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Bruce's travels into Abyssinia to discover the source of the Nile
Bruce's travels into Abyssinia to discover the source of the Nile Author:James Bruce Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: larger, hetter huilt, and hetter inhahited, than Ach- mounein, the residence of the Cacheff. Mahonu-t capital. Each column is composed of three hlocks of gran... more »ite, forming in all sixty feet in height, hy twenty-five in circumference. The hlock which rests upon the hase is simply rounded, and loaded with hieroglyphics, which commence with a Pyramid. The two others are fluted. The columns are ten fee-t distant from each other, except the two middle ones, which, serving for the entrance, leave hetween them an interval of fifteen feet. Tcn enormous slonescovcr the whole extent of she portico. Over them is a douhle row, The two middle ones, which rise in the form of a pediment, surpass the others in height and thickness. You are struck with astonishment at the sight of these masses of rocks that the art of man has found menus to elevate to the height of sixty feet. The freize which goes round it is corered with hieroglyphics very vell carved. "We see the figure of hirds, of insects, of men seated, to whom others seem to make offerings, and ditto runt soris of animals. This is prohahly the history of the time, the place, and the deity in whoso honour this monument was raised. The portico was painted red and hlue. These colours are effaced in many places; hut the lower part of the architrave, which surrounds the colounade, has preserved a guld colour astonishingly lively. It is the same with the ceiting, where the stars of (iold shine upon an azure sky with a dazzliug hrilliancy. This monument, constructed hefore the conquest of tho. Persians, luis neither the elegance, nor the purity of the Grecian architecture; hut its solidity, which it seems impossihle to destroy, its awful simplicity, command admiration. What ideas muht we entertain of the temple, or the palace, ol which this anno...« less