Men clear the rubbish from its remains, devise ways of retarding the enormous fallings of its ruins, and dig in its old soil, stored with hidden treasure.
And this evening on one of the portals to which I have just mounted--that which opens at the north-west and terminates the colossal artery of temples and palaces, many very diverse groups have already taken their places, after the pilgrimage of the day amongst the ruins.
And others are hastening towards the staircase by which we have just climbed, so as not to miss the grand spectacle of the sun setting, always with the same serenity, the same unchanging magnificence, behind the town which once was consecrated to it.
French, German, English; I see them below, a lot of pygmy figures, issuing from the hypostyle hall, and making their way towards us.

Mean and pitiful they look in their twentieth-century travellers' costumes, hurrying along that avenue where once defiled so many processions of gods and goddesses.

And yet this, perhaps, is the only occasion on which one of these bands of tourists does not seem to me altogether ridiculous.

Amongst these groups of unknown people, there is none who is not collected and thoughtful, or who does not at least pretend to be so; and there is some saving quality of grace, even some grandeur of humility, in the sentiment which has brought them to this town of Amen, and in the homage of their silence.
We are so high on this portal that we might fancy ourselves upon a tower, and the defaced stones of which it is built are immeasurably large.

Instinctively each one sits with his face to the glowing sun, and consequently to the outspread distances of the fields and the desert.
Before us, under our feet, an avenue stretches away, prolonging towards the fields the pomp of the dead city--an avenue bordered by monstrous rams, larger than buffaloes, all crouched on their pedestals in two parallel rows in the traditional hieratic pose.