This temple, in fact, almost indestructible by reason of its massiveness, has passed through the hands of diverse masters.

Its antiquity was already legendary in the time of Alexander the Great, on whose behalf a chapel was added to it; and later on, in the first ages of Christianity, a corner of the ruins was turned into a cathedral.
The tourists begin to depart, for the lunch bell calls them to the neighbouring _tables d'hote_; and while I wait till they shall be gone, I occupy myself in following the bas-reliefs which are displayed for a length of more than a hundred yards along the base of the walls.

It is one long row of people moving in their thousands all in the same direction--the ritual procession of the God Amen.

With the care which characterised the Egyptians to draw everything from life so as to render it eternal, there are represented here the smallest details of a day of festival three or four thousand years ago.

And how like it is to a holiday of the people of to-day! Along the route of the procession are ranged jugglers and sellers of drinks and fruits, and negro acrobats who walk on their hands and twist themselves into all kinds of contortions.
But the procession itself was evidently of a magnificence such as we no longer know.