CORRESPONDENCE.
NOTES FROM A DIARY IN EGYPT AND PALESTINE.
THE transition from the civilisation of Egypt to that of Palestine presents no violent contrasts, such as one meets with in passing from either to the civilisation of Greece. To the Greek the life beyond the grave was but a pale and shadowy existence more or less probable, and exercising but little influence on his daily conduct. To the Egyptian and Hebrew, on the other hand,—and perhaps to the Egyptian even more than to the Hebrew,—the future life was all-in-all. "The Egyptians," says Diodorus, "call their houses hostelries, on account of the short period during which they inhabit them ; but their tombs they call eternal dwelling-places." Not only were the living reminded daily of their latter end by the skeleton at the feast—or rather the gilt image of a. mummy—that was carried round the circle, with the solemn warning of coming doom ; a still more striking lesson was conveyed by the contrast between the Thebes of the living and the Thebes of the dead; the one on the eastern side of the river, bright and gay, and fall of life and movement, but looking towards the western horizon, where the sun set behind the Lybian hills, leaving silence and darkness as of death to cover the land ; the other on the western shore, tenanted only by the dead, and those whose business it was to minister to their eternal interests, but facing the region of the rising sun, in sure hope of a resurrection from the dead. And while the " hostelries " of secular Thebes—its palaces and mansions—have all passed away, the "eternal dwelling- places " of the Thebes of the dead still remain and still hold, except where rifled by the hands of living men, the bodies laid in them long ago. The Book of the Dead affords ample evidence of the firm hold which belief in immortality and of the correlative doctrine of moral responsibility, involving reward and punishment in a future state, had on the ancient Egyptians. Into that question, however, most interesting as it is, it is impossible to enter here. But there is one problem suggested by the paintings and sculptures in Egyptian tombs of which I have never heard or read a satisfactory solution. With what light did those old artists work That it was arti- ficial light is certain, for no ray of sunlight could penetrate the labyrinthine passages and inner chambers of the tombs of the Kings at Thebes, or the tomb of Thi at Sakkitrah. The walls and ceilings are covered with hieroglyphics and paintings, beautifully designed and executed, and which must have cost the artist months of labour. That he had the use of power- ful light is evidenced by the accuracy and delicacy and finish of his work. What light did he use ? Daylight was effectually excluded, and it is plain that no torches, or candles, or lamps were used, for there is not a trace of smoke. There must have been a blaze of smokeless light for months illuminating those dark subterranean recesses. What was it? I suggested to an artist at Philre the possibility of those wonderful Egyptians, so much of whose knowledge has perished, having discovered the secret of the electric light. He replied that he could account in no other way for some of the paintings in tombs and temples. And he mentioned the curious fact that in the Egyptian language there is one word for lightning and for an electric fish. On mentioning this suggestion afterwards to Mr. Flinders Petrie at Tell-el-Amarna, he rejected the idea of electric light, and gave it as his opinion that the light used was sunlight, reflected by a skilful arrange- ment of mirrors. He declared that it was possible to carry sunlight in this way into the interior of any of the tombs or temples in Egypt, and offered, by way of proof, specimens of excellent photographs which he had himself taken inside tombs by means of mirrors. It is the best explanation which I know ; but it is a question for experts, and there I leave it.
Mr. Flinders Petrie, to whom Egyptian archaeology is so much indebted, has lately made a very interesting and im- portant discovery,—namely, the palace of the so-called heretic King, Amenhotep IV., together with an admirable plaster cast of that monarch's head, made after death. This is the King who endeavoured to reform the religious and civil insti- tutions of Egypt ; and finding the priestly caste too strong for him at Thebes, removed the seat of Government to Tell-el- A.marna, half-way between Thebes and Memphis, where he founded a city, which he named Khu-aten, and built a temple and royal palace. Mr. Flinders Petrie considers him "a philosophical Radical before his time," and believes that the worship of the solar disc, with which he endeavoured to sup- plant that of Amen-Ra at Thebes, was an honest attempt to abolish a degenerate polytheism in favour of monotheism, which he bad learnt from his Hittite mother, daughter of Dusratta, King of Mitani, in Southern Armenia, about 1500 B.C. Some of the correspondence between this Dusratta and Amenhotep III. and Amenhotep IV. have lately been dis- covered among the ruins of Tell-el-Amarna.
On the overthrow of the dynasty of Amenhotep IV. by the priests of Thebes, the victorious party strove to erase all trace of him and his reforms. They reduced his city of Khu-aten to a ruinous heap. In that heap, as well as among the adjacent tombs, Mr. Flinders Petrie has been digging for some time. The unearthing of the ground-floor of a portion of the royal palace is a great find. The walls and floors are ,covered with paintings of birds, trees, plants, flowers, tanks
with swimming fish, &c., all in a freehand realistic style, which Mr. Petrie, himself no mean artist, assured us could not, in design and execution, be beaten by the best artists of our own day. It is quite different from the conventional style of art initiated by the priests of Thebes, but is not a return to the early style which we see on the tomb of Thi at Sakkftra. It belongs rather to the style of painting exhibited in the tombs discovered by Schliemann at Mycenre. Did the artists of Amenhotep borrow from Greece ? or did both they and the artists of Myceme borrow from some unknown school, perhaps in Assyria or Chaldea ? There are no data at present for a satisfactory answer. Some may still be found among the ruins of Khn-aten. The ruins of the royal palace alone covers an area of a quarter of a mile in length and four hundred yards in width, and of this only a small portion has as yet been excavated.
It seems to be commonly assumed by friends at home that the Holy Land must necessarily disappoint one's expectations. It did not disappoint mine. Bat, of corn-se, much depends on what the traveller expects. I knew too much of Turkish rule to expect to see a land "flowing with milk and honey." But there is evidence in abundance to show that in past time the land deserved, and under good government might deserve again, the glowing descriptions of Moses and the Prophetr. To one visiting the Holy Land from Egypt, the first view of the coast is not specially inviting. Some miles out at sea the land behind Joppa looks like barren sand-hills. But as you approach you see that the town is surrounded landward by groves of orange-trees intermingled with orchards of pomegranates, almonds, peaches, apricots, bananas, and lemons. To look over these groves and orchards on 'a night of brilliant moonlight is a sight not easily forgotten. In the near fore- ground is the calm sea quivering in the moonbeams ; then groups of houses with flickering lights ; then masses of trees laden with fruit, among which countless golden oranges, mingled with white blossom, are conspicuous; while the air is fragrant with the odour of orange-blossom tempered by other perfumes. It is curious that Joppa, though assigned to the tribe of Dan by Joshua, became a Jewish possession for the first time in the regime of the Maccabees, under the tragic circumstances related in 2 Msecabe.es, xii. The Danites failed to wrest it from the Phoenician natives. Harbourless and ill- sheltered as Joppa is, it was the principal port on the long line of exposed coast that stretches from the borders of Egypt to Mount Carmel. This fact, together with the further cir- cumstance that the ports north of Carmel were held by the Phoenicians, helped to shut out Judea from the commerce of the Mediterranean, and to make the Jews what they have since remained, a people essentially unmaritime. This en- forced isolation was probably a providential factor in their training for the great mission assigned to them in the evan- gelisation of mankind.
It is impossible to convey to others the impression made upon one's own mind by treading a soil hallowed, as Palestine is, by so many sacred associations. Such associations begin to crowd upon you the moment you land. It is from Joppa that Jonah took ship for Spain to escape the responsibility of preaching repentance to the people of Nineveh. The site shown as that of the house of Simon the Tanner may not be authentic. But if not quite the spot, it cannot be far from it. Like Simon's house, it is "on the sea-shore," and tanners still inhabit that part of the town ; for the trade, like other cus- toms of the unchanging East, has survived in Joppa through all its vicissitudes. It was at Joppa, too, that the Phoenician mariners landed the rafts of cedar for Solomon's temple and palace. What an enormous amount of labour is implied in the carriage of such masses of timber across the Plain of Sharon, and over the rugged roadless hills and steep ravines that lie between Joppa and Jerusalem. There is, in fact, hardly a spot from Joppa to Jerusalem that has not been familiar from childhood to readers of the Bible ; but to see them with one's own eyes is another thing altogether. Soon after leaving Joppa you cross the rich Plain of Sharon, where doubtless the same flowers flourish now as in the days of Solomon. But which is "the rose of Sharon," and which "the lily of the valley" to which the bride in the royal lover's song compares herself? The only thing certain is that "the rose of Sharon" was not a rose at all ; for the rose was intro- duced into Palestine from Persia after the Babylonieh captivity. Some identify it with a beautiful crimson anemone
which abounds on the plain in spring. Others think that it is the thetas, which, however, chiefly frequents hilly ground. The most probable opinion is that the word translated " rose " is the narcissus, for it is the word still used by the peasantry of Palestine for that flower, which is a great favourite on account of its perfume. It is equally im- possible to identify with any degree of certainty the "lily" of scripture with any of the flowers of Palestine. The word in the original is used for any bright flower of lily shape. As we drove across the plain we saw peasants ploughing, the left hand guiding the plough, while the right held a long goad with which the ploughman pricked his oxen to urge them on. One easily saw the vanity of "kicking against the pricks," and also the folly of "looking back" on the part of him who "put his hand to the plough," for so light is the implement, that it takes a very slight hold of the soil, and requires vigilant atten- tion to _keep it below the Surface. In Palestine, too, as in Egypt, one understands such enigmatical descriptions as "a land where thou sowest thy seed and waterest it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs." In both countries the foot is used in guiding the water over the fields and gardens. The fields and gardens are covered with a network of tiny canals, from six inches to afoot in depth. The banks are of mud, and the bare- legged labourer guides the water by making a• gap in each bank with his foot to let the water through, and closing the opening when enough water has passed. In this way he literally waters the seed with his foot. A tour in Egypt is an excellent preparation for a tour in Palestine. But what I may have to say on that and other aspects of the Holy Land must
be reserved for another communication. M.
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