THE PORT FOLIO,

CONDUCTED BY OLIVER OLDSCHOOL, ESQ.

VOL. XII.

Various, that the mind

Of desultory man, studious of change

And pleased with novelty, may be indulged.-COWPER.

SEPTEMBER, 1821.

LETTERS FROM AFRICA,

N. I.

By Don Signor Travideani, or Aviero, to Canova, the Sculptor.

FROM THE ITALIAN.

Palmyra 17th December, 1818. MAKING a short stay at Grand Cairo, I embarked in the neighbourhood of Babylonia; and turning away from Rhodes, proud of its Nilometer, I found running upwards, Cimopolis, and the city that calls to remembrance the depraved licentiousness of Adrian, the Lower Abydos, Lycopolis, and many other places not mentioned with us.

The picturesque prospect of a thousand cavities called to my nind the anchorites of Thebes.

Following the well-employed journey, I observed Abotis, Arrotopholis, and Tentea, where, in the temple of Isis, I tasted, with wonder, the Egyptian learning; and, turning towards the opposite shore, I passed by Coenas, and Apollinopolis Minor; reviewing near thereto the city of the Hundred Gates.

Here is Carnak with its boundless walks of sphinxes, the Propyloon, porticoes of granite, the courts, the squares, and the temple, with eighteen ranks of columns hieroglyphically sculptured, the circumference of which seven men hardly span with their arms. Luxor, with its obelisks and innumerable colonnades.

Behold Medinet Abu covered with endless ruins, and with the monstrous colossus that saluted the appearance of the king of the stars, and still shadows the Theban plain.

Follow and behold Kowm, where the seat of Memnon makes a rich display; and the bright image of the great Sesostris.

But the tombs of these subterranean abodes, that which an Italian (Giovanni Belzoni,) opened last year, under the auspices of Mr. Salt, consul-general of England, in Egypt, excites a doubt whether they are the production of a mortal hand.

The interior is entered through an ample gate, where a path, with walls beautifully sculptured, leads to galleries still more beautiful, by the side of which are the royal rooms, which preserve in diffuse painting the Egyptian mysteries, and the different nations first known. The sanctuary of Isis captivates both the eye and the mind. Then a catacomb of alabaster, adorned with hieroglyphics, both externally and internally, rises in the centre of the greater wing, which alone might enrich and give reputation to a museum. Why were not you with me in that hour when I found in the great Thebes the whole world?

Having so good a motive, I directed to you from thence a letter. Tearing myself away, as it were, by force, from the divine. Hecatompylos, I passed Armuntis, Crocodilopolis, Latopolis, and Apollinopolis Major, saluting afterwards, amongst its pleasing hills, the remote Syene.

Having visited the temples of that frontier, and the well that was the looking-glass of the Sun, and the Elephantine Island, the abode of Emefet, I joined the illustrious party of my Lord Belmore, intent upon visiting Nubia; and, having passed the last cataract, improperly called the first, the caves of granite, and the sumptuous edifices of Philoé, &c. reached Sieg Ibsambal, the ancient Aboceis, abandoned to Petronius by the unfortunate Candace, and where is still the best monument of Ethiopia, re-opened by order of Mr. Salt, by our Belzoni, and by us another time when the Nisis had covered it with sand. The name of Mr. Salt is dear to the republic of the literati, and to amateurs of travels, by calling to their remembrance the interesting accounts of Abyssinia.

From Ibsambal, passing over to Ischiet, we met Daud Kaschef, one of the seventy children of Hassan, who received us with an agreeable politeness, under a canopy of palms, in a field. Oh! if you had seen how different from our own are the customs of the people of Nubia.

Here Captain Correy, brother of Lord Belmore, and myself, were seized with the desire of passing the penultimate cataract, in order

to arrive by the way of Senaar at the pleasant island of Meroe, which is the Saba conquered by Moses before the high mission, when, under the name of Sontifanti, he engaged high credit at the court of Pharaoh.

We were full of this project, when some people of the provinces, subject to the Grand Negus, told us, that the Mamelukes confined in Dongola by the brave Mahomet Ali, vehemently suspected all those who came from Egypt; wherefore we retroceded, and, on the 26th of Dec. 1817, I cut in the name of Ilias and my own, upon the highest top of the cataracts of Nubia.

That river which fertilizes so many kingdoms, and makes them fruitful, is here divided into millions of various streams, which, gushing out from amongst the stones, and folding into heaps of flowers, form to the eye a spectacle not elsewhere known in na

ture.

Having found under the torrid Zone the scites of the ancient Phthuris, Assciga, Yicroseia, Corthes, Pselchas, Thutzis, Talmis, Taphis, and Thitzi, and having returned to Syene, and soon directed my steps towards Ombos Sacra, to Crocodile, to Stilithia, Anubis, to Koptos, the friend of the maritime Berenice, and which experienced all the rigour of Diocletian, to Dioscopolis Minor, Abydos Major, which preserves considerable remains of the temple of Osiris, to Panopolis Antinopolis, Hermapolis, Magna, Tanis Superior, and to Osirineus in Siut, where I met with the French traveller, Count Forbin.

Spending some time in Radamore, where is a distillery of rum, and a sugar bakery, under the direction of the hospitable Mr. Brine, I went down to the pyramids of Saccara, and by the plain of Memphis, to those of Ghizeh, where I found M. Belzoni anxious to penetrate into the second of those heaps, thought to be of Cephrenus. Knowing his intelligence, I endeavoured only to animate him still more to the undertaking, and after a stay of some days, we traversed a place which had been inaccessible for many generations; and I know not how to express my feelings at wandering amongst those cavaties.

A very long-inclined gallery, entirely of fine and massy granite; a passage at the end so narrow, that a man bending horizontally can hardly enter; then a horizontal gallery, which looks into the hall where is the tomb worn away; a perpendicular gallery, somewhat inclined, with a room on the left side of the passage; various