Here And There The Hidden Palaces Reveal Their Dark, Square-Shaped
Entrances, Hewn In The Massive Rock, And Over Each A Board Indicates
The Name Of A Kingly Mummy - Ramses IV., Seti I., Thothmes III., Ramses
IX., Etc.
Although all these kings, except Amenophis II., have
recently been removed and carried away to Lower Egypt, to people the
glass cases of the museum of Cairo, their last dwellings have not
ceased to attract crowds.
From each underground habitation are
emerging now a number of perspiring Cooks and Cookesses. And from that
of Amenophis, especially, they issue rapidly. Suppose that we have
come too late and that the audience is over!
And to think that these entrances had been walled up, had been masked
with so much care, and lost for centuries! And of all the perseverance
that was needed to discover them, the observation, the gropings, the
soundings and random discoveries!
But now they are being closed. We loitered too long around the colossi
of Memnon and the palaces of the plain. It is nearly noon, a noon
consuming and mournful, which falls perpendicularly upon the red
summits, and is burning to its deepest recesses the valley of stone.
At the door of Amenophis we have to cajole, beseech. By the help of a
gratuity the Bedouin Grand Master of Ceremonies allows himself to be
persuaded. We are to descend with him, but quickly, quickly, for the
electric light will soon be extinguished. It will be a short audience,
but at least it will be a private one.
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