and it is curious, among other domestic subjects, that we find represented on the walls, in a very admirable style, a Pharaoh playing chess with his queen. It is these domestic details that render also the sepulchres of Thebes so interesting. The arts of the Egyptians must be studied in their tombs; and to learn how this remarkable people lived, we must frequent their burial-places. A curious instance of this is, that, in a tomb near Beni-hassan, we learn by what process the Egyptians procured from the distant quarries of Nubia those masses of granite with which they raised the columns of Karnak and the obelisks of Luxor.

If I were called upon to describe in a word the principal and primary characteristic of Egyptian architecture, I should at once say Imagination, as Grace is the characteristic of the architecture of the Greeks. Thus, when the Ptolemies assumed the sceptre of the Pharaohs, they blended the delicate taste of Ionia t with the rich invention of the Nile, and produced Philoe, Dendera, and Edfou. It is from the Pharaohs, however, that you must seek for the vast and the gigantic: the pyramid, the propylon, the colossus, the catacomb, the obelisk, and the sphinx.