Chapter 56

In the middle of the month Famenut (January) spring began. All Egypt was green with growing wheat. On black patches of land crowds of men were sowing lupines, beans, and barley. In the air was the odor of orange blossoms. The water had fallen greatly and new bits of land were laid bare day by day.

Preparations for the funeral of Osiris-Mer-Amen-Ramses were ended.

The revered mummy of the pharaoh was enclosed in a white box, the upper part of which repeated perfectly the features of the departed. The pharaoh seemed to see with enameled eyes, while the god-like face expressed a mild regret, not for the world which the ruler had left, but for the people condemned to the sufferings of temporal existence. On its head the image of the pharaoh had an Egyptian cap with white and sapphire stripes; on its neck, a string of jewels; on its breast, the picture of a man kneeling with crossed hands; on its legs, images of the gods, sacred birds, and eyes, not set into any face, but, as it were, gazing out of infinity.

Thus arrayed, the remains of the pharaoh rested on a costly couch in a small cedar chapel, the walls of which were covered with inscriptions celebrating the life and deeds of the departed sovereign. Above hovered a miraculous falcon with a human head, and near the couch night and day watched a priest clothed as Anubis, the god of burial, with a jackal's head on his body.

A heavy basalt sarcophagus had been prepared which was to be the outer coffin of the mummy. This sarcophagus had also the form and features of the dead pharaoh. It was covered with inscriptions, and pictures of people praying, of sacred birds and also scarabs.

On the 17th of Famenut, the mummy, together with its chapel and sarcophagus, was taken from the quarter of the dead to the palace and placed in the largest hall there.

This hall was soon filled with priests, who chanted funeral hymns, with attendants and servants of the departed, and above all with his women, who screamed so vehemently that their cries were heard across the river.

"O lord! Thou our lord!" cried they, "why art Thou leaving us? Thou so kind, so beautiful. Thou art silent now, Thou who didst speak to us so willingly. Thou didst incline to our society, but today Thou art far from us."

During this time the priests sang,

Chorus I. "I am Turn, who alone exists."

Chorus II. "I am Re, in his earliest splendor."

Chorus I. "I am the god who creates himself."

Chorus II. "Who gives his own name to himself, and no one among the gods can restrain him."

Chorus I. "I know the name of the great god who is there."

Chorus II. "For I am the great bird Benut which tests the existent." ["Book of the Dead."]

After two days of groans and devotions a great car in the form of a boat was drawn to the front of the palace. The ends of this car were adorned with ostrich plumes and rams' heads, while above a costly baldachin towered an eagle, and there also was the ureus serpent, symbol of the pharaoh's dominion. On this car was placed the sacred mummy, in spite of the wild resistance of court women. Some of them held to the coffin, others implored the priests not to take their good lord from them, still others scratched their own faces, tore their hair, and even beat the men who carried the remains of the pharaoh.

The outcry was terrible.

At last the car, when it had received the divine body, moved on amid a multitude of people who occupied the immense space from the palace to the river. There were people smeared with mud, torn, covered with mourning rags, people who cried in heaven-piercing voices. At the side of these, according to mourning ritual, were disposed, along the whole road, choruses.

Chorus I. "To the West, to the mansion of Osiris, to the West art Thou going, Thou who wert the best among men, who didst hate the untrue."

Chorus II. "Going West! There will not be another who will so love the truth, and who will so hate a lie."

Chorus of charioteers. "To the West, oxen, ye are drawing the funeral car, to the West! Our lord is going after you."

Chorus III. "To the West, to the West, to the land of the just! The cities which Thou didst love are groaning and weeping behind thee."

The throng of people. "Go in peace to Abydos! Go in peace to Abydos! Go Thou in peace to the Theban West!"

Chorus of female wailers. "O our lord, O our lord, Thou art going to the West, the gods themselves are weeping."

Chorus of priests. "He is happy, the most revered among men, for fate has permitted him to rest in the tomb which he himself has constructed."

Chorus of drivers. "To the West, oxen, ye are drawing the car, to the West! Our lord is going behind thee."

The throng of people. "Go in peace to Abydos! Go in peace to Abydos, to the western sea." [Authentic expression.]

Every couple of hundred yards a division of troops was stationed which greeted the lord with muffled drums, and took farewell with a shrill sound of trumpets.

That was not a funeral, but a triumphal march to the land of divinities.

At a certain distance behind the car went Ramses XIII, surrounded by a great suite of generals, and behind him Queen Niort's leaning on two court ladies. Neither the son nor the mother wept, for it was known to them then (the common people were not aware of this), that the late pharaoh was at the side of Osiris and was so satisfied with his stay in the land of delight that he had no wish to return to an earthly existence.

After a procession of two hours which was attended by unbroken cries, the car with the remains halted on the bank of the Nile. There the remains were removed from the boat-shaped car and borne to a real barge gilded, carved, covered with pictures, and furnished with white and purple sails.

The court ladies made one more attempt to take the mummy from the priests; again were heard all the choruses and the military music. After that the lady Niort's and some priests entered the barge which bore the royal mummy, the people hurled bouquets and garlands and the oars began to plash.

Ramses XII had left his palace for the last time and was moving on the Nile toward his tomb in Theban mountains. But on the way it was his duty, like a thoughtful ruler, to enter all the famed places and take farewell of them.

The journey lasted long. Thebes was five hundred miles distant higher up the river, along which the mummy had to visit between ten and twenty temples and take part in religious ceremonies.

Some days after the departure of Ramses XII to his eternal rest, Ramses XIII moved after him to rouse from sorrow by his presence the torpid hearts of his subjects, receive their homage and give offerings to divinities.

Behind the dead pharaoh, each on his own barge, went all the high priests, many of the senior priests, the richest landholders, and the greater part of the nomarchs. So the new pharaoh thought, not without sorrow, that his retinue would be very slender,

But it happened otherwise. At the side of Ramses XIII were all the generals, very many officials, many of the smaller nobility and all the minor priests, which more astonished than comforted the pharaoh.

This was merely the beginning. For when the barge of the youthful sovereign sailed out on the Nile there came to meet him such a mass of boats, great and small, rich and poor, that they almost hid the water. Sitting in those barges were naked families of earth-tillers and artisans, well-dressed merchants, Phoenicians in bright garments, adroit Greek sailors, and even Assyrians and Hittites.

The people of this throng did not shout, they howled; they were not delighted, they were frantic. Every moment some deputation broke its way to the pharaoh's barge to kiss the deck which his feet had touched, and to lay gifts before him: a handful of wheat, a bit of cloth, a simple earthen pitcher, a pair of birds, but, above all, a bunch of flowers. So that before the pharaoh had passed Memphis, his attendants were forced repeatedly to clear the barge of gifts and thus save it from sinking.

The younger priests said to one another that except Ramses the Great no pharaoh had ever been greeted with such boundless enthusiasm.

The whole journey from Memphis to Thebes was conducted in a similar manner and the enthusiasm of people rose instead of decreasing. Earth- tillers left the fields and artisans the shops to delight themselves with looking at the new sovereign of whose intentions legends were already created. They expected great changes, though no one knew what these changes might be. This alone was undoubted, that the severity of officials had decreased, that Phoenicians collected rent in a less absolute manner, and the Egyptian people, always so submissive, had begun to raise their heads when priests met them.

"Only let the pharaoh permit," said people in inns, fields and markets, "and we will introduce order among the holy fathers. Because of them we pay immense taxes, and the wounds on our backs are always open."

Among the Libyan hills, about thirty-five miles south of

Memphis, lay the country of Piom or Fayum, wonderful through this, that human hands had made it.

There was formerly in this province a sunken desert surrounded by naked hills. The pharaoh Amenhemat first conceived the daring plan of changing this place into a fruitful region, three thousand five hundred years before the Christian era.

With this object he divided the eastern part of the depression from the rest and put a mighty dam around it. This dam was about eight meters high, one hundred yards thick at the base, and its length more than four hundred kilometers.

In this way was created a reservoir which held three milliards of cubic meters of water, the surface of which occupied about three hundred square kilometers. This reservoir served to irrigate two hundred thousand hectares of land, and besides, in time of overflow, it took in the excess of water and guaranteed a considerable part of Egypt from sudden inundation.

This immense collection of water was called Lake Moeris, and was considered one of the wonders of the world. Thanks to it a desert valley was changed into the fertile land of Piom, where about two hundred thousand people lived in comfort. In this province, besides palms and wheat, were produced the most beautiful roses; oil made from these went to all Egypt, and beyond its boundaries.

The existence of Lake Moeris was connected with another wonder among works of Egyptian engineers, Joseph's canal. This canal, two hundred yards wide, extended about three hundred and fifty kilometers along the western side of the Nile. It was situated fifteen kilometers from the river, served to irrigate lands near the Libyan mountains, and conveyed water to Lake Moeris.

Around the country of Piom rose a number of ancient pyramids and a multitude of smaller tombs. On its eastern boundary was the celebrated Labyrinth (Lope-rohunt). This was built also by Amenhemat and had the form of an immense horseshoe. It occupied an area one thousand yards long and six hundred wide.

This edifice was the great treasure-house of Egypt. In it reposed the mummies of several famous pharaohs, renowned priests, generals, and architects. Here lay the remains of revered animals, above all, those of crocodiles. And here was kept the property of the Egyptian state, brought together in the course of ages. Of this structure it is difficult to gain an idea at present.

The labyrinth was neither inaccessible from the outside, nor watched over-carefully; it was guarded by a small division of troops attached to the priests, and some priests of tried honesty. The safety of the treasury lay specially in this that with the exception of those few persons, no one knew where to look for it in the labyrinth, which was divided into two stories, one above ground, the other subterranean, and in each of these there were fifteen hundred chambers.

Each pharaoh, each high priest, finally each treasurer and supreme judge was bound to examine with his own eyes the property of the state immediately after entering on his office. Still, no one of the dignitaries could find it, or even learn where the treasure lay, whether in the main body of the building or in some of its wings, above the earth or beneath it.

There were some to whom it seemed that the treasure was really underground, far away from the labyrinth proper. There were even some who thought that the treasure was beneath the lake, so that it might be submerged should the need come. Finally no dignitary of the state cared to occupy himself with the question, knowing that an attack on the property of the gods drew after it ruin to the sacrilegious. The uninitiated might have discovered the road, perhaps, if fear had not paralyzed intruders. Death in this world and the next threatened him and his family who should dare with godless plans to discover such secrets.

Arriving in those parts Ramses XIII visited first of all the province of Fayum. In his eyes it seemed like the interior of some immense bowl, the bottom of which was a lake and hills the edges. Whithersoever he turned he found green juicy grass varied with flowers, groups of palms, groves of fig trees and tamarinds, amid which from sunrise to sunset were heard the singing of birds and the voices of gladsome people.

That was perhaps the happiest corner of Egypt.

The people received the pharaoh with boundless delight.

They covered him and his retinue with flowers, they presented him with a number of vessels of the costliest perfumes as well as gold and precious stones to the amount of ten talents.

Ramses spent two days in that pleasant region where joy seemed to blossom on the trees, flow in the air, and look over the waters of Lake Moeris. But men reminded him that he should see the labyrinth also.

He left Fayum with a sigh and gazed around as he traveled. Soon his attention was fixed by a majestic pile of gray buildings which stood on an eminence.

At the gate of the famous labyrinth Ramses was greeted by a company of priests of ascetic exterior, and a small division of troops, every man in which was completely shaven.

"These men look like priests," said Ramses.

"They do, because every one in the ranks has received the inferior ordination, and centurions the superior," answered the high priest of the edifice.

When he looked more carefully at the faces of those strange warriors, who ate no meat and were celibates, the pharaoh noted in them calm energy and quickness, he noted also that his sacred person made no impression whatever in that place.

"I am very curious to learn how Samentu's secret plan will succeed," thought he. The pharaoh understood that it was impossible either to frighten those men or to bribe them. They were as self-confident in looks as if each one commanded countless regiments of spirits.

"We shall see," thought Ramses, "if they can frighten my Greeks and Asiatics, who, fortunately, are so wild that they do not know pompous faces."

At the request of the priests, the pharaoh's suite remained at the gate, as if under guard of the shaven soldiers.

"Must I leave my sword too?" asked Ramses.

"It will not harm us," answered the chief overseer.

The young pharaoh had the wish at least to slap the pious man with the side of his sword for such an answer, but he restrained himself.

Ramses and the priests entered the main building by an immense court and passed between two rows of sphinxes. Here in a very spacious, but somewhat dark, antechamber were eight doors, and the overseer inquired,

"Through which door dost Thou wish to go to the treasure, holiness?"

"Through that by which we can go the most quickly."

Each of five priests took two bundles of torches, but only one ignited a torch.

At his side stood the chief overseer holding in his hands a large string of beads on which were written certain characters. Behind them walked Ramses surrounded by three priests.

The high priest who held the beads turned to the right and entered a great hall, the walls and columns of which were covered with inscriptions and figures. From that they entered a narrow corridor, which led upward, and found themselves in a hall distinguished by a great number of doors. Here a tablet was pushed aside in the floor, discovering an opening through which they descended, and again advanced through a narrow corridor to a chamber which had no doors. But the guide touched one hieroglyph of many, and the wall moved aside before them.

Ramses tried to remember the direction in which they were going, but soon his attention was bewildered. He noted, however, that they passed hurriedly through great halls, small chambers, narrow corridors, that they climbed up or descended, that some halls had a multitude of doors and others none whatever. He observed at once that the guide at each new entrance dropped one bead from his long rosary, and sometimes, by the light of the torch, he compared the indications on the beads with those on the walls.

"Where are we now?" asked the pharaoh on a sudden, "beneath the earth, or above it?"

"We are in the power of the gods!" replied his neighbor.

After a number of turns and passages the pharaoh again said,

"But I think that we are here for the second time."

The priests were silent, but he who carried the torch held his light to the walls in one and another place, and Ramses, while looking, confessed in spirit that they had not been there before.

In a small chamber without doors they lowered the light, and the pharaoh saw on the pavement dried, black remains, covered with decayed clothing.

"That," said the overseer of the building, "is the body of a Phoenician who, during the sixteenth dynasty, tried to break into the labyrinth; he got thus far."

"Did they kill him?" inquired Ramses.

"He died of hunger."

The party had advanced again about half an hour, when the priest who bore the torch lighted a niche in the corridor where also dried remains were lying.

"This," said the overseer, "is the body of a Nubian priest, who in the time of thy grandfather, holiness, tried to enter the labyrinth."

The pharaoh made no inquiry as to what happened to this man. He had the impression of being in some depth and the feeling that the edifice would crush him. Of taking bearings amid those hundreds of corridors, halls, and chambers, he had no thought any longer. He did not even wish to explain to himself by what miracle those stone walls opened, or why pavements sank before him.

"Samentu will do nothing," said he in spirit. "He will perish like these two, whom I must even mention to him."

Such a crushing, such a feeling of helplessness and nothingness he had never experienced. At moments it seemed to him that the priests would leave him in one of those narrow doorless chambers. Then despair seized the young pharaoh; he touched his sword and was ready to cut them down. But he remembered directly that without their assistance he could not go hence, and he dropped his head.

"Oh to see the light of day, even for a moment! How terrible must death be among three thousand rooms filled with gloom or utter darkness!"

Heroic souls have moments of deep depression which the common man cannot even imagine.

The advance had lasted an hour almost when at last they entered a low hall resting on octagonal pillars. The three priests surrounding the pharaoh, separated then Ramses noticed that one of them nestled up to a column and vanished, as it were, in the interior of it.

After a while a narrow opening appeared in one of the walls, the priests returned to their places, and the guide commanded to light four torches. All turned toward that opening and pushed through it cautiously.

"Here are the chambers," said the overseer.

The priests lighted quickly torches which were fixed to the walls and columns. Ramses saw a series of immense chambers filled with most varied products of priceless value. In this collection every dynasty, if not every pharaoh, had placed from what he or it possessed, that which was most peculiar, or which had the most value.

There were chariots, boats, beds, tables, caskets, and thrones gold or covered with gold plate, also inlaid with ivory, mother-of-pearl and colored wood so ornamentally that artists must have worked tens of years at them. There were weapons, shields and quivers glittering with jewels. There were pitchers, plates, and spoons of pure gold, costly robes, and baldachins.

All this treasure, thanks to dry and pure air, was preserved without change during ages.

Among rare objects the pharaoh saw the silver model of the Assyrian palace brought to Ramses XII by Sargon. The high priest, while explaining to the pharaoh whence each gift came, looked at his face diligently. But in place of admiration for the treasures, he noticed dissatisfaction. "Tell me, worthiness," inquired Ramses on a sudden, "what good comes of these treasures shut up in darkness?"

"Should Egypt be in danger there would be great power in them," replied the overseer. "For a few of these helmets, chariots and swords we might buy the good-will of all the Assyrian satraps. And maybe even King Assar himself would not resist if we gave him furniture for his throne hall, or his arsenal."

"I think that they would rather take all from us by the sword than a few through good-will," said the pharaoh.

"Let them try!" replied the priest.

"I understand. Ye have then means of destroying the treasures. But in that case no one could make use of them."

"That is not a question for my mind," replied the overseer. "We guard what is given to us, and do what is ordered."

"Would it not be better to use a portion of these treasures to fill the coffers of the state and raise Egypt from the misery in which it is at present?" asked the pharaoh.

"That does not depend on us."

Ramses frowned. He examined things for some time without very great interest; at last he inquired,

"Yes, these products of art might be useful in gaining the good-will of Assyrian dignitaries; but if war were to break out with Assyria how could we get wheat, men, and arms from nations which have no knowledge of rare objects?"

"Open the treasury," said the high priest.

At this time the priests hurried in different directions: two vanished as if in the interior of columns, while a third went up along the wall on steps and did something near a carved figure.

Again a hidden door slipped aside and Ramses entered the real hall of treasure.

That was a spacious room filled with priceless objects. In it were earthen jars containing gold dust, lumps of gold piled up like bricks, and ingots of gold in packages. Blocks of silver stored at one side formed, as it were, a wall two ells thick and as high as the ceiling. In niches and on stone tables lay precious stones of every color: rubies, topazes, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, pearls as large as nuts and even as birds' eggs. There were single jewels which equaled a town in value.

"This is our property in case of misfortune," said the overseer.

"For what misfortune are ye waiting?" inquired the pharaoh. "The people are poor, the nobility and the court are in debt, the army decreased one half, the pharaoh without money. Has Egypt ever been in a worse position?"

"It was in a worse position when the Hyksos conquered it."

"In a few years," replied Ramses, "even the Israelites will conquer this country unless the Libyans and Ethiopians precede them. And then these beautiful stones, broken into pieces, will go to ornament the sandals of black men and Hebrews."

"Be at rest, holiness. In case of need not only the treasure itself, but the labyrinth would vanish without a trace, together with its guardians."

Ramses understood thoroughly that he had before him fanatics who thought only of this: not to let any one possess that treasure. He sat down on a pile of gold bricks, and continued,

"Then ye are preserving this property for evil days in Egypt?"

"Thou speakest truth, holiness."

"But who will convince you, its guardians, that those days have come when they are really present?"

"To do that it would be necessary to call an extraordinary assembly of Egyptians, an assembly made up of the pharaoh, thirteen priests of the highest degree, thirteen nomarchs, thirteen nobles, thirteen officers, and thirteen of each of the following: merchants, artisans, and earth- tillers."

"Then ye would give to such an assembly the treasures?" asked the pharaoh.

"We would give the necessary sum if the whole assembly, as one man, decided that Egypt was in danger, and."

"And what?"

"If the statue of Amon in Thebes confirmed that decision."

Ramses dropped his head as if to hide his great satisfaction.

He had a plan ready.

"I shall be able to collect such an assembly and incline it to unanimity," thought the pharaoh. "Also it seems to me the divine statue of Amon will confirm the decision if I put my Asiatics around it."

"I thank you, pious men," said he aloud, "for showing me these precious things, the great value of which does not prevent me from being one among the poorest of sovereigns. And now I beg you to lead me hence by the shortest way possible and the most convenient."

"We wish thee, holiness, to double the wealth of the labyrinth. As to the road, there is only one, we must return as we came."

One of the priests gave Ramses dates, another a flask of wine mixed with some invigorating substance. Then the pharaoh recovered strength and went forward cheerfully.

"I would give much," said he, laughing, "to know all the turns of this wonderful passage."

The guiding priest stopped,

"I assure thee, holiness, that we ourselves do not understand or remember this road, though each one of us has entered a number of times by it."

"Then how do ye manage?"

"We have certain indications, but if one of these were to fail us, even at this moment we should die here of hunger."

They reached the antechamber at last and through it the courtyard. Ramses looked around and drew one breath of relief after another.

"For all the treasures of the labyrinth I would not guard them!" cried he. "Terror falls on my breast when I think that it is possible to die in those stone prisons."

"But it is possible to grow attached to them," replied the priest smiling.

The pharaoh thanked each of his guides, and concluded,

"I should be glad o show you some favor; ask for one."

The priests listened with indifference, and their chief answered,

"Pardon me, holiness, but what could we wish for? Our figs and dates are as sweet as those in thy garden, our water is as good as that from thy well. If wealth attracted us have we not more of it than all the kings put together?"

"I cannot win these men by anything," thought the pharaoh, "but I will give them a decision of the assembly, and a decision of Amon."