ORIENTAL JUSTICE. 331 soldiers in the service of the Pasha. To obtain redress for this insult, the travellers made application to the governor of the next town; who, for their satisfaction, immediately ordered the koorbash to be administered, not to the soldiers, who had been guilty of the outrages-but to the reis of the boat, who had been nowise implicated in the affair. He then inquired if the complainants were satisfied, which he must have done in mockery;—and they, fearing that the reis might be again beaten as the proxy of the Turks, very coolly replied in the affirmative. A representation of the affair to Mohammed Ali would have procured the petty governor's recal. Friday, Jan. 11. Taphnis. CCXXXIX. Latopolis, the original name of Esneh, has been by some derived from that of a species of fish at present unknown, which, they say, was anciently worshipped in this city. But it would rather seem to signify "the City of Latona,”—the Bouto of the Egyptians, -a goddess of great import in their mythology, who it is said, possessed in Egypt an oracular shrine, celebrated for the truth of its responses, delivered, probably, from the identical temple, the portico of which still exists. This magnificent ruin, which has perhaps obtained from travellers less notice than it deserves, must unquestionably have belonged to one of the most elegant structures in Egypt. Yet Λητούς πόλις. 332 TEMPLE OF LATOPOLIS. the portico, on the ceiling of which the famous zodiac is painted, however ancient it may be, is less so than the cella, the front of which projects into the pronaos subsequently erected about it, so as to leave a small aperture between the original edifice and the more modern addition. From the style of the architecture and sculpture, strongly resembling that of the temple of Philæ, it appears extremely probable that this pronaos is a Ptolemaic structure; consequently, the vast antiquity claimed for it by the fanciful interpreters of its zodiac is a vain chimera. How long the erection of the sekos may have preceded that of the pronaos, it is of course impossible to determine; but it would, I apprehend, be absurd to assign it a much older date, since the whole harmonises well together, unlike the patch-work temple of Dakke in Nubia, where the modern additions are palpably in a different style from the original building. CCXL. The length of the pronaos is one hundred and twenty-four feet, its depth sixty-seven; but from the great accumulation of the soil around, I could only conjecture that it may have been about fifty feet in height. It has an elegantly painted cornice, torus, and frieze, and its walls, columns, architrave, plinths, are richly sculptured with the mysterious figures of the gods and goddesses of Egypt; among which that of Osiris Ammon, the ram-headed god of Thebes, is perhaps the most prominent. Unfortunately, the ruin is so closely and thickly surrounded by the houses of PORTICO AND COLUMNS. 333 the inhabitants, that its walls can only be approached in a few places; so that, in an attempt to examine an interesting group on the northern extremity, we were near committing an unpardonable offence, by intruding into the harem of a respectable man. The cella is entirely buried beneath the rubbish, and a part of the town built over it. Government having converted the portico into a warehouse, it is in some measure protected from wanton dilapidation; but, as the exterior intercolumniations, originally encumbered with a mural skreen, have now been built up to the architrave, the whole interior is buried in almost total darkness, and must be examined by tapers, like a hypogeum. CCXLI. Immense blocks of stone, resting on rafters of the same material, and extending from the façade to the cella, constitute the roof of the pronaos. The columns, twenty-four in number, and seventeen feet two inches in diameter, are disposed in six rows, three on either side of the entrance. The central intercolumniation, leading to the sekos, is seventeen feet in breadth; the others measuring nine feet three inches. A profusion of sculpture adorns the shafts, and the capitals are exceedingly beautiful, the foliage, which, in some cases, represents that of the palm tree, projecting in a series of curves, leaf behind leaf, scarcely yielding in richness to that of the Corinthian order; while others consist of a cluster of lotus leaves, sculptured with equal delicacy, and no less beautifully arranged than the former. But although 334 DEFECT OF EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE, each column, viewed separately, irresistibly excites our admiration, the effect of the whole is highly incongruous. This defect in Egyptian architecture appears susceptible of explanation. In a forest, the beauty of the oak seems to be enhanced by the neighbourhood of the ash or the elm, which, perhaps, misled the Egyptians, who thought, if the beauty of a forest consists in the variety of its trees, a portico would, for the same reason, be more beautiful in proportion to the dissimilarity of the columns of which it is composed: but the comparison is incorrect; for a tree is a whole; a column is not; it is but as a branch; and, until we shall desire to see the sycamore, the chestnut, the ash, and the lime engrafted upon the oak, a portico consisting of a monstrous combination of several orders of architecture can never be considered other than as a splendid toy. Our Norman and Gothic ancestors were often guided by the same perversion of taste, which mistakes irregularity for magnificence; for, in the crypts of the cathedral of Bayeux, and in the tomb of Queen Matilda, at Caen, I remember to have remarked that a similar incongruity in the capitals of the columns produced the same ill effect. CCXLII. Of the greater portion of the innumerable figures sculptured on the walls, the impenetrable gloom, in which nearly the whole pronaos is wrapped, prevented our judging with precision; for the light of the tapers, which enabled us to make GODS OF GREECE AND EGYPT. 335 out the lower compartments, merely afforded glimpses of the dim mysterious processions of gods and mortals which seemed still to move far above in endless files along the walls. Here, however, as every where else in this country, you have abundant proof of the sensual tendency of the Egyptian religion. The Greek, impassioned and voluptuous as he was, sometimes spiritualised his gods, encircled them with images of intellectual majesty, and, through the medium of the senses, spoke eloquently to the soul. Homer's Jove, who never "slumbered or slept," represented in all his majesty by Pheidias, and surrounded by the severe beauty of his Olympian shrine, must have awakened in the soul even of an unbeliever, ideas of sublimity and religious awe; and Athena, gifted with eternal youth and beauty, preserving herself, through love of wisdom, pure from the taint of passion, was a truly divine creation of the mind- well calculated to cheer and invigorate her drooping votary, and console him for the many sacrifices which devotion to the pursuit of knowledge demands. But never could the sight of an Egyptian idol (Isis in her maternal character alone excepted) inspire any thing beyond merriment or ridicule. On all sides we have gods with dogs' heads, and cats' heads; gods with monkeys' tails and rams' tails; with foolish faces, in ridiculous attitudes, indecently exposing their persons, enjoining immodest rites, and setting the example by their own effrontery. The Jupiter of the Greeks, when he embraces Juno, surrounds himself |