Thebes, the immense town-mummy, seems all at once to be ablaze--as if its old stones were able still to burn; all its blocks, fallen or upright, appear to have been suddenly made ruddy by the glow of fire.
On this side, too, the view embraces great peaceful distances.

Past the last pylons, and beyond the crumbling ramparts the country, down there behind the town, presents the same appearance as that we were facing a moment before.

The same cornfields, the same woods of date-trees, that make a girdle of green palms around the ruins.

And, right in the background, a chain of mountains is lit up and glows with a vivid coral colour.

It is the chain of the Arabian desert, lying parallel to that of Libya, along the whole length of the Nile Valley--which is thus guarded on right and left by stones and sand stretched out in profound solitudes.
In all the surrounding country which we command from this spot there is no indication of the present day; only here and there, amongst the palm-trees, the villages of the field labourers, whose houses of dried earth can scarcely have changed since the days of the Pharaohs.