The Storehouses of the King; Or, the Pyramids of Egypt
by Jane van Gelder · English · Gutenberg #47291 · 494,452 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Storehouses of the King; Or, the Pyramids of Egypt
Author: Jane van Gelder
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Transcriber’s Note
When italics were used in the original book, the corresponding text has
been surrounded by _underscores_. Some corrections have been made to
the printed text. These are listed in a second transcriber’s note at
the end of the text.
THE STOREHOUSES OF THE KING.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
STOREHOUSES OF THE KING
OR
THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT
WHAT THEY ARE AND WHO BUILT THEM
BY
JANE VAN GELDER
(_née_ TRILL)
And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of
wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see
thou hurt not the oil and the wine.—_Revelation_ vi. 6.
LONDON: W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE.
1885.
(_All Rights reserved._)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, S. W.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THIS VOLUME
IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED
TO
EGYPTOLOGISTS AND FREEMASONS
OF ALL NATIONS,
BY
THE DISCOVERER OF WHAT THE STONE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT ARE,
AND WHO BUILT THEM,
THE AUTHOR.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE.
The Pyramids have been reckoned among the wonders of the world, and
every effort has been made to discover for what purpose they were
constructed, and by whom they were built.
Their immense size, their solid construction, the lonely positions in
which they are placed, add to the amazement of the spectator.
Many conjectures and assertions have been made regarding them. Some
assert they were the tombs of the kings of Egypt, and others differ,
and say they were built for astronomical purposes; and those who give
up guessing or speculating regarding them, consider they were the
tokens of the folly and tyranny of the rulers of Egypt.
All travellers, and learned men and women who have visited these
gigantic monuments, admit their grandeur, and admire their sublimity.
Many expeditions have been sent to Egypt for the purpose of gaining
information regarding these Pyramids; and many public and private
individuals have spent princely fortunes in exploring them; and on
almost every occasion a book has been written, and given to the world,
showing the result of each expedition. Everything that could possibly
be said and written regarding these relics of antiquity has been given
forth to the world in all languages, from the remotest times till the
present day.
It is now the pleasant task of the author to state that the vexed
question may be set at rest, as the solution to the mystery has been
found. The discovery was made whilst reading the latest works on the
Pyramids; she recognised some features in the interior of the Great
Pyramid, and recalled to mind for what purpose such passages have been
used, and followed up the incident by reading more carefully every
book, and examining all the illustrations showing the interior and the
exterior of the noble buildings, till ultimately there remained not the
shadow of a doubt that the discovery was real. The sensation after the
removal of doubt was painful. When this sensation of amazement and
wonder had passed away, a feeling of gratitude took possession of the
mind.
This memorable discovery was made in August 1880. Began writing this
work on the 20th August and finished it on the 30th November.[1] The
entire work has been begun and brought to a conclusion without the
assistance of any person.
The narrative connected with the Pyramids is most touching; on that
account the writer proposes giving the life of the builder as she
describes these wonderful monuments of antiquity. She has never
attempted writing for publication before, therefore she humbly prays
the reader to be indulgent and to overlook all errors and shortcomings,
and to believe that this volume is brought before the world simply to
uphold the truth of the Holy Bible which has recorded the narrative;
and the appositeness of St. Paul’s assertion, that God hath chosen the
foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God
chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought the things
that are.
CONTENTS.
Chap. Page.
I. JOSEPH—THE BUILDER 1
II. MOSES—THE RECORDER 16
III. TOWER OF BABEL—THE MODEL 38
IV. THE PYRAMIDS AS GRANARIES 49
V. THE HEBREWS IN EGYPT 58
VI. THE SPHINX—THE ENTRANCE 75
VII. MISSION OF MOSES IN THE EAST 86
VIII. MISSION OF MOSES IN THE WEST 123
IX. GRANARIES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD 162
X. DEATH OF MOSES 189
XI. RECORD OF FAMINES 198
XII. APOTHEOSIS OF MOSES 237
APPENDICES—
I. THE GREAT FAMINE IN EGYPT 247
II. THE TRANSLATION OF THE SEPTUAGINT 273
III. HERODOTUS ON THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT 296
IV. ON THE HEBREW AND GRECIAN FEAST OF FIRST-FRUITS 298
V. PREDICTIONS CONCERNING EGYPT 308
THE
STOREHOUSES OF THE KING.
CHAPTER I.
JOSEPH—THE BUILDER.
Joseph was the son of Jacob’s old age, and consequently he loved him
more than any of his other sons, by which Joseph incurred the envy and
hatred of his brothers, and they, knowing that the lad carried evil
reports of their conduct to their father, determined to do him some
harm. Besides, Joseph was always having strange dreams, which he
related to his father in the presence of his brothers, which dreams
were interpreted to mean some great advancement in the life of the
dreamer. The brothers watched for an opportunity to get rid of this
favourite child. The opportunity presented itself, and they availed
themselves of it. Jacob sent Joseph to see the state of affairs in the
field where the flocks were fed, and to bring him word; so Joseph, in
obedience to his father’s command, went, and when the brothers who were
guarding the flocks saw him approaching, they agreed to kill him. But
one of the elder ones said that it would be a great sin to shed the
blood of their relative, and that it would be better to throw him into
a pit and leave him there to die; to which suggestion the rest
consented. When Joseph came up to them, they insulted him, and stripped
him of the coat which his father, in his fondness for him, had made for
him, and, unheeding the lad’s cries and remonstrances, they threw him
into a pit. After this cruel deed, the men went to their meal; and
whilst eating it they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites, and to them they
sold Joseph, who was taken out of the pit and given to them. The
Ishmaelites, fearing that Joseph was not a slave, judging from his
handsome face and noble carriage, sold him to a company of Midianites,
merchants going down to Egypt. When these merchants arrived in Egypt,
they sold him as a slave to an Egyptian nobleman. Here he was kindly
treated by his master, who had confidence in his integrity, and was
made an overseer of his master’s property. Joseph was seventeen years
old when he was taken away from his home and country, and his father
mourned for him as dead. This took place in the year 1728 B.C.
The ways of the Almighty God are mysterious, and far above human
comprehension. God blessed Joseph, and he grew into man’s estate goodly
and well-favoured.
His master’s wife noticed him and became madly enamoured; losing all
self-control, she made criminal advances to him, which he repelled, and
entreated her to remember that he was her husband’s trusted servant,
and that she should not induce him to commit such wickedness against
his master and sin in the sight of God. She still persisted, till at
last she used force, and he fled from her presence, leaving a piece of
his coat by which she held him. Seeing that he was not to be overcome,
she hated him, and, to revenge herself on him, she reversed the story
and told it to her husband, who, believing her tale, became very angry
with Joseph and prosecuted him. Though the Court wherein he was tried
found him innocent, yet the nobleman persuaded the judge to place
Joseph in confinement, that his wife’s conduct might not be made
public; and, as Joseph had neither friends nor means, he was helpless,
and consequently was sent to prison, where he remained many years.
In his solitude, the mind of the captive must have often recalled
scenes of home, and all the lessons that he had learnt orally—as was
the custom in the East—and remembered the great deeds and renown of
his ancestors, and the marvellous acts of God towards Noah and Abraham
and Isaac, and his own father Jacob, who was surnamed by God Israel. In
regarding his miserable condition he must have thought of the visit to
Egypt of his great-grandfather, Abraham, who came as a prince, and was
treated by the king as his friend; and how the king, when he found he
was misinformed by Abraham regarding his wife, made honourable amends,
and gave him flocks and herds as presents; and when the famine in
Canaan was over, he and his wife and their nephew left Egypt in state
(the Egyptian historians call these visitors “Shepherd Kings”); and how
when there was another famine in Canaan, in the lifetime of Isaac,
there was corn in Egypt, and Isaac would have visited Egypt as did his
father, but that he was forbidden by God.
Thus time sped till Joseph was thirty years old, when Pharaoh, King of
Egypt, was warned in dreams of the approach of the great and memorable
famine, which was to last seven long years, during which time the earth
would make its sabbath, and produce no food for man or beast. It was
then that the unhappy captive was remembered by a fellow-prisoner,
whose dream Joseph had interpreted, and which was realised as he
predicted; so that, when all the wise men of Egypt could not tell the
King the meaning of his dreams, and when the King in his disappointed
rage was about to condemn them to death, Joseph was called.
He was taken from the prison and brought before the King, who, seeing
in him a superior deportment and a stately person, came down from his
throne and addressed him as an equal; he told him his dreams, and said
there was none who could interpret them, and that he had heard that he
understood dreams and could interpret them. Joseph answered the King
with humility, and told him what was the will of God regarding the land
of Egypt; that there would be seven years of great plenty throughout
all the land of Egypt, and after them seven years of famine; that all
the plenty would be forgotten in the land of Egypt, and the famine
would consume the land. Joseph advised Pharaoh to look out for a man
discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt; to appoint
officers over the land, and to take up the fifth part of the produce of
the land of Egypt in the seven plenteous years; to let them gather all
the food of those good years that were to come, and lay up corn under
the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities, that it
might be for store to the land against the seven years of famine which
should be in the land of Egypt, that the land might not perish through
the famine.
Pharaoh was greatly pleased, both at the interpretation and the advice;
and, as there was none like him, in whom was the spirit of God, Pharaoh
made Joseph the Viceroy of Egypt; and Pharaoh took off his ring from
his hand and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in vestures of
fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; and he made him ride
in the second chariot which he had, and the people cried before him,
“Bow the knee!” or “Bend the knee!” and Pharaoh made him ruler of all
the land of Egypt.
And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, “I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no
man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.” And Pharaoh
called Joseph’s name Zaphnath-paaneah, or “Preserver of the Age.”
Consequently Joseph had absolute power vested in him. The King also
gave him to wife Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, priest of On. And
Joseph went throughout all the land of Egypt. And in the seven
plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls. And he gathered up
all the food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt, and
laid up the food in the cities; the food of the field, which was round
about every city, laid he up in the same. And Joseph gathered corn as
the sand of the sea, very much, until he left off numbering; for it was
without number.
The land of Egypt is six hundred miles long, and is bounded by two
ranges of naked limestone hills which sometimes approach, and sometimes
retire from each other, leaving between them an average breadth of
seven miles. Northwards they part and finally disappear, giving place
to a marshy meadow plain which extends to the Mediterranean coast. To
the south they are no longer of limestone, but of granite; they narrow
to a point; they close till they almost touch; and through the mountain
gate thus formed the river Nile leaps with a roar into the valley, and
runs due north towards the sea. This land and its neighbourhood was
first inhabited by the descendants of Ham, the third son of Noah;
Mizraim, the second son of Ham, occupied Egypt. The noble river Nile is
recorded in the Scriptures as the second river which parted from the
main stream which went out of Eden to water the garden where Adam and
Eve were placed by their Creator.
In the winter and spring it rolls a languid stream through a dry and
dusty plain; but in the summer an extraordinary thing happens. The
river grows troubled and swift, it turns red and then green; it rises,
it swells, till at length, overflowing its banks, it covers the
adjoining lands to the base of the hills on either side. The whole
valley becomes a lake, from which the villages rise like islands, for
they are built on artificial mounds. The land of Egypt is by nature a
rainless desert, which the Nile, the mysterious Nile only, converts
into a fruitful garden every year.
The task that Joseph had been entrusted with was stupendous. He had to
build storehouses that would contain all the fifth part of the produce
of the plenteous years of the fertile land of Egypt that were gathered
up during the seven years. Before he set himself to the building of
these vast receptacles he must have searched for models, and whilst
doing this the building of the Tower of Babel must have come to his
recollection, for the father of Abraham was the chief officer of King
Nimrod who built it. This was a grand model, and that he followed it is
evident from what we see in the Pyramids, or Storehouses of the King,
in this, the nineteenth century of our Lord.
When the Temple at Jerusalem was about to be built by Solomon, he must
have read how the storehouses were built, and he must have been aware
for what use they were intended, as well as by whom they were built.
Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and as
son-in-law of the King he must have had free access to all the secret
buildings and records of the land of Egypt.
This is the account of the building of the Temple: Solomon laid the
foundations of the Temple very deep in the rock of Moriah, and the
materials were strong stones, and such as would resist the force of
time; these were to unite themselves with the rock, and become a basis
and a sure foundation for that superstructure which was to be erected
over it. They were to be so strong in order to sustain with ease those
vast superstructures and precious ornaments, whose own weight was to be
not less than the weight of those other high and heavy buildings which
the King designed to be very ornamental and magnificent. He erected its
entire body, quite up to the roof, of white stone; its height was sixty
cubits, its length was the same, and its breadth was twenty. There was
another building erected over it, equal to it in its measures, so that
the entire altitude of the Temple was a hundred and twenty cubits. Its
front was to the east.
Now the whole structure of the Temple was made, with great skill, of
polished stones, laid together so very harmoniously and smoothly that
there appeared to the spectators no signs of any hammer, or other
instrument of architecture, but as if, without any use of them, the
materials had naturally united themselves together, the agreement of
one part with another seeming rather to be natural, than to have arisen
from the force of tools upon them. The King also had a fine contrivance
for an ascent to the upper room over the Temple, and that was by steps
in the thickness of its wall; for it had no large door on the east end,
as the lower house had, but the entrances were by the sides, through
very small doors. He also overlaid the Temple, both within and without,
with boards of cedar, that were kept close together by thick chains, so
that this contrivance was in the nature of a support and strength to
the building.
The Temple was built on the crown of Moriah, “the threshing floor of
Ornan the Jebusite” (2 Chr. iii. 1), with a surrounding platform six
hundred and twelve feet square. The building called the Naos would seem
to have stood on the summit of the rock, in which graduated platforms
were cut, forming the courts of the Jews and women. The Naos was small
(sixty by twenty cubits), and was divided into the Holy of Holies and
Holy Place, the former used once a year, the latter occupied only by
the priests performing daily service. In the former was the Ark; in the
latter the altar of incense, with the table of Shew-bread on its one
side, and golden candlestick on the other. These two parts were
separated by a veil, which was rent at the crucifixion (Matt. xxvii.
51). The court of the Gentiles surrounded the Naos, but was on a lower
platform, separated by a trellis fence. The Naos was, like Mount Sinai,
the sanctuary of Jehovah, fenced off from the Gentiles’ court, the
plain below.
Solomon must have referred to the discovery that he had made regarding
these buildings (the Pyramids) and to the builder of them, when he
said: “Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king,
who will no more be admonished. For out of prison he cometh to reign;
whereas also he that is born in his kingdom becometh poor” (Eccl. iv.
13, 14).
Joseph built these storehouses near the fields of every city, according
to the size of the city and the number of its inhabitants. In the
north, near the Delta, he built many and large, according to the amount
of corn the fields there yielded. He was occupied seven years in
building them, and during the time thus occupied, he must often have
recalled the fond memories of home, and of his aged father, and his
youngest brother, the son of his deceased mother; and doubtless the
three largest Pyramids of Jeezeh he dedicated to the memory of his
ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
So Joseph laid the foundations of each storehouse very deep in the rock
on which it was built, and the materials were strong stones, such as
would resist the force of time; these were to unite themselves with the
rock, and become a basis and a sure foundation for that superstructure
which was to be erected over it. They were to be so strong in order to
sustain with ease those vast superstructures whose own weight was to be
not less than the weight of the casing stones which he designed to be
used. He erected its entire body, quite up to the roof, of stone. Its
base was square, the sides rising up slantwise, till there was only a
small square aperture left unfinished; these sides were in steps, so
that the labourers could ascend to the aperture.
The interior had chambers for the officers to reckon the quantity of
corn stored, and for the measure a stone coffer or box to measure the
corn with. There were vast chasms and receptacles with passages like
tubes leading to them, all the length from the walls, with their mouths
outside the walls, which Egyptologists call air passages, so that the
men could get to them from the exterior by the steps. The corn was
thrown into these vast spaces from outside, from the apertures in the
sides, and the aperture at the summit. When the whole receptacle was
well filled with the corn, which was as plentiful as the sand of the
sea, then all the apertures were stopped with stones, like stoppers of
bottles, made for the purpose. The side steps were then encased, from
the base to the summit, with large casing stones, so that the sides
became level, and, with the coatings of cement, the entire building
outside became level and smooth, and the top in a peak.
The corn within this grand storehouse was hermetically sealed, utterly
impervious to the sun, rain, and wind. The doors of it, as in Solomon’s
temple, were small, and in the sides. Now the whole of this structure
was made, with great skill, of stones, and those laid together so very
harmoniously and smoothly that there appeared to the spectators no
signs of any hammer or other instrument of architecture, but as if,
without any use of them, the materials had naturally united themselves
together, the agreement of one part with another seeming rather to be
natural than to have arisen from the force of tools upon them.
The foresight and discretion of Joseph were rewarded by Pharaoh, who
gave him the powers of a king and the attributes of a god.
And the seven years of plenteousness that was in the land of Egypt were
ended, according as Joseph had said, and the dearth was in all lands;
but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. And the famine was over
all the face of the earth. Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold
corn unto the Egyptians; and all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to
buy corn, because the famine was sore in all lands. Now Joseph’s
thoughts reverted to his father’s home, and he knew that his brothers
would be obliged to come to Egypt to purchase food, for the famine was
very grievous in the land of Canaan. He gave orders that no man
desiring corn should send his servant to purchase it, but that the head
of each family should personally appear as a purchaser; he also
proclaimed that no man should be allowed to purchase corn in Egypt to
sell it again in other countries, but only such as he required for the
support of his immediate family; neither should any purchaser be
allowed to buy more corn than one animal could carry. He put guards at
all the gates of Egypt, and every man who passed through the gates was
obliged to record his name and the name of his father in a book, which
was brought by the guards every night for Joseph’s inspection. By doing
this he ascertained when his brethren entered Egypt. When they came and
stood before him, they wondered at his magnificence, the handsome
appearance and the majestic presence of the powerful man, but they did
not recognise in him their brother. He sold them corn, but contrived to
entrap them, so that they should bring down with them his own brother
Benjamin, who did not come with them this time; they departed, leaving
an hostage with Joseph, and on their next visit to buy corn they
brought with them his brother Benjamin, and a letter and presents from
Jacob. When Joseph recognised his father’s hand, his feelings grew too
strong for him; the recollections of his youth overpowered him, and,
retiring into a side apartment, he wept bitterly. He entertained all
his brothers, and sold them corn, but the price thereof he returned
without their knowledge into the sacks of each of his brothers. Before
they left Egypt he made himself known to them, and, after greetings and
explanations, he presented his brothers to Pharaoh; and Pharaoh, seeing
they were goodly men, was much pleased and very gracious towards them.
Then it was arranged that Jacob should come with all his family into
Egypt; and Pharaoh gave his chariots for their accommodation. In due
time Jacob and all his family came into Egypt. Joseph went to meet his
father, dressed in royal robes, with the crown of state upon his head;
and when he came within fifty cubits of his father’s company, he
descended from his chariot and walked to meet his father. Now when the
nobles and princes of Egypt saw this, they too descended from their
steeds and chariots and walked with him. And when Jacob saw all this
great procession he wondered exceedingly, and he was much pleased
thereat, and, turning to Judah, he asked, “Who is the man who marcheth
at the head of this great array in royal robes?” Judah answered, “This
is thy son.” And when Joseph drew nigh to his father he bowed down
before him, and his officers also bowed low to Jacob. And Jacob ran
towards his son and fell upon his neck and kissed him, and they wept
and shed tears of joy and gratitude. Joseph greeted his brethren with
affection. And Joseph brought his father and presented him to Pharaoh;
and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And the King said unto Jacob, “How old art
thou?” And Jacob answered him, and said, “The days of the years of my
pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days
of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of
the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”
And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a
possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land
of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. And Joseph nourished his father,
and his brethren, and all his father’s household, with bread according
to their families (1706 B.C.).
And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore,
so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason
of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in
the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they
bought: and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. When all
their money was spent they brought their cattle unto Joseph, and he
gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks, and for the
cattle of the herds, and for the asses: and he fed them with bread for
all their cattle for that year. After this, Joseph bought all the land
of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field,
because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh’s.
And as for the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the
borders of Egypt, even to the other end thereof. Only the land of the
priests bought he not; for the priests had a portion assigned them of
Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them: wherefore
they sold not their lands.
During these seven years of famine the Egyptians sold all they had, and
that being insufficient they sold themselves, so that from subjects
they became servants to Pharaoh. Joseph again showed his forethought
and discretion, and called the people and said to them, Behold, I have
bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for
you, and you shall sow the land. And it shall come to pass in the
increase, that ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four
parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and
for them of your households, and for food for your little ones. Thus
they became serfs. The wretchedness and poverty of the people was
complete; as if the curse of Noah on his son Ham was accomplished to
the letter.
After this Jacob died, and his sons buried him in great state in the
cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for
a possession of a burying-place, in the land of Canaan (1689 B.C.).
Joseph had two sons by his wife Asenath. At the age of one hundred and
ten years this remarkable man died, and they embalmed him, and he was
put in a coffin in Egypt, and afterwards laid in the ground near the
banks of the Nile. And all Egypt wept for Joseph seventy days, and his
brethren mourned for him seven days, as they did for Jacob his father.
Then Pharaoh took the dominion in his own hands, and governed the
people wisely and in good faith.
CHAPTER II.
MOSES—THE RECORDER.
The narrative in connection with the Storehouses of the King would be
incomplete without a brief survey of the life of the inspired writer
who recorded all the particulars regarding them; and as almost every
existing religion is derived from his writings, it will not be deemed
superfluous. Moses was born in 1571 B.C. At this time a proclamation
was issued throughout the land of Egypt, dooming every male born to the
Hebrews to immediate destruction. The elders and wise men advised the
King to do this, because they feared that a war might come upon them,
and they feared that the Israelites might so increase and spread in the
land that they might drive them away from their own country. At first
they gave the Israelites hard work to reduce their numbers, but, as
that was unavailing, they advised the King, who did not know Joseph,
nor remember all the good that he had done for the Egyptians, to adopt
this barbarous method of reducing the numbers of the Israelitish
inhabitants of Goshen.
It was foretold to Amram, a descendant of Levi, the son of Jacob, that
the child, out of dread of whose nativity the Egyptians had doomed the
Israelite children to destruction, should be his, and be concealed from
those who watched to destroy him; and having been brought up in a
surprising way, he should deliver the Hebrew nation from the distress
they were under from the Egyptians. His memory should be famous while
the world lasts; and this not only among the Hebrews, but foreigners
also; and that this child should also have such a brother that he would
himself obtain God’s Priesthood, and his posterity should have it after
him to the end of the world. Amram and his wife Jochebed were in great
perplexity, and fear increased upon them on account of this prediction.
And when the child was born they nourished him at home privately for
three months. But after that time Amram—fearing he would be
discovered, and, by falling under the King’s displeasure, both he and
his child would perish, and so he should make the promise of God of
none effect—determined rather to entrust the safety and care of the
child to God, than to depend on his own concealment of him, which he
looked upon as a thing uncertain, and whereby both the child, so
privately to be nourished, and himself should be in imminent danger;
but he believed that God would in some way procure the safety of the
child, in order to realise the truth of his own predictions. When they
had thus determined, they made an ark of bulrushes, after the manner of
a cradle, and of a size sufficiently large for an infant to be laid in
without being too straitened. They then daubed it over with slime,
which would naturally keep the water from entering between the
bulrushes, and put the infant into it, and setting it afloat upon the
river, they left its preservation to God; so the river received the
child, and carried him along. Now Thermuthis, the daughter of Pharaoh,
was diverting herself by the banks of the river; and seeing a cradle
borne along by the current, she sent some that could swim, and bade
them bring the cradle to her. When those that were sent on this errand
came to her with the cradle, and she saw the little child, she was
greatly in love with it, on account of its largeness and beauty.
Thermuthis bade them bring her a woman that might afford her breast to
the child. Now Miriam, the sister of Moses, was standing near when this
happened, and, when she had this order given her, she went and brought
the mother, and the child gladly took her breast, and seemed to stick
close to it; and so it was that, at the Queen’s desire, the nursing of
the child was entirely entrusted to its mother.
The following names were given to Moses by the different persons
interested in him:—
Moses, “I have drawn him from out the water,” by Thermuthis,
Pharaoh’s daughter.
Heber, “Because he was reunited to his family,” by his father Amram.
Yekuthiel, “I hoped in God,” by his mother Jochebed.
Yarah, “I went down to the river to watch him,” by his sister
Miriam.
Abigedore, “For God had repaired the breach in the house of Jacob,
and the Egyptians ceased from that time to cast the infants into
the water,” by his brother Aaron.
Abi Socho, “For three months he was hidden,” by his grandfather
Caath.
Shermaiah Ben Nethaniel, “Because in his day God heard their
groaning and delivered them from their oppressors,” by the children
of Israel.
Moses became as a son to Thermuthis, the daughter of Pharaoh, as a
child belonging rightly to the palace of the King.
The first exploit of Moses was as a general of the Egyptian army, which
he led into Ethiopia; he marched by land, and on the way gave a
wonderful demonstration of his sagacity. The ground was difficult to be
passed over, because of the multitude of serpents; these it produces in
vast numbers, and, indeed, is singular in some of those species, which
other countries do not breed, and yet such as are worse than others in
power and mischief, possessing unusual keenness of sight. Some of these
serpents ascend from the ground unseen, and also fly in the air, and so
come upon men unawares, and do them mischief. Moses invented a
wonderful stratagem to preserve the army safe and without hurt; for he
made baskets, like unto arks, of sedge, and filled them with ibises,
Egyptian birds, and carried them along with them. These birds are the
greatest enemies to serpents imaginable, for they fly from them when
they come near them, and as they fly they are caught and devoured by
them. As soon, therefore, as Moses came to the land which bred these
serpents, he let loose the ibises, and by their means repelled the
serpentine kind; using them as his assistants before the army came upon
that ground. When, therefore, he proceeded thus on his journey he came
upon the Ethiopians before they expected him; and, joining battle with
them, he beat them and overthrew their cities, and, indeed, made a
great slaughter of the Ethiopians. Moses laid siege to Saba, afterwards
called Meroë, the capital of Ethiopia, a strong city encompassed by the
Nile and by two other rivers, Astapus and Astaboras, and strongly
fortified with great ramparts, insomuch that when the waters come with
the greatest violence it can never be overthrown; these ramparts also
make it next to impossible for even such as have crossed over the
rivers to take the city. However, while Moses was uneasy at the army’s
lying idle (for the enemies durst not come to battle), this accident or
incident occurred: Tharbis, the daughter of the King of Ethiopia,
happened to see Moses as he led the army near the walls, and fought
with great courage, and admiring the subtlety of his undertakings, and
taking him to be the author of the success of the Egyptians, she fell
deeply in love with him, and sent to him the most faithful of all her
servants to discourse with him about their marriage. He thereupon
accepted the offer, on condition that she would procure the delivering
up of the city; and gave her the assurance of an oath to make her his
wife, and that when he had once taken possession of the city he would
not break his oath to her. No sooner was the agreement made than its
condition was fulfilled; and when Moses had cut off the Ethiopians he
gave thanks to God, and consummated his marriage, and led the Egyptians
back to their own land.[2]
Now the Egyptians, after they had been preserved by Moses, entertained
a hatred to him, and were very eager in compassing their designs
against him, suspecting that he would take occasion, from his great
success, to raise a sedition and bring innovations into Egypt; so they
told the King he ought to be slain. The King had also some intentions
of his own to the same purpose; and, being instigated by the elders and
wise men, he was ready to undertake to kill Moses. But when Moses
learned this he went away privately and joined the army of Kikanus, the
King of Ethiopia, at that time suppressing a rebellion in Assyria, and
soon became a great favourite with the King and with all his
companions. Then Kikanus became sick and died in Ethiopia, and his
soldiers buried him and reared a monument over his remains, inscribing
upon it the memorable deeds of his life. After the death of King
Kikanus the army appointed Moses to be their King and leader. This took
place in the hundred and fifty-seventh year after Israel went down into
Egypt. The Ethiopians placed Moses upon their throne and set the crown
of state upon his head, and they gave him the widow of Kikanus for a
wife; but the widow of Kikanus was a wife to Moses in name only. When
Moses was made King of Ethiopia the Assyrians again rebelled as they
had done before; but Moses subdued them and placed them under yearly
tribute to the Ethiopian dynasty. Moses reigned in Ethiopia in justice
and righteousness. But the dowager Queen of Ethiopia, Adonith, who was
a wife to Moses in name only, said to the people: “Why should this
stranger continue to rule over you? Would it not be more just to place
the son of Kikanus upon his father’s throne, for he is one of you?” The
people, however, would not vex Moses, whom they loved, by such a
proposition; but Moses voluntarily resigned the power which they had
given him, and departed from their land. And the people of Ethiopia
made him many rich presents, and dismissed him with great honours.[3]
Moses being still fearful of returning to Egypt, travelled towards
Midian, and sat there to rest by a well of water. And the seven
daughters of Jethro, the priest of Midian, came there and drew water
and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock; and Moses helped
them, and at the invitation of their father he dwelt with them, and
married Zipporah, one of his daughters.
And in process of time the King of Egypt died, and the children of
Israel sighed by reason of the bondage; and God sent Moses to them to
deliver them. After the enthronement of the next King, Moses and his
brother Aaron came before Pharaoh and asked permission for the
Israelites to leave Goshen on a three days’ journey into the
wilderness, to hold a religious festival unto the Lord their God. But
Pharaoh refused; and thereupon Moses and Aaron showed miraculous signs
and deeds. Still the King persisted in his refusal; till at last the
anger of the Lord became great towards Pharaoh. God then commanded
Moses and Aaron to prepare the Passover sacrifice, saying: “I will pass
over the land of Egypt and slay the first-born, both of man and beast.”
The Israelites did as they were commanded, and at midnight the angel of
the Lord passed over the land and smote the first-born of Egypt, both
of man and beast. Then there was a great and grievous cry through all
the land, for there was not a house without its dead; and Pharaoh and
his people rose up in alarm and consuming grief, and called for Moses
and Aaron and bade them be gone, supposing that, if once the Hebrews
were gone out of the country, Egypt would be freed from its miseries.
They also gave the Israelites gifts, some in order to get them to
depart quickly, and others on account of their neighbourhood, and the
friendship they had with them.[4]
So the Hebrews went out of Egypt, while the Egyptians wept, and
repented that they had treated them so hardly. And Moses took the bones
of Joseph, the builder of the Storehouses of the King, with him; for
Joseph had strictly sworn the children of Israel, saying: “God will
surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.”
And they took their journey from Goshen, and encamped in Etham, in the
edge of the wilderness. This was in the eightieth year of the age of
Moses, and the eighty-third of his brother Aaron.
But the King soon regretted that he had let the Hebrews depart, so he
resolved to go after them to bring them back. Accordingly he pursued
after them with six hundred chariots, fifty thousand horsemen, and two
hundred thousand footmen, all armed. On coming up to the Hebrews they
seized on the passages by which they imagined the Hebrews might fly,
shutting them up between precipices and the sea; for there was on each
side a ridge of mountains that terminated at the sea, which were
impassable by reason of their roughness, and obstructed their flight.
Wherefore they were in great distress, as they had no weapons of war
for defence, nor was there a way of escape. So there was sorrow and
lamentation among the women and children, who had nothing but
destruction before their eyes, being encompassed with mountains, the
sea, and their enemies, and discerned no way of flying from them.
At this juncture Moses called all the people, and when they were ready
he stood on the sea-shore and prayed to God in these words: “Thou art
not ignorant, O Lord, that it is beyond human strength and human
contrivance to avoid the difficulties which we are now under; but it
must be Thy work altogether to procure deliverance to this army, which
has left Egypt at Thy appointment. We despair of any other assistance
or contrivance, and have recourse only to that hope we have in Thee;
and if there be any method that can promise us an escape by Thy
providence, we look up to Thee for it. And let it come quickly, and
manifest Thy power to us; and do Thou raise up this people to good
courage and hope of deliverance, who are deeply sunk into a
disconsolate state of mind. We are in a helpless place, but still it is
a place that Thou possessest; still the sea is Thine, the mountains
also that enclose us are Thine, so that these mountains will open
themselves if Thou commandest them; and the sea also, if Thou
commandest it, will become dry land. Nay, we might escape by a flight
through the air, if thou shouldst determine we should have that way of
salvation.”[5] When he ended his prayer, Moses lifted up his hand and
smote the sea with his rod, which parted asunder at the stroke, and,
receding, left the ground dry, as a road and a place of flight for the
Hebrews. Seeing the assistance of the Almighty thus vouchsafed in
answer to his prayer, he entered in first, and made the Hebrews follow
him; they obeyed and went on earnestly, as led by God’s presence. The
Egyptians supposed at first that they were distracted, and were going
rashly upon manifest destruction. But when they saw that they were
going a great way without any harm, and that no obstacle or difficulty
fell in their journey, they made haste to pursue them, hoping that the
sea would be calm for them also. They put their horse foremost, and
went down themselves into the sea. By this time the Hebrews had got
over to the land on the opposite side without any hurt. Whence the
others were encouraged, and more courageously pursued them, as hoping
no harm would come to them; but they were mistaken, for as soon as ever
the whole Egyptian army was within it, the sea flowed to its own place,
and came down with a torrent raised by storms of wind, and encompassed
the Egyptians. Showers of rain also came down from the sky, and
dreadful thunder and lightning, with flashes of fire. Thunderbolts also
were darted upon them; nor was there anything which used to be sent by
God upon men as indications of His wrath which did not happen at this
time, for a dark and dismal night oppressed them. And thus did the King
of Egypt and all his men perish, so that there was not one man left to
be a messenger of this calamity to the rest of the Egyptians.[6] On the
next day Moses gathered together the weapons of the Egyptians, which
were brought on shore by the current of the sea, the force of the winds
assisting it; and he armed the Hebrews with them. After returning
grateful thanks for this miraculous deliverance, he led the people to
Mount Sinai, as he was ordered by God beforehand. Here he instructed
them, and prepared them against the time when they should enter the
land of Canaan, which country they considered their inheritance, and to
which they looked as the destination of their journey. And Moses gave
them, among other lessons, the Ten Commandments, which were engraved
upon two stone slabs or tables, five on each table, and two and a half
upon each side of them. The First Commandment taught that there is but
one God, and that they ought to worship Him only; the Second commanded
them not to make the image of any living creature, to worship it; the
Third, that they must not swear by God in a false matter; the Fourth
that they must keep the seventh day, by resting from all sorts of work;
the Fifth, that they must honour their parents; the Sixth, that they
must abstain from murder; the Seventh, that they must not commit
adultery; the Eighth, that they must not be guilty of theft; the Ninth,
that they must not bear false witness; the Tenth, that they must not
admit the desire of anything that is another’s.[7] These two tables
were, for security, placed in a box or ark, made of wood that was
naturally strong and could not be corrupted. This ark was called, in
the Hebrew language, Eron. Its construction was thus: its length was
five spans, but its breadth and height were, each of them, three spans.
It was covered all over with gold, both within and without, so that the
wooden part was not seen. It had also a cover united to it by golden
hinges in a wonderful manner; which cover was every way evenly fitted
to it, and had no irregularities to hinder its exact conjunction. There
were also two golden rings fastened to each of the longer boards, and
passing right through the wood; through them gilt bars passed along
each board, that it might thereby be moved and carried about as
occasion should require; for it was not drawn in a cart by beasts of
burden, but borne on the shoulders of the priests. Upon this cover were
two images, which the Hebrews call cherubims; they are flying
creatures, but their form is not like to that of any of the creatures
which men have seen, though Moses said he had seen such beings near the
throne of God.[8]
As the people were dwelling in tents, and were marching towards the
land of Canaan by easy marches, Moses made a tent called the
Tabernacle, in which he placed the ark containing the two tables. This
Tabernacle served as a church in the wilderness, and wherever they
travelled they carried it about with them. Moses appointed his brother
Aaron to be the High Priest; and after the death of Aaron, Eleazar, his
son, became his successor, and the garments of his high office were put
upon him. The family of the Levites were the priests.
Moses remained with the Hebrews forty years, and laboured to make them
a religious and God-fearing people; but they frequently revolted
against him, murmuring whenever they were in distress, and tried his
patience to the utmost, till he forgot himself, and also complained
against God, for which he was forbidden to enter the land of Canaan.
Therefore, when he had admonished and repeated to the people all the
laws he had given them, he brought them to the border of Canaan, and
gave over the charge of the Hebrews to Joshua, his disciple and their
commander. Now, as Moses went from them to the place where he wished to
vanish out of their sight, they all followed after him weeping; but he
beckoned with his hand to those that were remote from him, and bade
them stay behind in quiet, while he exhorted those that were near him
that they would not mourn so at his departure. Whereupon they thought
they ought to grant him that favour, to let him depart according as he
himself desired; so they restrained themselves, though weeping still
towards one another. All those who accompanied him were the Senate, and
Eleazar the High Priest, and Joshua, their commander. Now as soon as
they were come to the mountain called Abarim (which is a very high
mountain, situate over against Jericho, and one that affords, to such
as are upon it, a prospect of the greatest part of the excellent land
of Canaan), he dismissed the Senate; and, as he was going to embrace
Eleazar and Joshua, and was still discoursing with them, suddenly a
cloud stood over him, and he disappeared in a certain valley out of
their sight.[9]
Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he left the camp of the
Israelites. He spent forty years of his life in teaching the Laws of
God to the people in the wilderness. He was one that exceeded all men
that ever were in understanding, and made the best use of what that
understanding suggested to him. He had a very graceful way of speaking
and addressing himself to the multitude; and as to his other
qualifications, he had such a full command of his passions, as if he
had hardly any such in his soul, and only knew them by their names, as
rather perceiving them in other men than in himself. He was also such a
general of an army as is seldom seen, as well as a king and a prophet
as was never known, and this to such a degree, that whatsoever he
pronounced one would think he heard the voice of God Himself. So the
people mourned for him thirty days, nor did any grief so deeply affect
the Hebrews as did this upon the departure of Moses; nor were those who
had witnessed his conduct the only persons who desired him, but those
also who perused the laws he left behind him greatly longed for him,
and from those laws learned the extraordinary virtue he was master
of.[10] At this period of his life his eye was not dim, nor his natural
force abated. “And Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of
wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him; and the children of
Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses. And
there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the
Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and the wonders, which the
Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his
servants, and to all his land, and in all that mighty hand, and in all
the great terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel.”[11]
Although he wrote in the holy books that he died, it was for fear lest
they should say that, because of his extraordinary virtue, he went to
God.[12]
Moses was as we shall see, a great traveller, and acquainted with the
vast wilderness that extends from the centre of Africa to the jungles
of Bengal, that consists of rugged mountains and of sandy wastes; it
was traversed by three river-basins or valley plains. In its centre was
the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates. On its east was the basin of the
Indus; on its west was the basin of the Nile. Each of these river
systems was enclosed by deserts; the whole region resembling a broad
yellow field with three green streaks running north and south. The
inhabitants of these regions were not in the habit of travelling beyond
the confines of their own valleys. They resembled islanders, and they
had no ships. But the intermediate seas were navigated by the wandering
tribes, who sometimes pastured their flocks by the waters of the Indus,
sometimes by the waters of the Nile. It was by their means that the
trade between the river-lands was carried on. They possessed the camels
and other beasts of burden requisite for the transport of goods. Their
numbers and their warlike habits, their intimate acquaintance with the
watering-places and seasons of the desert, enabled them to carry the
goods in safety through a dangerous land; while the regular profits
they derived from the trade, and the oaths by which they were bound,
induced them to act fairly to those by whom they were employed. At this
time, 1451 B.C., a mighty tide of the Aryans immigrated to the basin or
valley plain of the Indus. They called themselves Arya, or noble, and
spoke a language the common source of Sanskrit, Prakrit, Zand, Persian,
and Armenian in Asia. They settled down as agriculturists in the
districts surrounding the Indus, their wealth consisting of flocks and
herds; thence, after a time, they overran by successive irruptions the
plains of the Ganges, and spread themselves over the regions called
Aryavarta, occupying the whole of Central India. They were the
promoters of the moral and intellectual progress and civilization in
India; and notwithstanding all the diversities of the Hindoo
populations throughout India, their religious faith has been preserved
in their one language and one literature, furnishing a good evidence of
the original unity of the Indo-Aryans. Their leader and legislator was
known by the name of Manu, who was no other than Moses. After leaving
the camp of the Israelites he travelled to the Indus; the form of
Government he established there was the counterpart or duplicate of the
one he established among the Hebrews; the laws and customs were the
very same; the most careful comparison will confirm the fact. Moses was
afraid that the Hebrews would trace his footsteps, so he sank his
identity by assuming a foreign name: thus, for Moses he used Manu; for
Abraham, Brahman; for Amram, Ram. All the remarkable Biblical events
are familiar to the Brahmans, and the record of the creation as
contained in the Bible was given in the Rig-veda of the Hindoos. The
narrative of the finding of Moses by the daughter of Pharaoh has a
corresponding record, but as he was more than one hundred and twenty
years old when he arrived in India, the account is that the Lawgiver
was cradled by a large sea-serpent on the bosom of the great waters for
ages, whilst he was in a state of somnolence.
The origin of the belief in the Transmigration of the Soul is also
taken from an event in the life of Moses, which is recorded in the
Hebrew Talmud thus: The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, thy days approach
that thou must die.” On this Moses thought that he had committed but a
slight offence, which would be pardoned; for ten times had Israel
tempted God’s wrath and been forgiven through his intercession, as it
is written: “And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word.”
But when he became convinced that he would not be pardoned, he made the
following supplication: “Sovereign of the universe, my trouble and my
exertion for Israel’s sake is revealed and known before Thee. How I
have laboured to cause thy people to know Thee, and to believe in Thy
Holy Name, and practise Thy holy law, has come before Thee. O Lord, as
I had shared their trouble and their distress, I hoped to share their
happiness. Behold, now, the time has come when their trials will cease,
when they will enter into the land of promised bliss, and Thou sayest
to me, Thou shalt not pass over this Jordan. O Eternal, great and just,
if thou wilt not allow me to enter into this goodly land, permit me at
least to live on here in this world.”
Then God answered Moses, saying: “If thou wilt not die in this world,
how canst thou live in the world to come?” But Moses continued: “If
thou wilt not permit me to pass over this Jordan, let me live as the
beasts of the field; they eat of the herbs and drink of the waters, and
live and see the world; let my life be even as theirs.”
And God answered: “Let it suffice thee; do not continue to speak unto
me any more on this matter.” Yet again Moses prayed: “Let me live even
as the fowls; they gather their food in the morning, and in the evening
they return unto their nests. Let my life be even as theirs.”
And again God said: “Let it suffice thee; do not continue to speak to
me any more on this matter.” Then Moses proclaimed: “He is the Rock;
His work is perfect, and His ways are just; the God of Truth, just and
upright is He.”[13]
The Persians, known in India as Parsees, are worshippers of the element
of fire. This fire-worship originated from an event that took place in
Persia when the Hebrews were captives in that country. The King of
Persia gave the Hebrews leave to sacrifice to the Lord as Moses had
commanded them; and when the prophet Nehemiah had prepared the
sacrifice, the priests and the Israelites offered up this prayer: “O
Lord, Lord God, Creator of all things, Who art fearful and strong, and
righteous and merciful, and the only and gracious King, the only giver
of all things, the only just, almighty, and everlasting, Thou that
deliverest Israel from all trouble, and didst choose the fathers, and
sanctify them: Receive the sacrifice for Thy whole people Israel, and
preserve Thine own portion, and sanctify it. Gather those together that
are scattered from us, deliver them that serve among the heathen, look
upon them that are despised and abhorred, and let the heathen know that
Thou art our God. Punish them that oppress us, and with pride do us
wrong. Plant Thy people again in Thy holy place, as Moses hath spoken.”
And the priests sang psalms of thanksgiving.
Now when the sacrifice was consumed, Nehemiah commanded the water that
was left to be poured on the great stones. When this was done, there
was kindled a flame; but it was consumed by the light that shined from
the altar. So when this matter was known, it was told the King of
Persia that, in the place where the priests that were led away had hid
the fire, there appeared water, and that Nehemiah had purified the
sacrifices therewith. Then the King, inclosing the place, made it holy,
after he had tried the matter and convinced himself of the fact.[14]
The Mohammedans are the followers of Mohammed, and the Koran that he
gave them, he told his followers, “is not a new invented fiction, but a
confirmation of those Scriptures which have been revealed to Moses
before it, and a distinct explication of everything necessary in
respect either to faith or practice, and a direction and mercy unto
people who believe.”[15]
As for the Israelites, though they are now scattered over the face of
the whole earth, yet the Tabernacle, and the Altar of Incense, and the
Ark containing the two Stone Tables on which were engraven the Ten
Commandments given by God, by the hand of Moses, are still in Mount
Abarim, hidden there by Jeremiah the prophet, before the sack and
burning of the Temple of Solomon by the Babylonians. They are in a
cave, wherein Jeremiah laid them and stopped the door, saying, “As for
that place, it shall be unknown until the time that God gather his
people again together, and receive them unto mercy. Then shall the Lord
show them these things, and the glory of the Lord shall appear, and the
cloud also, as it was showed under Moses, and as when Solomon desired
that the place might be honourably sanctified.”[16]
After the departure of the Israelites from the land of Egypt, that
country was reduced to the lowest depth of misery. The King, with all
his chariots, horsemen, and footmen were all overwhelmed and destroyed;
there was no firstborn of man (or beast) to mourn the loss of their
kindred. The land was desolate, and the Storehouses of the King stood
out in their grandeur to remind the survivors of their ingratitude to
the relatives of the man who built them, to preserve the Egyptians
during the seven years of the grievous famine that afflicted the land
of Egypt. They must have avoided the sight of these monuments, thereby
to forget the misery and desolation they had brought on themselves by
their cruel treatment of the Hebrews. The Egyptian priests knew what
these buildings were, for they were the historians of their country;
but when Herodotus visited Egypt and made minute inquiries regarding
the Pyramids, they gave him a confused account, telling him, however,
that for one hundred and six years the Egyptians suffered all kinds of
calamities, and that for this length of time the temples were closed
and never opened. From the hatred they bore them, the Egyptians were
not willing to mention the names of their kings, but called the large
Pyramids after Philition (Zaphnath-paaneah, Psothom Phanech), a
shepherd who at that time kept his cattle in those parts.[17] Philition
is a corruption of the other two names given to Joseph by Pharaoh;
while the shepherds were the brothers of Joseph, and Goshen—Gizeh of
our time—the region where they dwelt, as commanded by the King. The
Greeks could make nothing out of the information gathered by Herodotus.
In course of time the first Republic of France sent a traveller into
Upper and Lower Egypt, and the inhabitants of the land of Egypt had so
far forgotten the events of the past that they showed him an enclosed
space as the granaries of Joseph. The traveller says: “You see at
ancient Cairo the granaries of Joseph, if the name of granaries can
with propriety be given to a vast space of ground surrounded with walls
twenty feet in height, and divided into a sort of courts which have no
roof, or any other covering whatever, in which are deposited the grains
brought out of Upper Egypt for the revenue, where they are the food of
a multitude of birds, and the receptacle of their ordure. The walls of
this enclosure are of a bad construction; they have nothing in their
appearance which announces an ancient building, and the love of the
marvellous alone could have attributed its elevation to the patriarch
Joseph.”[18] The French Government gained nothing, and its attention
was diverted from the Storehouses of the King. Since that time many
explorers have gone to the Pyramids, and spent princely fortunes in
trying to solve the mystery as to what they were and who built them.
But the Arabs are too cunning and too indolent to tell the truth; for
they know from experience that, if the truth were known, they would be
made to assist in repairing the Storehouses of the King, just as many
of the people were set to cut the Suez Canal, when the French
discovered an old undertaking of the reign of Necho, which had been
left unfinished because the oracle declared that the king was making
the canal for a barbarian. Wherefore the Arabs reckon that, ignoring
all knowledge, they gain a good livelihood as guides, by taking
travellers to the Pyramids, which is little trouble to them, but brings
them “plenty backsheesh.”
CHAPTER III.
TOWER OF BABEL—THE MODEL.
The Pyramids were, without doubt, copied from and built after the model
of the Tower of Babel. At the time that Joseph was entrusted by Pharaoh
with the task of making provision against the approaching famine that
he predicted would take place, the building of the City and Tower of
Babel by Nimrod the son of Cush, the son of Ham, the son of Noah, and
the confusion of tongues that followed, were of comparatively recent
date. Abraham’s father Terah was in the service of King Nimrod during
their erection.
We are told in the Scriptures that “the whole earth was of one language
and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the
east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt
there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn
them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for
mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose
top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be
scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”[19]
In this description the motive assigned for the building of the
above-mentioned city and tower is that the people over whom Nimrod
reigned might be preserved together with renown. They found a plain by
the river Euphrates that suited their purpose, resembling the plain of
Egypt by the river Nile. In Shinar there was no stone, so brick was
used in its stead. This plain was fertile and produced much corn. The
settlers anticipated another Deluge, and on that account they provided
themselves with the means of subsistence when that calamity might recur
on the earth. The precaution they took for this event was to build a
place of safety, with a granary that would hold a sufficient amount of
corn to last during the whole period of the visitation. They built a
gigantic granary resembling the great Pyramid of Jeezeh, which they
filled with corn. Joseph imitated this example in Egypt.
The same event is thus recorded in the Talmud:—“Cush, the son of Ham
and grandson of Noah, married in his old age a young wife, and begat a
son, whom he called Nimrod, because in those days the people were
beginning to rebel again against the Lord’s command, and Nimrod
signifies ‘Rebellion.’ Now Nimrod grew up, and his father loved him
exceedingly, because he was the child of his old age. When Nimrod was
forty years old his brethren, the sons of Ham, quarrelled with the sons
of Japhet. And Nimrod assembled the tribe of Cush, and went forth to
battle with the sons of Japhet. And he addressed his army, saying, ‘Be
not dismayed, and banish fear from your hearts. Our enemies shall
surely be your booty, and ye shall do with them as ye please.’ Nimrod
was victorious, and the opposing armies became his subjects. And when
he and his soldiers returned home rejoicing, the people gathered around
and made him king, and placed a crown upon his head. And he appointed
counsellors, judges, chiefs, generals, and captains. He established a
national government, and he made Therach, the son of Nahor, his chief
officer. When Nimrod had thus established his power he decided to build
a city, a walled town, which should be the capital of his country. And
he selected a certain plain and built a large city thereon, and called
it Shinar. And Nimrod dwelt in Shinar in safety, and gradually became
ruler over all the world; and at that time all the people of the earth
were of one language and of one speech. Nimrod in his prosperity did
not regard the Lord. He made gods of wood and stone, and the people
copied his doings. His son Mordan served idols also, from which we
have, even to this day, the proverb, ‘From the wicked wickedness comes
forth.’
“And it came to pass about this time that the officers of Nimrod and
the descendants of Phut, Mitzrayim, Cush, and Canaan took counsel
together, and they said to one another, ‘Let us build a city, and also
in its midst a tall tower for a stronghold, a tower the top of which
shall reach even to the heavens. Then shall we truly make for ourselves
a great and mighty name, before which all our enemies shall tremble.
None will then be able to harm us, and no wars may disperse our ranks.’
And they spoke these words to the King, and he approved of their
design. Therefore these families gathered together and selected a
suitable spot for their city and its tower on a plain towards the east
in the land of Shinar.
“And while they were building rebellion budded in their hearts,
rebellion against God, and they imagined that they could scale the
heavens and war with Him. They divided into three parties. The first
party said, ‘We will ascend to heaven and place there our gods and
worship them.’ The second party said, ‘We will pour into the heavens of
the Lord and match our strength with His.’ And the third party said,
‘Yea, we will smite Him with arrow and with spear.’
“And God watched their evil enterprise and knew their thoughts, yet
they builded on. If one of the stones which they had raised to its
height fell, they were sad at heart, and even wept; yet when any of
their brethren fell from the building and were killed, none took
account of the life thus lost. Thus they continued for a space of
years, till God said, ‘We will confuse their language.’ Then the people
forgot their language, and they spoke to one another in a strange
tongue. And they quarrelled and fought on account of the many
misunderstandings occasioned by this confusion of language, and many
were destroyed in these quarrels, till at last they were compelled to
cease building.
“The tower was exceedingly tall. The third part of it sank down into
the ground, a second third was burned down, but the remaining third was
standing until the time of the destruction of Babylon. Thus were the
people dispersed over the globe, and divided into nations.”[20]
In this narrative the object of these wicked idolaters was to ascend
and carry war into heaven against God. To accomplish this object or
design they built the city and tower; the latter served for the granary
as well as the stronghold of the new city.
Abraham was born about this time. His father Terah was then in the
service of King Nimrod, in Babylon. Owing to the idolatry and the
wickedness of the people, Abraham left the country with his wife and
nephew, and settled in the land of Canaan. When Joseph was a child he
must have heard from his father the story of those eventful times, when
Abraham dwelt in the country wherein he was born. In due time he
availed himself of the knowledge thus imparted to him in his early days.
Modern travellers have found many remains of Pyramids in the ancient
kingdom of Babylonia. There was, therefore, nothing new or wonderful in
the fact of Joseph erecting granaries throughout Egypt when a severe
famine was expected. These granaries or Pyramids began in the Delta,
which was most fertile and yielded the largest amount of corn. The
Pyramids here are the finest as well as the largest; the rest are
erected along the western shore of the Nile as far as Ethiopia, which
was a province of Egypt. This province revolted in the lifetime of
Moses. He went there as commander of the Egyptian forces and suppressed
the rebellion. The ruins in Meroë and Axum, and other places in
Ethiopia, attest the truth of this statement.
Egyptologists have spent much time and labour in pursuit of their
science, but, very unfortunately, their researches have been directed
by misleading guides.
The authorities they took for their guidance were the Greek and Roman
writers, who knew nothing about the events that took place before Egypt
became a province of Alexander the Great and of the emperors of Rome.
The oldest and best records of Egypt and the ancient world were written
by the inspired historian Moses, and these records, or a small portion
of them, were translated from the Hebrew into the Greek language by
seventy Jewish elders for the King Ptolemy Philadelphus in the year 284
B.C.; so that before this time the outer or the Gentile world was in
utter ignorance regarding the history of Egypt, as well as that of the
Jews. The authors held in veneration by Egyptologists are Manetho and
Herodotus. Manetho’s ignorance as to the history of his own country is
shown by Flavius Josephus; and Herodotus wrote his account of the
Pyramids from hearsay. The priests who related the anecdotes concerning
the kings Cheops and his brother Chephren, and the shepherd Philition,
knew nothing themselves as to the real truth, for the whole account is
in confusion, worse confounded by their stupendous ignorance.
The writings of these two authors have misled every Egyptologist. Had
the Bible, the Jewish records called the Talmud, and Flavius Josephus
been studied instead, Egyptologists would have learnt the truth, and
nothing but the truth, and their time and labour would have been
rewarded most satisfactorily. The reader of this work will find
extracts in the later portion of it, which will repay the trouble of
perusal.
The testimony of recent travellers proves the reality of the existence
of granaries in Babylon, and the indisputable fact that the Pyramids
were built in imitation of them. The following is an instance:—[21]
“On the 9th December 1811 Mr. Rich made an expedition to the
Birs-i-Nimrúd. He found vestiges of mounds all round it to a
considerable extent, and the country traversed by canals in every
direction. The soil round it is sandy. Close to the Birs, or at about a
hundred yards from it, and parallel with its southern front, is a high
mound, almost equal in size to that of the Kasr.
“‘The Birs,’ says he, ‘is an enormous mound. At the north end it rises,
and there is an immense brick wall, thirty-seven feet high and
twenty-eight in breadth, upon it. This wall is not in the centre of the
north summit of the mound, but appears to have formed the southern face
of it. The other parts of the summit are covered by huge fragments of
brickwork, tumbled confusedly together; and what is most extraordinary
is that they are partly converted into a solid vitrified mass. The
layers are in many parts perfectly distinguishable; but the whole of
these lumps seem to have undergone the action of fire. Several lumps of
the same matter have rolled down, and remain partly on the side of the
mound and partly in the plain. The large wall on the southern face of
the summit is built of burnt bricks, with writing on them, and so close
together that no cement is discoverable between the layers. Small
square apertures are left, which go quite through the building, and are
arranged in a kind of quincunx form. Down the face of the wall the
bricks have been separated, leaving a large crack. On the side towards
the mound of Ibrahím Khalil, the mound slopes gradually down, and up
nearly half its height is a flat road running round this part of it,
twenty of my paces broad.
“‘From this the mound slopes more gradually to the plain or valley
between it and the mound of Ibrahím Khalil, and is worn into deep
ravines or furrows, like the Mujelibé. On the other or north face of
this pile it slopes down more abruptly at once into the plain, with
only hollows or paths round it, the road before mentioned, which from
that part appears to surround the building, losing itself before it
reaches this. On the north-west face, where it also slopes down into
the plain, are vestiges of building in the side, exactly similar in
appearance and construction to the wall on the top, with the holes or
apertures which are mentioned in the description of that. At foot of
all is, seemingly, a flat base of greater extent, but very little
raised above the level of the plain. The whole sides of the mound are
covered with pieces of brick, both burnt and unburnt, bitumen, pebbles,
spar, black stone, the same sand or limestone which covers the canal at
the Kasr, and even fragments of white marble. No reeds were to be seen
in any part of the building, though I saw one or two specimens of burnt
bricks which evidently had reeds in their composition, and some had the
impression of reeds on their cement. I saw also several bricks which
were thickly coated with bitumen on their lower face. In the lowest
part of the mound opposite Ibrahím Khalil, the mounds are most
evidently composed of unburnt bricks, the layers being in great measure
visible. This would lead one to suppose that it was not originally part
of the great pile, were not specimens of this kind of bricks found in
it also.
“‘The circumference of the base—not the low one—is 762 yards. The
whole height of it, from this measured base to the summit of the tower
or wall, is 235 feet; but there can be no doubt that it was much
higher. The form is more oblong than square. I found the longest side
to be 248 of my paces. Fortunately for the preservation of the ruin, it
is too far from the Euphrates for the Arabs to think it worth their
while to excavate for bricks; while they are so closely joined
together, that it is impossible to procure them quite unbroken.’
“Mr. Rich will not admit this tower to be that of Belus, because,
according to his view, it is on the wrong side of the river.
“The whole height of the Birs-i-Nimrúd above the plain to the summit of
the brick wall is 235 feet. The brick wall itself, which stands on the
edge of the summit, and was undoubtedly the face of another stage, is
37 feet high. In the side of the pile, a little below its summit, is
very clearly to be seen part of another brick wall, precisely
resembling the fragment which crowns the summit, and still encasing and
supporting its part of the mound. This is clearly indicative of another
stage of greater extent.
“Without forming any conjecture as to what might have been its original
construction, the impression made by the sight of it is, that it was a
solid pile, composed in the interior of unburnt brick, and perhaps
earth or rubbish; that it was constructed in receding stages, and faced
with kiln-burnt bricks having inscriptions on them, laid in a very thin
layer of lime cement; and that it was reduced by violence to its
present ruinous condition. The upper stones have been forcibly broken
down, and fire has been employed as an implement of destruction, though
it is not easy to say how or why. The facing of fine bricks has been
partly removed and partly covered by the falling down of the mass which
it supported and kept together.
“A still later traveller, Mr. Buckingham, is of opinion that the traces
of four stages are clearly discernible.
“As to Major Rennell’s doubt whether the ruin was artificial, Mr. Rich
observes that, ‘so indisputably evident is the fact of the whole mass
being from top to bottom artificial, that he should as soon have
thought of writing a dissertation to prove that the Pyramids are the
work of human hands as of dwelling upon this point. The Birs-i-Nimrúd,’
he adds, ‘is, in all likelihood, at present nearly in the state in
which Alexander saw it, if we give any credit to the report that ten
thousand men could only remove the rubbish, preparatory to repairing
it, in two months. If, indeed, it required one half of that number to
disencumber it, the state of dilapidation must have been complete.
“‘The immense masses of vitrified brick which are seen on the top of
the mound appear to have marked its summit since the time of its
destruction. The rubbish about its base was probably in much greater
quantities, the weather having dissipated much of it in the course of
so many revolving ages; and possibly portions of the interior facing of
fine brick may have disappeared at different periods.’”
CHAPTER IV.
THE PYRAMIDS AS GRANARIES.
The land of Shinar, with its desolate tower, the marvellous prototype
of the Great Pyramid of Jeezeh, passed from one conqueror to another;
and when the descendants of the Prophet Mohammed became rulers of the
east and west, the Caliph Al Mamoun, in the year A.D. 820, came from
Bagdad to El Fostat, an earlier Cairo, and determined to enter the
largest Pyramid and examine its contents, for he believed from the
reports brought to him that it contained untold treasures. He ordered
his Mohammedan workmen to begin at the middle of the northern side of
the Great Pyramid. These men worked on unceasingly by night and by day.
Weeks and months were consumed in these toilsome exertions; so
persevering, however, were they, that, though progressing slowly, they
at length penetrated no less than one hundred feet in depth from the
entrance. By that time, they were becoming thoroughly exhausted, and
began to despair of the hard and hitherto fruitless labour, when one
day they heard a great stone fall evidently in some hollow space within
not more than a few feet on one side of them. In the fall of that
particular stone there seems to have been somewhat more than an
accident.
They instantly pushed on in the direction of the strange noise.
Breaking through a wall surface, they burst into the hollow way, very
dark and dreadful to look at, and difficult to pass. It was the
inclined and descending entrance-passage of the Pyramid, where the
Romans and others passed up and down in their occasional visits to the
subterranean chamber and its unfinished, unquarried-out floor.
A large angular-fitting stone, that had been for ages, with its lower
flat side, a smooth and polished portion of the ceiling of the inclined
and narrow entrance-passage, quite undistinguishable from any other
part of the whole of its line, had now dropped on to the floor before
their eyes, and revealed that there was just behind it the end of
another passage, clearly ascending therefrom towards the south. That
ascending passage itself was still closed a little further up by a
portcullis or stopper, formed by a series of huge granite plugs, of
square wedge-like shape, dropped or slid down, and then jammed in
immovably from above. To break this in pieces within the confined
space, and pull out the fragments there, was entirely out of the
question; so the workmen broke through the smaller ordinary masonry,
and thus up again by a huge chasm—still visible, and used by visitors
into the interior—to the ascending passage, at a point past the
terrific hardness of its lower granite obstruction. They found up there
beyond the portcullis the passage-way still blocked, but the filling
material at that part was only limestone; so, making themselves a very
great hole in the masonry along the western side, they there wielded
their tools on the long blocks which presented themselves to their
view. But as fast as they broke up and pulled out the pieces of one of
the blocks in this ascending passage, other blocks, also of such a size
as to completely fill it, slid down from above, and where there should
have been free passage there was still an obstruction of solid stone.
The men despair; but the Caliph, being present, insists that, whatever
the number of stone plugs still to come down from the mysterious
reservoir, his men shall hammer and hammer them, one after the other,
and bit by bit, to little pieces, at the only opening where they can
get at them, until they at last come to the end. So the work goes on,
till at length the ascending passage, beginning just above the granite
portcullis, leading thence upward and to the south, becomes free from
obstruction.
On they rush, up one hundred and ten feet of the steep incline,
crouching hands and knees and chin together, through a passage of
polished white limestone, forty-seven inches in height and forty-one in
breadth. They suddenly emerge into a long high gallery, all black as
night and in death-like silence; still ascending, they see another low
passage. On their right hand is the dark, ominous-looking mouth of a
deep well, in which not even at a depth of more than 140 feet is the
water reached; while onwards and above them is a continuation of the
gallery leading them on.
The way was narrow, not more than six feet broad anywhere, and
contracted to three feet at the floor, but twenty feet high, and of
polished marble-like stone throughout. Ascending at an angle of 26°,
these men had to push their dangerous and slippery way for about a
hundred feet still further; then an obstructing three-foot step to
climb over; next a low doorway; then a hanging portcullis to pass,
almost to creep under; and then another low doorway, with awful blocks
of red granite on either side, above, and below.
After this they leaped without further obstruction at once into the
grand chamber, a right noble apartment now called the King’s Chamber,
about thirty-four feet long, seventeen broad, and nineteen high, of
polished red granite throughout, in blocks squared and put together
with exquisite skill. In this apartment they found—nothing, except an
empty stone chest or box or coffer without a lid![22]
The Caliph Al Mamoun was amazed, for he had arrived at the very
furthest part of the interior of the Great Pyramid he had so long
desired to take possession of, and had now found absolutely nothing
that he could make any use of, or saw the smallest value in. He
returned to El Fostat greatly disappointed, and the Grand Gallery, the
King’s Chamber, and the stone coffer without a lid were troubled by him
no more; for after this he left Egypt and returned to his imperial
residence in Bagdad, where he died in A.D. 842.
The entrance into the Great Pyramid in use in our time is the one thus
made by this prince. The granite chest or coffer without a lid, found
in the King’s Chamber above-mentioned, was not a sarcophagus, or a
coffin, but simply a corn measure, and nothing else, which holds about
four English quarters. It was placed in that chamber by the inspired
builder Joseph, the great-grandson of Abraham the Hebrew, the friend of
God; the Pyramid being a gigantic granary holding corn, and this the
measure by which he ascertained the quantity stored in it. The passages
in the walls, called air-channels by Egyptologists, were apertures
through which the corn was thrown from without into the chamber, and
thence into the vast receptacles below. The grain was brought from the
fields to the apertures up the steps, before the casing-stones were
fitted to the whole edifice, which, being afterwards polished, kept the
contents secure from moth and mildew.
When Joseph died “his body was embalmed and afterwards laid in the
ground near the banks of the Nile.”[23] The locality that exactly
answers this place of sepulture has been discovered in modern times.
“The structure found there is situated about a thousand feet south-east
of the Pyramid building, and still to be seen, descended into, and
measured, is a colossally large and deep burial pit, on the square and
level bottom of which rests an antique rude sarcophagus of very
gigantic proportions. But deep as is the pit containing it, it is
surrounded by a grand rectangular trench which goes down deeper still,
cut clearly in solid limestone rock the whole of the way down; and to
such a depth does it reach at last as to descend below the level of the
adjacent waters of the Nile at inundation time. Then, as the waters of
that river necessarily percolate the hygroscopic rock of the hill up to
their own level, the lower depths of the trench are filled with Nile
water, and the grand old sarcophagus of the interior pit does then rest
in a manner on an island surrounded by the waters of the Nile; and it
is the only known tomb on the Jeezeh hill which is gifted with that
peculiarity or privilege.”[24]
This is the tomb of which Herodotus speaks as the resting-place of the
builder of the Great Pyramid, to whom he gives the names of Chemmis,
Cheops, Xufu, Suphis, Philition the Shepherd, &c. All these
appellations belong to no other person than Zaphnath-paaneah, the
Viceroy of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, the great-grandson of Abraham the
Hebrew, the friend of God!
The sarcophagus is empty, for the bones of Joseph were carried away by
the children of Israel when they took their departure from Egypt under
the leadership of Moses and Aaron.
Visitors who enter the Pyramid get covered with a fine grey dust or
powder similar to that found in large rooms or buildings wherein grain
has been stored; for any person entering such places, though emptied of
their contents, but left unswept, would get covered with a grey powder
fallen from corn, or rice, or wheat, &c., which in every respect
resembles this fine grey dust. In confirmation of this the following is
an instance:—
“Last month (1877) an American newspaper, recounting a recent visit to
the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid, mentions how the clergyman of
the party, the Rev. Dr. ——, insisted on laying himself down full
length inside the coffer. He had heard the inspiration, and scientific
metrological theory of the Great Pyramid duly related by Dr. Grant, and
had not denied it; but so strongly was he imbued with the mere tombic
idea of the Egyptians, that he held, as he lay there, with the notion
that he was lying down in a royal coffin; and when he, Dr. ——, rose
up from that open granite chest and found himself filthy, horrible,
odious, with fine grey dust begriming his hair and transfusing his
clothes, he had a great deal of trouble about it; for not until he had
got right away from Egypt, and obtained the help of the steward’s
assistant on board ship to give the clothes an extra beating over the
waves of the rolling sea, was the last of the penetrating powdery stuff
got rid of.”[25]
Colonel Howard Vyse also found a substance of this description when he
entered the Pyramids, of which he gave a minute account in his work on
the Pyramids of Egypt. It is as follows:—“For a day or two after the
chamber had been opened those who remained in it became blackened as if
by a London fog. As this effect gradually disappeared, I conceive it to
have been occasioned by the blasting and by the sudden admission of the
air.
“Upon first entering the apartment, a black sediment was found, of the
consistence of a hoar-frost, equally distributed over the floor, so
that footsteps could be distinctly seen impressed on it, and it had
accumulated to some depth in the interstices of the blocks. Some of
this sediment which was sent to the French establishment near Cairo was
said to contain ligneous particles. When analysed in England it was
supposed to consist of the exuviæ of insects; but as the deposition was
equally diffused over the floor, and extremely like the substance found
on the 25th instant (1837) at the Second Pyramid, it was most probably
composed of particles of decayed stone. If it had been the remains of
rotten wood, or of a quantity of insects that had penetrated through
the masonry, it would scarcely have been so equally distributed; and if
caused by the latter, it is difficult to imagine why some of them
should not have been found alive when the place was opened evidently
for the first time since the Pyramid was built.”
Previous to the visitation of the seven years’ famine, these granaries
were built and stored, and the casing-stones fitted with cement and
polished, making these edifices appear like natural rocks. Bruce, the
great traveller, and other old travellers of those days, mistook them
for such (natural rocks) and paid no attention to them whatever.
When the time arrived that the Storehouses of the King were required to
be tapped, and food distributed to the famine-stricken people, the
exterior of these buildings was left entire, and the operation of
taking out the grain carried on by means of long shafts bored in the
adjacent ground to a depth reaching the foundation of the Pyramid,
where there were openings from which the contents could be tapped.
These could be opened and shut at pleasure, as Joseph ordered that all
the granaries should be closed with the exception of one, where he
hoped to see his brothers when they came to buy corn in Egypt.
Colonel Howard Vyse gives a description of one of these entrances,
thus:—“The Pyramid of Saccara. This Pyramid was built in steps, or
degrees, and was entered from a sort of well, or shaft, made in the
sand on the northern side. The passage, which was long and winding, and
apparently in many places forced, led to a lofty chamber, in the roof
of which wood had been employed. Various forced passages wound around
this chamber, and conducted to openings, or windows, which looked down
into it from a considerable height.[26] These passages were much
encumbered with rubbish, pieces of alabaster, and decayed wood; and in
one place there was an accumulation of large blocks of polished
granite, raised up by small fragments of stone sufficiently high to
admit of a man’s crawling beneath them. For what purpose they were so
placed we did not find out.”
CHAPTER V.
THE HEBREWS IN EGYPT.
In the Talmud it is recorded that after Joseph’s marriage with Asenath,
daughter of Potipherah the priest of On, “he built for himself a
palace, elegant and complete in its details and surroundings, so
elaborate that three years’ time was required for its completion.” A
man so wise and so powerful as to be looked upon by the Egyptians as
their king was certainly able to make a suitable provision for the
anticipated advent of his beloved father, as well as for all his
brothers, who came with their entire households, and possessions in
flocks and herds, &c., for the famine was over the whole earth.
The large palace called the Labyrinth by Herodotus, would correspond
with such a provision for their accommodation and comfort. Herodotus
saw this palace himself in the year 448 B.C., and he describes it
thus:—“The Egyptians having become free, after the reign of the priest
of Vulcan, for they were at no time able to live without a king,
established twelve kings, having divided all Egypt into twelve parts.
These having contracted intermarriages, reigned, adopting the following
regulations: that they would not attempt the subversion of one another,
nor one seek to acquire more than another, and that they should
maintain the strictest friendship. They made these regulations and
strictly upheld them, for the following reason: it had been foretold
them by an oracle, when they first assumed the government, ‘that
whoever among them should offer a libation in the temple of Vulcan from
a brazen bowl should be king of all Egypt,’ for they used to assemble
in all the temples. Now, they determined to leave in common a memorial
of themselves; and having so determined, they built a Labyrinth, a
little above the lake of Mœris, situated near that called the city of
crocodiles. This I have myself seen, and found it greater than can be
described. For if anyone should reckon up the buildings and public
works of the Grecians, they would be found to have cost less labour and
expense than this Labyrinth; though the temple in Ephesus is deserving
of mention, and also that in Samos. The Pyramids likewise were beyond
description, and each of them comparable to many of the great Grecian
structures. Yet the Labyrinth surpasses even the Pyramids. For it has
_twelve_ courts enclosed with walls, with doors opposite each other,
six facing the north, and six the south, contiguous to one another; and
the same exterior wall encloses them. It contains two kinds of rooms,
some under ground and some above ground over them, to the number of
three thousand, fifteen hundred of each. The rooms above ground I
myself went through and saw, and relate from personal inspection. But
the underground rooms I only know from report, for the Egyptians who
have charge of the building would on no account show me them, saying
that there were the sepulchres of the kings who originally built this
Labyrinth, and of the sacred crocodiles. I can therefore only relate
what I have learned by hearsay concerning the lower rooms; but the
upper ones, which surpass all human works, I myself saw; for the
passages through the corridors, and the windings through the courts,
from their great variety, presented a thousand occasions of wonder as I
passed from a court to the rooms, and from the rooms to halls, and to
other corridors from the halls, and to other courts from the rooms. The
roofs of all these are of stone, as also are the walls; but the walls
are full of sculptured figures. Each court is surrounded with a
colonnade of white stone, closely fitted. And adjoining the extremity
of the Labyrinth is a Pyramid forty orgyæ in height,[27] on which large
figures are carved, and a way to it has been made under ground.”[28]
This curious record of these twelve kings can be easily explained by
referring to the book of Genesis, chapter xlvii. This chapter
corroborates it, for the Israelites, the twelve sons of Jacob, had
absolute power given them by Pharaoh, and had the whole land of Egypt
under their control; for “Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, ‘Thy
father and thy brethren are come unto thee. The land of Egypt is before
thee; in the best of the land make thy father and brethren dwell: in
the land of Goshen let them dwell; and if thou knowest any men of
activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle.’”
Owing to the severity of the famine every Egyptian had to part with his
cattle, and “Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the
flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and for the asses: and he fed
them with bread for all their cattle for that year.”
But as the famine still continued, the poor Egyptians, when they had
exchanged all they possessed for bread, sold even their own persons.
When the whole country was in this desperate condition, the Hebrews
governed the nation for Pharaoh, who placed implicit faith in their
wisdom and probity. These were the men styled by Egyptologists
“Shepherd Kings,” and this period or epoch is mentioned by Manetho, the
Egyptian historian, in the record written in the Greek language, of
which he was a master; it is as follows:—
“There was a king of ours, whose name was Timaus.[29] Under him it came
to pass, I know not how, that God was averse to us, and there came,
after a surprising manner, men of ignoble birth out of the eastern
parts, and had boldness enough to make an expedition into our country,
and with ease subdued it by force, yet without our hazarding a battle
with them.[30] So when they had gotten those that governed us under
their power, they afterwards burnt down our cities and demolished the
temples of the gods, and used all the inhabitants after a most
barbarous manner; nay, some they slew, and led their children and their
wives into slavery.[31] At length they made one of themselves king,
whose name was Salatis.[32] He also lived at Memphis, and made both the
upper and lower regions pay tribute, and left garrisons in places that
were most proper for them.[33]
“He chiefly aimed to secure the eastern part, as foreseeing that the
Assyrians, who had then the greatest power, would be desirous of that
kingdom and invade them; and as he found in the Saite Nomos
(Seth-roite) a city very proper for his purpose, and which lay upon the
Bubastic Channel, but, with regard to a certain theologic notion, was
called Avaris, this he rebuilt, and made very strong by the walls he
built about it, and by a most numerous garrison of 240,000 armed men
whom he put into it to keep it. Thither Salatis came in summer-time,
partly _to gather his corn_ and pay his soldiers their wages, and
partly to exercise his armed men, and thereby to terrify foreigners.
“When this man had reigned thirteen years, after him reigned another,
whose name was Beon, for forty-four years; after him reigned another,
called Apachnas, thirty-six years and seven months; after him Apophis
reigned sixteen years; and then Jonias, fifty years and one month;
after all these, Assis,[34] forty-nine years and two months. And these
six were the first rulers among them, who were all along making war
with the Egyptians, and were very desirous gradually to destroy them to
the very roots. This whole nation was styled Hycsos, that is, Shepherd
Kings; for the first syllable _Hyc_, according to the sacred dialect,
denotes a king, as is _sos_ a shepherd, but this according to the
ordinary dialect, and of these is compounded Hycsos; but some say that
these people were Arabians. It is also said that this word does not
denote kings, but, on the contrary, denotes captive shepherds, and this
on account of the particle _Hyc_; for that _Hyc_, with the aspiration,
in the Egyptian tongue again denotes shepherds, and expressly also; and
this seems the more probable opinion and more agreeable to ancient
history.
“These people, whom we have before named kings, and called shepherds
also, and their descendants, kept possession of Egypt 511 years. After
these, the kings of Thebais and of the other parts of Egypt made an
insurrection against the shepherds, and that then a terrible and long
war was made between them. That under a king whose name was
Alisphragmuthosis,[35] the shepherds were subdued by him, and were,
indeed, driven out of other parts of Egypt, but were shut up in a place
that contained 10,000 acres; this place was named Avaris. The shepherds
built a wall round all this place, which was a large and strong wall,
and this in order to keep all their possessions and their prey within a
place of strength, but that Thummosis,[36] the son of Alisphragmuthosis
made an attempt to take them by force and by siege with 480,000 men to
lie round about them; but that, upon his despair of taking the place by
that siege, they came to a composition with them, that they should
leave Egypt, and go without any harm to be done to them, whithersoever
they would; and that, after this composition was made, they went away
with their whole families and effects, not fewer in number than
240,000, and took their journey from Egypt, through the wilderness, for
Syria;[37] but that, as they were in fear of the Assyrians, who had
then dominion over Asia, they built a city in that country which is now
called Judea, and that large enough to contain this great number of
men, and called it Jerusalem.”[38]
Manetho is altogether in a mist, for he seems unwilling to state the
truth, and still he is compelled, as a historian, to write something,
though against his will. His malice against the Hebrews is manifest
throughout. To give an account of the overthrow of the Egyptians at the
Red Sea, he invents this story:—
“After those that were sent to work in the quarries had continued in
that miserable state for a long while, the King was desired that he
would set apart the city Avaris,[39] which was then left desolate of
the shepherds, for their habitation and protection, which desire he
granted them.
“Now this city, according to the ancient theology, was Trypho’s city.
But when the men were gotten into it, and found the place fit for a
revolt, they appointed themselves a ruler out of the priests of
Heliopolis, whose name was Osarsiph, and they took their oaths that
they would be obedient to him in all things. He then, in the first
place, made this law for them: that they should neither worship the
Egyptian gods, nor should abstain from any one of those sacred animals
which they have in the highest esteem, but kill and destroy them all;
that they should join themselves to nobody but to those that were of
this confederacy.
“When he had made such laws as these, and many more such as were mainly
opposite to the customs of the Egyptians, he gave order that they
should use the multitude of the hands they had in building walls about
their city,[40] and make themselves ready for a war with King
Amenophis[41], while he did himself take into his friendship the other
priests, and those that were polluted with them, and sent ambassadors
to those shepherds who had been driven out of the land by Tethmosis to
the city called Jerusalem, whereby he informed them of his own affairs,
and of the state of those others that had been treated after such an
ignominious manner, and desired that they would come with one consent
to his assistance in this war against Egypt. He also promised that he
would, in the first place, bring them back to their ancient city and
country Avaris, and provide a plentiful maintenance for their
multitude; that he would protect them and fight for them as occasion
should require, and would easily reduce the country under their
dominion.
“These shepherds were all very glad of this message, and came away with
alacrity altogether, being in number 200,000 men, and in a little time
they came to Avaris. And now Amenophis, the King of Egypt, upon his
being informed of their invasion, was in great confusion, as calling to
mind what Amenophis, the son of Papis, had foretold him; and, in the
first place, he assembled the multitude of the Egyptians, and took
counsel with their leaders, and sent for their sacred animals to him,
especially for those that were principally worshipped in their temples,
and gave a particular charge to the priests distinctly, that they
should hide the images of their gods with the utmost care.
“He also sent his son Sethos, who was also named Ramesses from his
father Rhampses, being but five years old, to a friend of his. He then
passed on with the rest of the Egyptians, being 300,000 of the most
warlike of them, against the enemy, who met them. Yet did he not join
battle with them; but, thinking that would be to fight against the
gods, he returned back and came to Memphis, where he took Apis and the
other sacred animals which he had sent for to him, and presently
marched into Ethiopia, together with his whole army and multitude of
Egyptians;[42] for the King of Ethiopia was under an obligation to him,
on which account he received him, and took care of all the multitude
that was with him, while the country supplied all that was necessary
for the food of the men.
“He also allotted cities and villages for this exile, that was to be
from its beginning during those fatally-determined thirteen years.
Moreover, he pitched a camp for his Ethiopian army, as a guard to King
Amenophis, upon the borders of Egypt. And this was the state of things
in Ethiopia. But for the people of Jerusalem, when they came down
together with the polluted Egyptians, they treated the men in such a
barbarous manner, that those who saw how they subdued the
fore-mentioned country, and the horrid wickedness they were guilty of,
thought it a most dreadful thing, for they did not only set the cities
and villages on fire, but were not satisfied till they had been guilty
of sacrilege, and destroyed the images of the gods, and used them in
roasting those sacred animals that used to be worshipped, and forced
the priests and prophets to be the executioners and murderers of those
animals, and then ejected them naked out of the country.
“It was also reported that the priest who ordained their polity and
their laws was by birth of Heliopolis, and his name Osarsiph, from
Osiris, who was the god of Heliopolis; but that when he was gone over
to these people his name was changed, and he was called Moses.”[43]
At this period the land of Egypt was in a most desolate condition. The
hand of God was upon it, for evil plagues were sent, and nothing that
did harm to the land and its people was withheld during the time that
Moses and Aaron were negotiating with the King to let the Hebrews go a
short journey into the wilderness to hold a festival to the Lord.
Pharaoh refusing them leave to do so, the last and direst plague was
sent, the death of the first-born in the land of Egypt, “from the
first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the first-born of the
captive that was in the dungeon, and all the first-born of cattle.”
Then “Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all
the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a
house wherein there was not one dead.” In his hour of affliction the
King desired these Hebrews to depart, with everything they possessed.
When the permission was obtained, the Israelites borrowed from the
Egyptians jewels of gold and jewels of silver, and raiment, and the
Egyptians lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled
the Egyptians. After this they took their departure towards the Red Sea.
Pharaoh, when he recovered from his paroxysm of grief, wished to revoke
the permission and get the Hebrews back to work for him again. So he
called his people together, and, making ready his chariot, he took them
with him. “And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the
chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of them, and he pursued
after the children of Israel; and the children of Israel went out with
an high hand.” And Pharaoh with all his forces “overtook them encamping
by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, before Baal-zephon.”
Now at this place there was no retreat for the Israelites by land. They
were compelled to effect their escape from their pursuers by crossing
the sea to the opposite shore. Seeing the dangerous position they were
in, Moses, the man gifted with supernatural resources, contrived to
make a passage through the sea, and, a strong east wind assisting him
throughout the night, he accomplished the construction of a road for
himself and his followers, which should also serve as a trap to engulph
their enemies after they had effected their own escape.
He, the builder of the monuments now extant in Ethiopia and Upper
Egypt, and in other parts of the habitable earth (of which mention will
be made in the course of this narrative)—he it was who contrived and
made this passage during the night, while the Egyptians rested after
their weary march. It was the sublimest effort of mechanical skill!
When day dawned the passage was ready, and Moses stood by and saw all
his people walk down from the Egyptian shore into the dry road in the
sea prepared for them. The waters were divided; “and the waters were a
wall unto them on their right hand and on their left. And the Egyptians
pursued and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all
Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.”
When the Israelites gained the Arabian shore, and the Egyptians were in
the middle between the two shores, Moses threw back the waters that
were driven aside, and the waters returned and covered all the host of
Pharaoh that came into the sea; there escaped not so much as one of
them! And the Israelites saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore;
“and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and His servant
Moses.”
At this crisis there were only women and children left in Egypt, and
these in the deepest grief for the death of their first-born sons. No
one came back from the camp to relate the terrible catastrophe to these
unfortunate widows and orphans; and there was neither priest nor
grown-up man to record the events of this period in the sacred books of
the nation. Consequently, when Manetho compiled his history from the
sacred records, he was unable to relate the events of this period
clearly and without contradiction.
He accounts for the non-appearance of the King Amenophis and his forces
in Egypt, after his pursuit of the Hebrews, by saying that he retired
into Ethiopia, and remained there thirteen years as the guest of the
king and people of Ethiopia. The son of this Pharaoh, whom Manetho
calls Sethos, was at this time, when his father was drowned, five years
old; so that at the end of these thirteen years he attained his
majority, and the children that were his contemporaries were old enough
to help themselves. These thirteen years form a gap in the history of
Egypt.
After the departure of the Israelites, Egypt became a complete
wilderness, and the Egyptians were so crushed and desolate that they
seemed to have become almost extinct. They mourned and grieved so long
that they appear to have quite forgotten even the names of their kings
and the history of their nation. No wonder the Nile was termed the
Lethe by classic writers.
The present Egyptians, the real descendants of Mizraim, are the Copts
and the Fellaheen,—poor wretched specimens of humanity—and if these
represent their ancestors, it conclusively proves to every traveller,
when he stands in mute admiration on the stupendous monuments of past
grandeur, that they never were the founders of such works of art and
magnificence; they never were the players on the harp and other
musical instruments depicted on the walls of palaces, nor the refined
occupants of those noble apartments, representing the highest culture
and intelligence—apartments furnished with chairs, sofas, and
tables, and embellished with pictures of battles and banquets,
marriage-processions, funerals, and other subjects of the greatest
interest. The real Egyptians were not the founders or builders of any
of those monumental remains which make Egypt the land of wonders and
the favourite resort of the learned.
The descendants of Abraham the Hebrew were the guiding intellects that
ruled Egypt for her Pharaohs, who possessed discernment enough to
appoint them to rule their kingdom on account of their wisdom and
activity.
About the year 1900 B.C. Abraham went down to Egypt from Canaan because
of the famine. And when he had seen and spoken to Pharaoh, that monarch
“gave him leave to enter into conversation with the most learned among
the Egyptians, from which conversation his virtue and his reputation
became more conspicuous than they had been before. For whereas the
Egyptians were formerly addicted to different customs, and despised one
another’s sacred and accustomed rites, and were very angry one with
another on that account, Abram conferred with each of them, and,
confuting the reasonings they made use of every one for their own
practices, demonstrated that such reasonings were vain and void of
truth; whereupon he was admired by them in those conferences as a very
wise man, and one of great sagacity, when he discoursed on any subject
he undertook; and this not only in understanding it, but in persuading
other men also to assent to him. He communicated to them arithmetic,
and delivered to them the science of astronomy; for, before Abram came
into Egypt, they were unacquainted with those parts of learning, for
that science came from the Chaldeans into Egypt, and from thence into
Greece and elsewhere.”[44]
This visit has been mentioned by the Greek and Roman writers, who state
these visitors to be Shepherd Kings, the Hycsos. Abraham was immensely
wealthy, for the Bible says that “Abram went up out of Egypt, he and
his wife Sarai, and all that he had, and Lot, his nephew, with him,
into the south. And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in
gold.”
The ruins that are now existing in the Vostani, or Middle
Egypt—comprising the provinces of Fayoum, Beni-Souef, and Minieh—and
in the Bahari, or Lower Egypt—comprising the provinces of Bahireh,
Rosetta, Damietta, Gharbiyeh, Menouf, Mansoura, and Sharkeyeh—were the
constructions and erections of Joseph, otherwise called
Zaphnath-paaneah, and his eleven brothers; while those found in the
Saïd, or Upper Egypt—comprising the provinces of Thebes, Djergeh, and
Siout—as well as those in Nubia and Ethiopia, sometimes called
Abyssinia, owe their erection to Moses, the descendant of Levi, one of
the brothers of Joseph.
Being the adopted son of Princess Thurmuthis, daughter of Pharaoh,
Moses ruled Egypt as his ancestors had done before his time. His return
after the siege and re-conquest of Meroë, and the entrance in state of
his bride, the Princes Tharbis, daughter of the King of Ethiopia, are
commemorated on the walls of the palace in Upper Egypt. He became very
hateful to the Egyptians on account of his great acts and the power he
displayed, so that they conspired against him.
To save his life Moses left Egypt, and meeting Kikanus, the King of
Ethiopia, returning home from an incursion into Assyria, Moses went
with him and his army. After a residence of nine years with the King,
the Ethiopians elected Moses to the throne of Ethiopia on the death of
Kikanus. This event took place in the hundred and fifty-seventh year
after Israel went down into Egypt.[45]
On the son of the King coming of age, Moses abdicated and left
Ethiopia. The Ethiopians made him many rich presents, and sent him away
with great honours.
In Abyssinia there is a colony of people quite distinct from the
Ethiopians. They differ totally from them in personal appearance, being
fair and handsome, and decidedly of the Jewish type. In religion and
customs and language they resemble the Jews; the characters of their
writing are similar to the Hebrew. This people must have entered
Ethiopia with Moses, and stayed behind when he went away and entered
Midian. The place they occupy is called Amhara, situate on a hill, and
their language Amharic.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SPHINX—THE ENTRANCE.
The Great Sphinx that is on the Mokattam Hill, facing the large
Pyramids of Jeezeh, is the link of union between the north and south of
Egypt, as well as the union of the works of those great men living at
different periods of time as rulers of Egypt—Joseph and Moses. The
following account of this Sphinx is taken from a work called _View of
Ancient and Modern Egypt_, by the Rev. Michael Russell, LL.D.
“Our account of the mechanical productions of ancient Egypt would be
incomplete did we not mention the Great Sphinx, which has always been
regarded as an accompaniment, and sometimes even as a rival, to the
Pyramids. The latest information in regard to this stupendous figure
was obtained through the persevering labours of Mr. Caviglia, whose
name has been already mentioned with so much honour.
“After the most fatiguing and anxious endeavours during several months,
he succeeded in laying open the whole statue to its base, and exposing
a clear area extending to a hundred feet from its front. ‘It is not
easy,’ says Mr. Salt, who witnessed the process of excavation, ‘for any
person unused to operations of this kind to form the smallest idea of
the difficulties which he had to surmount, more especially when working
at the bottom of the trench; for, in spite of every precaution, the
slightest breath of wind, or concussion, set all the surrounding
particles of sand in motion, so that the sloping sides began to crumble
away, and mass after mass to come tumbling down, till the whole surface
bore no unapt resemblance to a cascade of water. Even when the sides
appeared most firm, if the labourers suspended their work but for an
hour, they found on their return that they had the greatest part of it
to do over again. This was particularly the case on the southern side
of the paw, where the whole of the people—from sixty to a
hundred—were employed for seven days without making any sensible
advance, the sand rolling down in one continued torrent. But the
discovery amply rewarded the toil and expense which were incurred in
revealing the structure of this wonderful work of art.
“‘The huge legs stretched out fifty feet in advance from the body,
which is in a cumbent posture; fragments of an enormous beard were
found resting beneath the chin; and there were seen all the appendages
of a temple, granite tablet, and altar, arranged on a regular platform
immediately in front. On this pavement, and at an equal distance
between the paws of the figure, was the large slab of granite just
mentioned, being not less than fourteen feet high, seven broad, and two
thick. The face of this stone, which fronted the east, was highly
embellished with sculptures in bas-relief, the subject representing two
sphinxes seated on pedestals, and priests holding out offerings, while
there was an inscription in hieroglyphics most beautifully executed;
the whole design being covered at top, and protected, as it were, with
the sacred globe, the serpent, and the wings.
“‘Two other tablets of calcareous stone, similarly ornamented, were
supposed, together with that of granite, to have constituted part of a
miniature temple, by being placed one on each side of the latter, and
at right angles to it. One of them, in fact, was still remaining in its
place; of the other, which was thrown down and broken, the fragments
are now in the British Museum.
“‘A small lion, couching in front of this edifice, had its eyes
directed towards the main figure. There were besides several fragments
of other lions rudely carved, and the fore-part of a sphinx of
tolerable workmanship; all of which, as well as the tablets, walls, and
platforms on which the little temple stood, were ornamented with red
paint, a colour which seems to have been, in Egypt as well as in
_India_, appropriated to sacred purposes. In front of the temple was a
granite altar, with one of the four projections or horns still
retaining its place at the angle. From the effects of fire evident on
the stone, it is manifest that it had been used for burnt-offerings.
“‘On the side of the left paw of the Great Sphinx were cut several
indistinct legends in Greek characters, addressed to different
deities.[46] On the second digit of the same was sculptured, in pretty
deep letters, an inscription in verse, of which the subjoined
translation was given by the late Dr. Young, whose extensive knowledge
of antiquities enabled him at once to restore the defects of the
original, and to convey its meaning in Latin as well as in English.
“‘Thy form stupendous here the gods have placed,
Sparing each spot of harvest-bearing land;
And with this mighty work of art have graced
A rocky isle, encumber’d once with sand:
Not that fierce Sphinx that Thebes erewhile laid waste,
But great Latona’s servant, mild and bland:
Watching that prince beloved who fills the throne
Of Egypt’s plains, and calls the Nile his own.
That heavenly monarch who his foes defies,
Like Vulcan powerful, and like Pallas wise.’
“This remarkable statue is again as much under the dominion of the
desert as it was half a century ago; and, consequently, it now meets
the eye of the Egyptian traveller shrouded in sand to the same depth as
before.
“Dr. Richardson relates that the wind and the Arabs had replaced the
covering on this venerable piece of antiquity, and hence the lower
parts were quite invisible. The breast, shoulders, and neck, which are
those of a human being, remain uncovered, as also the back, which is
that of a lion; the neck is very much eroded, and, to a person near,
the head seems as if it were too heavy for its support. The head-dress
has the appearance of an old-fashioned wig, projecting out about the
ears like the hair of the Berberi Arabs;[47] the ears project
considerably, the nose is broken, the whole face has been painted red,
which is the colour assigned to the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, and
to all the deities of the country except Osiris. The features are
Nubian, or what, from ancient representations, may be called ancient
Egyptian, which is quite different from the negro feature. The
expression is particularly placid and benign; so much so, that the
worshipper of the Sphinx might hold up his god as superior to all the
other gods of wood and stone which the blinded nations worshipped.
“Pococke found the head and neck—all that were above ground—to be
twenty-seven feet high; the breast was thirty-three feet wide; and the
entire length about a hundred and thirty. Pliny estimated it at a
hundred and thirteen feet long and sixty-three in height. According to
Dr. Richardson, the stretch of the back is about a hundred and twenty
feet, and the elevation of the head above the sand from thirty to
thirty-five, a result which accords pretty nearly with the measurement
of Coutelle. It is obvious, at the same time, that the discrepancy in
these reports as to the elevation of the figure must be attributed to
the varying depth of the sand, which appears to have accumulated
greatly since the days of the Roman naturalist.
“There is no opening found in the body of the statue, whereby to
ascertain whether it is hollow or not; but we learn from Dr. Pococke
that there is an entrance both in the back and in the top of the head,
the latter of which, he thinks, might serve for the arts of the priests
in uttering oracles, while the former might be meant for descending to
the apartments beneath.”
Colonel Howard-Vyse made ineffectual attempts to pierce the Sphinx; the
result, in the back of the statue, he gives in these words:—
“The boring-rods were broken, owing to the carelessness of the Arabs,
at the depth of twenty-seven feet in the back of the Sphinx. Various
attempts were made to get them out, and on the 21st of July[48]
gunpowder was used for that purpose; but, being unwilling to disfigure
this venerable monument, the excavation was given up, and several feet
of boring-rods were left in it. During the operation a very beautiful
fossil of a reed was discovered, which is now in the British Museum.”
Respecting the attempt near the shoulder, he says:—“The operations
carried on at the Sphinx were suspended, and the hole made near the
shoulder, about twenty-five and a half feet in depth, was plugged up.”
It was Moses who had the Sphinx cut out of the solid rock on which it
stands. The features and the head-dress of the statue represent in
colossal proportions the features and the head-dress of his beloved
Ethiopian bride, who was “black but comely.”
The statue served as the royal entrance into the Great Pyramid, near
which it is constructed. That this Pyramid has been entered from this
direction is evident from the fact that a ramp-stone has been taken
away from its place by some person who approached it by a subterranean
passage.
“The original builders,[49] then, were not those who knocked out from
within on the well side that now lost ramp-stone, and exposed the inlet
to the well-mouth as it is presently seen, near the north-west corner
of the Grand Gallery. Neither was Al Mamoun the party, for no one could
have done it except by entering the well from the very bottommost
depths of the subterranean region; and he, the son of Caliph Haroun Al
Raschid, and all his crew, did not descend further down the
entrance-passage than merely to the level of his own forced hole, which
is not subterranean at all. Nor is the credit claimed for any of his
Arab successors, who rather alluded to the well as an already existing
feature in their earliest time, and one they did not understand; in
large part, too, because they had only seen, and only knew of, the
upper end of it in the north-west corner of the Grand Gallery floor;
and there it was simply a deep hole, the beginning of darkness and the
shadow of death.
“Who, then, did burst out that now missing ramp-stone? Who, indeed! For
the whole band of Egyptological writers we have mentioned appear to be
convinced that ages before Caliph Al Mamoun made his way by blundering
and smashing,—long ages, too, before Mohammed was born, and rather at
and about the period of Judah being carried captive to Babylon,—the
Egyptians themselves had entered the Great Pyramid by cunning art and
tolerable understanding of its mere methods of construction, and had
closed it again when they left.”
Yes; this Sphinx was the grand royal entrance by which Moses and his
consort entered into the interior of the Great Pyramid. He, being
inspired by Heaven, had foreseen that in future ages the knowledge of
this entrance would be forgotten; he therefore removed the ramp-stone
and left the space it occupied open, so as to excite the curiosity of
those who might visit the spot.
He also left the world a specimen of this entrance in a wooden statue,
built far away, that this wooden construction might serve to unriddle
the passage in the Sphinx, which leads into the Great Pyramid. The
openings in the head and back of the Sphinx were to give light and air
to the passage. The following is a description of the wooden statue,
taken from Captain Meares’ voyages:—[50]
“After the English had been for some time in King George’s Sound, the
Americans began to make use of sails of mats, in imitation of my ship.
Not long after this the English were waited upon by Wicananish, a
prince of greater wealth and power than any they had yet seen, who
invited them to visit his kingdom, which lay at some distance to the
southward, that a commercial intercourse might be established for the
advantage of both parties.
“The invitation was accepted, and Wicananish himself met the ‘Felice’
at some distance from the shore with a small fleet of canoes, and,
coming on board, piloted them into the harbour. They found the capital
to be at least three times the size of Nootka. The country round was
covered with impenetrable woods of great extent, in which were trees of
enormous size.
“After the King and his chiefs had been entertained on board, the
English were in return invited to a feast by Wicananish; and it is not
easy to conceive a more interesting picture of savage life than
witnessed on this occasion. On entering the house, we were absolutely
astonished at the vast area it enclosed.
“It contained a large square, boarded up close on all sides to the
height of twenty feet with planks of an uncommon breadth and length.
Three enormous trees, rudely carved and painted, formed the rafters,
which were supported at the ends and in the middle by gigantic images,
carved out of huge blocks of timber. The same kind of broad planks
covered the whole to keep out the rain; but they were so placed as to
be removable at pleasure, either to receive the air and light or to let
out the smoke. In the middle of this spacious room were several fires,
and beside them large wooden vessels filled with fish soup. Large
slices of whale’s flesh lay in a state of preparation, to be put into
similar machines filled with water, into which the women, with a kind
of tongs, conveyed hot stones from very fierce fires, in order to make
it boil.
“Heaps of fish were strewed about; and in this central part of the
square, which might properly be called the kitchen, stood large
seal-skins filled with oil, from whence the guests were served with
that delicious beverage. The trees that supported the roof were of a
size which would render the mast of a first-rate man-of-war diminutive
on a comparison with them; indeed, our curiosity as well as our
astonishment was at its utmost stretch when we considered the strength
which must have been required to raise these enormous beams to their
present elevation, and how such strength could be commanded by a people
wholly unacquainted, as we supposed, with the mechanic powers.
“The door by which we entered this extraordinary fabric was the mouth
of one of these images, which, large as it may, from this circumstance,
be supposed to have been, was not disproportioned to the other features
of its colossal visage. We ascended by a few steps on the outside; and,
after passing the portal, descended down the chin into the house, where
we found new matter for wonder in the number of men, women, and
children who composed the family of the chief, which consisted of at
least 800 persons. These were divided into groups according to their
respective offices, which had distinct places assigned them.
“The whole of the interior of the building was surrounded by a bench,
about two feet from the ground, on which the various inhabitants sat,
ate, and slept. The chief appeared at the upper end of the room,
surrounded by natives of rank, on a small raised platform, round which
were placed several large chests, over which hung bladders of oil,
large slices of whale’s flesh, and proportionable gobbets of blubber.
“Festoons of human skulls, arranged with some attention to uniformity,
were disposed in almost every part where they could be placed, and,
however ghastly such ornaments appeared to European eyes, they were
evidently considered by the courtiers and people of Wicananish as a
very splendid and appropriate decoration of the royal apartment.
“When the English appeared, the guests had made a considerable advance
in their banquet. Before each person was placed a large slice of boiled
whale, which, with small wooden dishes filled with oil and fish-soup,
and a mussel-shell instead of a spoon, composed the economy of the
table. The servants busily replenished the dishes as they were emptied,
and the women picked and opened some bark, which served the purpose of
towels. The guests despatched their messes with astonishing rapidity
and voracity, and even the children, some of them not above three years
old, devoured the blubber and oil with a rapacity worthy of their
fathers. Wicananish, in the meantime, did the honours with an air of
hospitable yet dignified courtesy, which might have graced a more
cultivated society.”
The Sphinx was cut or carved on Moses’ return from Meroë, and prior to
his departure for Ethiopia, where he was elected King. He carefully
closed the mouth, which was the door of the passage, that it should
never be opened till the fulness of time arrived. But to prevent the
monument from being broken into by strangers, he instructed the
above-mentioned savages to make the large image, with a door in its
mouth, that it might in the future serve as a key to solve the mystery
of the Sphinx in connection with the Great Pyramid.
CHAPTER VII.
MISSION OF MOSES IN THE EAST.
During his reign in Ethiopia, Moses erected the Sphinxes and other
monuments, and left inscriptions and bas-reliefs as tokens of his
presence in that country. From thence he went to Midian, where he did
not remain idle, for there are mines there which he must have had
worked. He was commissioned by the Almighty to deliver the Israelites
and bring them out of Egypt, and, after teaching them how to govern
themselves, to lead them to the Land of Promise. During the forty years
that the Hebrews sojourned in the desert, Moses wrote inscriptions on
the rocks—all resembling those he left in Thebes—in order to show to
future generations the route by which he led his people.
At the foot of Mount Hor there is a remarkable place, called by the
Arabs Wady Mousa, or the Valley of Moses; and the whole of this wild
region is celebrated for its beautiful architectural remains.
Travellers of our time are told by the Arabs that a great prince dwelt
there, and they show them a noble edifice as Pharaoh’s Castle, and
another equally beautiful as the Palace of Pharaoh’s daughter. The
following extract, taken from the account given by an American
traveller, Mr. Stephens, describes these edifices:—[51]
“At the entrance of the city there was not a creature to dispute our
passage; its portals were wide open, and we passed along the stream
down into the area, and still no man to oppose us. In front of the
great temple, the pride and beauty of Petra, I saw a narrow opening in
the rocks, exactly corresponding with my conception of the object for
which I was seeking. A full stream of water was gushing through it, and
filling up the whole mouth of the passage.
“Mounted on the shoulders of one of my Bedouins, I got him to carry me
through the swollen stream at the mouth of the opening, and set me down
on a dry place a little above, whence I began to pick my way,
occasionally taking to the shoulders of my follower, and continued to
advance more than a mile. I was beyond all peradventure in the great
entrance I was seeking. There could not be two such, and I should have
gone on to the extreme end of the ravine.
“For about two miles it lies between high and precipitous ranges of
rocks, from five hundred to a thousand feet in height, standing as if
torn by some great convulsion, and barely wide enough for two horsemen
to pass abreast. At the end was a large open space, with a powerful
body of light thrown down upon it, and exhibiting in one full view the
facade of a beautiful temple, hewn out of the rock, with rows of
Corinthian columns and ornaments, standing out fresh and clear as if
but yesterday from the hands of the sculptor.
“Though coming directly from the banks of the Nile, where the
preservation of the temples excites the admiration and astonishment of
every traveller, we were roused and excited by the extraordinary beauty
and excellent condition of the great temple at Petra (Wady Mousa). The
whole temple, its columns, ornaments, porticoes, and porches, are cut
out from and form part of the solid rock; and this rock, at the foot of
which the temple stands like a mere print, towers several hundred feet
above, its face cut smooth to the very summit, and the top remaining
wild and misshapen as Nature made it.
“The whole area before the temple is perhaps an acre in extent,
enclosed on all sides, except at the narrow entrance, and an opening to
the left of the temple, which leads into the area of the city by a pass
through perpendicular rocks five or six hundred feet in height.
“Ascending several broad steps, we entered under a colonnade of four
Corinthian columns, about thirty-five feet high, into a large chamber
of some fifty feet square and twenty-five feet high. The outside of the
temple is richly ornamented, but the interior is perfectly plain, there
being no ornament of any kind upon the walls or ceiling; on each of the
three sides is a small chamber; and on the back wall of the innermost
chamber I saw the names of Messrs. Leigh, Banks, Irby, and Mangles, the
four English travellers who with so much difficulty had effected their
entrance to the city; of Messieurs Laborde and Linant, and several
others.
“Leaving the temple and the open area on which it fronts, and following
the stream, we entered another defile much broader than the first, on
each side of which were ranges of tombs, with sculptured doors and
columns; and on the left, in the bosom of the mountain, hewn out of the
solid rock, is a large theatre, circular in form, the pillars in front
fallen, and containing thirty-three rows of seats, capable of
containing more than three thousand persons. Above the corridor was a
range of doors opening to chambers in the rocks, the seats of the
princes and wealthiest inhabitants of Wady Mousa (Petra), and not
unlike a row of private boxes in a modern theatre. The whole theatre is
at this day in such a state of preservation that if the tenants of the
tombs around could once more rise into life, they might take their old
places on its seats and listen to the declamation of their favourite
player.
“Though I had no small experience in exploring catacombs and tombs,
these were so different from any I had seen that I found it difficult
to distinguish the habitations of the living from the chambers of the
dead. The façades or architectural decorations of the front were
everywhere handsome; and in this they differed materially from the
tombs in Egypt. In the latter the doors were simply an opening in the
rock, and all the grandeur and beauty of the work within; while here
the door was always imposing in its appearance, and the interior was
generally a simple chamber, unpainted and unsculptured.[52] I say that
I could not distinguish the dwellings from the tombs; but this was not
invariably the case. Some were clearly tombs, for there were pits in
which the dead had been laid, and others were as clearly dwellings,
being without a place for the deposit of the dead. One of these last
particularly attracted my attention. It consisted of one large chamber,
having on one side, at the foot of the wall, a stone bench about one
foot high and two or three broad, in form like the divans in the East
at the present day; at the other end were several small apartments,
hewn out of the rock, with partition-wall left between them, like
stalls in a stable, and these had probably been the sleeping apartments
of the family.
“There were no paintings or decorations of any kind within the chamber;
but the rock out of which it was hewn, like the old stony rampart that
encircled the city, was of a peculiarity and beauty that I never saw
elsewhere, being a dark ground, with veins of white, blue, red, purple,
and sometimes scarlet and light orange, running through it in rainbow
streaks; and within the chambers, where there had been no exposure to
the action of the elements, the freshness and beauty of the colours in
which these waving lines were drawn gave an effect hardly inferior to
that of the paintings in the tombs of the Kings at Thebes.
“Farther on, in the same range—though, in consequence of the steps of
the streets being broken, we were obliged to go down and ascend again
before we could reach it—was another temple, like the first, cut out
of the solid rock, and, like the first, too, having for its principal
ornament a large urn, shattered and bruised by musket-balls; for the
ignorant Arab, believing that gold is concealed in it, day after day,
as he passes by, levels at it his murderous gun, in the vain hope to
break the vessel and scatter a golden shower on the ground.”
From this encampment Moses led the Hebrews to the plains of Moab, and
after taking a survey of Canaan from the top of Mount Pisgah, that is
over against Jericho, he bade them a last farewell. He was then a
hundred and twenty years old; “his eye was not dim, nor his natural
force abated. And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains
of Moab thirty days,” and Joshua became their leader in the place of
Moses. It is also recorded, that “there arose not a prophet since in
Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, in all the
signs and wonders, which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt
to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land ... and in all
the great terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel.”
Josephus the Jewish historian gives an account of the departure of
Moses from the children of Israel thus:—[53]“Now as soon as they were
come to the mountain called Abarim (which is a very high mountain,
situate over against Jericho, and one that affords, to such as are upon
it, a prospect of the greatest part of the excellent land of Canaan),
he dismissed the senate; and as he was going to embrace Eleazar and
Joshua, and was still discoursing with them, a cloud stood over him on
the sudden, and he disappeared in a certain valley, although he wrote
in the Holy Books that he died, which was done out of fear, lest they
should venture to say that, because of his extraordinary virtue, he
went to God.”
Modern travellers have found remains of architecture and sculpture,
which serve as landmarks in the royal progress towards the East. No
doubt Moses had these works executed that they might give ample proof
of his presence in all those countries wherein the remains
exist—countries far divided from each other—and so that by them his
route could easily be followed from Ethiopia to the place where he
ended his pilgrimage on earth.
From Mount Abarim he took his journey eastward, evidently with a large
caravan, consisting of his faithful followers, and forming a formidable
escort. The first place at which they halted for any length of time is
in Persia, where there are unmistakable signs of his sojourn. The
following is an account given by Mr. Morier, who accompanied Sir
Harford Jones Brydges on the mission to Persia in 1809:—[54]
“The sculptures are situated at the distance of about fifteen miles
from Kázerún. About seven miles from it I passed the ruined village of
Derses; and, leaving two tombs, one on the right hand and the other on
the left of the road, came to the bed of a torrent, over which there
seems to have been built an aqueduct, for, on each side of its banks,
there are remains of masonry, and traces of its conduit may be
perceived on the southern bank.
“The extent of the ruins of Shahpúr to the southward is bounded by a
beautiful stream of water. Over the spring from which it issues the
road is sustained by fragments of architecture, which are part of the
entablature of some public building, and, by their dimensions, must
have once been magnificent.
“Immediately after passing the spring, we came upon the ruins of
Shahpúr. When standing on an eminence, we computed the whole to be
comprised, on a rough calculation, within a circumference of six miles.
This circumference enclosed a tract of plain, and a hill, on which the
remains of the ancient citadel formed a conspicuous and commanding
object. Whether by the caprice of Nature or by the labour of man, this
hill or acropolis is distinctly separated from the great range of
mountains forming the most eastern boundary of the plain of Kázerún.
“Between this and another imposing mass of rock runs the beautiful
river of Shahpúr. We reckoned the space between the two rocks at thirty
yards, which formed a little plain of verdure and shrubbery,
intersected, indeed, by the stream of the river. The opening between
the two grand masses presented a landscape the most varied, the most
tranquil, the most picturesque, and, at the same time, the most
sublime, that imagination can form.
“A black and stupendous rock flanked the right of the picture; while
another still more extraordinary rock, as richly illumined as the other
was darkened, supported the left. Between both a distant range of
mountains, whose rocks were terminated by a plain, filled up the
interstices, forming a fine aërial perspective; whilst the river and
rich shrubbery completed a most enlivening foreground.
“The hill on which the remains of the citadel stand is covered by ruins
of walls and turrets. On its eastern aspect the nature of the
fortification can be traced easily; for walls fill the chasms from rock
to rock, forming altogether a place of defence admirably strong. The
first object which arrested our attention was a mutilated sculpture of
two colossal figures on horseback, carved on the superfices of the
rock. The figure on the right was most injured; the only part, indeed,
which we could ascertain with precision was one of the front and two of
the hinder feet of a horse, standing over the statue of a man, who was
extended at his full length, his face turning outwardly, and reposed
upon his right hand, and his attire bearing marks of a Roman costume. A
figure in the same dress was placed in an attitude of supplication at
the horse’s knees, and a head in alto-relievo just appeared between the
hinder feet. The equestrian figure on the left is not quite so much
mutilated, the horse and parts of the drapery on the thighs being still
well preserved.
“The next piece of sculpture (which, like the former, was carved upon
the mountain of the citadel) is perfect in all its parts. It consists
of three grand compartments; the central and most interesting
represents a figure on horseback, whose dress announces a royal
personage. His head-dress is a crown, on which is placed a globe; his
hair flows in very large and massy curls over both shoulders, whilst a
slight mustachio just covers his upper lip, and gives much expression
to a countenance strongly indicative of pride and majesty.
“His body is clothed with a robe, which falls in many folds to his
girdle, and then extends itself over his thigh and legs as low as his
ancle. A quiver hangs by his side; in his right hand he holds the hand
of a figure behind him, which stands so as to cover the whole hind
quarter of his horse, and which is dressed in the Roman tunic and
helmet. A figure, habited also in the Roman costume, is on its knees
before the head of the horse, with its hands extended and with a face
betraying entreaty. Under the feet of the horse is another figure
extended, in the same attire and character as that of the other two
Roman figures.
“To the right of the tablet stands a figure with his hands also
extended, but dressed in a different manner, and, as far as we could
judge, with features more Egyptian than European. In the angle between
the King’s head and the horse’s is a Victory displaying the scroll of
fame. A figure (part of which is concealed by the one on its knees)
completes the whole of this division.
“The second grand compartment, which is on the right, is divided again
into six sub-compartments, in each of which are carved three figures,
the costumes and general physiognomies of which are all different. They
appear mostly in postures of supplication, and, I should suspect, are
representations of vanquished people.
“On the left, in the third grand compartment, are rows of horsemen,
divided by one line into two smaller compartments. They have all the
same characteristic dress and features as the royal figure in the
centre, and certainly represent his forces. The whole of this most
interesting monument is sculptured in a very hard rock, which bears the
finest polish, and which we pronounced to be a coarse species of
jasper. The figures on foot are in height five feet nine inches:
figures on horseback, from the rider’s cap to the horse’s hoofs, six
feet ten inches in length; the grand tablet eleven feet eleven inches.
“Having examined these, we next crossed the river to the sculptures on
the opposite rock. The first is a long tablet containing a multitude of
figures. The principal person (who is certainly the King represented in
the former tablet) is placed in the very centre of the piece, alone in
a small compartment, and is seated with a sword placed betwixt his
legs, on the pommel of which rests his left hand. On his right, on the
uppermost of two long slips, are many men, who seem to be a mixture of
Persians and Romans, the former conducting the latter as prisoners.
Under these, in the lower step, are others, who by their wigs appear to
be Persians. Their leader bears a human head in both hands, and extends
it towards the central figure. On the left are four small compartments.
The first (nearest that figure, and the highest from the ground)
incloses a crowd of men, whose arms are placed over one another’s
shoulders. Below these are five figures, one of whom leads a horse
without any more furniture than a bridle.
“The other two compartments are filled up with eight figures each. We
considered this to represent in general a King seated in his room of
audience, surrounded by his own people, and by nations tributary to
him. The length is eleven yards four inches. On the left of this were
two colossal figures on horseback carved in alto-relievo. The one to
the right had all the dress, character, and features of the King above
described; the other on the left appeared also a royal personage, but
differing in dress and in the furniture of his horse. Both had their
hands extended, and held a ring, which we conceived to be emblematical
of peace.
“After having re-passed the river, we walked over the numerous mounds
of stones and earth which cover the ruined buildings of Shahpúr, and
which, if ever explored, would discover innumerable secrets of
antiquity. We were conducted by the peasants who were with us to the
remains of a very fine wall, which in the symmetry of its masonry
equalled any Grecian work that I have ever seen. Each stone was four
feet long, twenty-seven inches thick, and cut to the finest angles.
“The wall formed the front of a square building, the area of which is
fifty-five feet. At the top were placed sphinxes couchant, a
circumstance which we ascertained from discovering accidentally two
eyes and a mutilated foot, at the extremity of one of the upper stones.
In this wall there is a window, which is arched by the formation of its
upper stone. Behind this square building we traced most correctly the
configuration of a theatre, thirty paces in length and fourteen in
breadth. The place resembled, at least, those called theatres which I
have seen in Greece. From a comparison of their positions, we were led
to suppose that the building still extant must have been connected with
the other behind it, and may have formed, perhaps, the entrance to
it.”[55]
These commemorative sculptures denote that the stranger King (Moses)
and his forces took possession of Derses near Shahpúr by conquest; and
the length of time he remained in the country may be inferred from the
interregnum, or unrecorded interval, between the Assyrian epochs of
Nimrúd and Khorsabad. The supposed duration of that period is about
sixty or seventy years, and it began just about the time that Moses
left the children of Israel, so that it synchronises with the arrival
of Moses in the country, and his residence there fills up the gap.
The number of his followers must have increased during the years that
Moses travelled from one country to another, and he was likely in
consequence to leave some of them to colonise, and to teach his
doctrine, and to carry on the ordinances of his religion, in every
region that was suitable for that purpose.
The Afghans, whose country lies nearest to Persia, claim descent from
the Jews, and the people of Kafiristan are unmistakably Jews. These
inhabit a mountainous country adjoining Afghanistan, on the north-west
of Cashmere.
“The Caufirs[56] have no general name for their nation. Each tribe has
its peculiar name, for they are all divided into tribes, though not
according to genealogy, but to geographical position, each valley being
held by a separate tribe. The Mussulmans confound them all under the
name of Caufir, or infidel, and call their country Caufiristaun. They
also call one division of them Seeaposh (black-vested), or Tor Caufirs
(black infidels), and another Speen Caufirs (white infidels). Both
epithets are taken from their dress, for the whole of the Caufirs are
remarkable for the fairness and beauty of their complexion, but those
of the largest division wear a sort of vest of black goat-skin, while
the others dress in white cotton.
“There are several languages among the Caufirs, but they have all many
words in common, and all have a near connection with the Sanskrit.
Their religion does not resemble any other with which I am acquainted.
They believe in one God; but they also worship numerous idols, which,
they say, represent great men of former days, who intercede with God in
favour of their worshippers. These idols are of stone or wood, and
always represent men or women, some mounted and some on foot.
“They have hereditary priests. They have also persons who can procure
an inspiration of some superior being by holding their heads over the
smoke of a sacrifice. Their festivals are often accompanied with a
sacrifice, and always with a feast. They have no titles of their own,
but they have borrowed that of Khaun from the Afghans for their rich
men. Their property chiefly consists in cattle and slaves.
“The houses of the Caufirs are often of wood, and they have generally
cellars where they keep their cheeses, clarified butter, wine, and
vinegar. In every house there is a wooden bench fixed to the wall, with
a low back to it. There are also stools shaped like drums, but smaller
in the middle than at the ends, and tables of the same sort, but
larger. The Caufirs, partly from their dress and partly from habit,
cannot sit like the other Asiatics; and if forced to sit down on the
ground, stretch out their legs like Europeans. They have also beds made
of wood and thongs of neats’ leather: the stools are made of
wicker-work.
“They celebrate a sacrifice at a particular place near the village
where there was a stone post; a fire was kindled before it, through
which flour, butter, and water were thrown on the stone. At length an
animal was sacrificed, and the flesh was burned, and part eaten by the
assistants, who were numerous, and who accompanied the priest in
prayers and devout gesticulations.”[57]
Their neighbours, the dwellers in the beautiful vale of Cashmere, also
claim descent from the Jews, “a claim[58] borne out by the personal
appearance of the race, their garb, the cast of their countenance, and
the form of their beards. There is a belief, too, among them that Moses
died in the capital of Cashmere, and that he is buried near it.” (This
belief is erroneous, as that Lawgiver ended his days very far away from
Cashmere.)
“There is no doubt that they were originally of Brahmin (Hebrew)
origin; and prosperous must have been the people—wise, beneficent, and
energetic the rulers, in those old days, if tradition and legend are to
be believed, and the mighty monuments of a past grandeur, long anterior
to the days when Mogul wealth and taste embellished the valley, are to
be looked on as faithful witnesses; but to this golden age succeeded
centuries of oppression.
“We must, therefore, not be too hard on the Kashmiri; his faults are
those that oppression fosters, and his virtues, for he has some, are
his industry, his religious toleration, his observance of family ties
and obligations, while for qualities of head and hand he is second to
no Eastern race. As artificers, the pale, slim, sneaking denizens of
the crowded lanes of Sreenuggur will compete with any in the East, and
the sturdy, broad-shouldered, large-limbed peasant is a painstaking and
successful husbandman.
“Among the many changes of masters which Cashmere has undergone, one
class of men appear not only to have retained the religion of their
Brahmin (Hebrew) forefathers, but also a high position among their
fellows. I allude to the Kashmiri Pundits—men of lengthy pedigree, of
wealth and influence, who, thanks to their superior education and
fitness for business, were largely employed by their successive
conquerors, placed in posts of trust, and seemingly exempted from the
forcible conversion to the creed of Mahommed, which was universally
imposed on their countrymen.”
From Cashmere the invading host of Moses entered Hindostan, known at
that period under the name of Ind, from the river Indus. The natives of
the country were a variety of barbarous tribes, who resisted the entry
of Moses and his followers, and many sanguinary battles were fought
before they were subdued, and the conquerors permitted to take
possession of the whole peninsula. Here Moses assumed the name of Manu,
and called his Hebrew nationality Brahmin.
The language he employed while in Hindostan was Sanscrit; all his laws
and ordinances were written in this sacred language. He established
classes or castes. The Brahmins in India occupied the same position as
the Levites in Judea, and were the priests, the instructors, and the
philosophers of the nation.
The chronicles of this epoch record the wars and the brave exploits of
heroes, and the wisdom and learning of the conquerors. The first
mention made of this invading nation gives as their residence a tract
of country between the rivers Sersooty and Caggar, distant from Delhi
about one hundred miles to the north-west. It then bore the name of
Bram-haverta, as being the haunt of gods; and although it was but about
sixty-five miles long by forty broad, it was the scene of the
adventures of the first princes, and the residence of the most famous
sages. They extended their territory, which seems to have included at
that time the districts of Oude, Agra, Allahabad, Lahore, and Delhi.
The city of Oude, then termed Ayodha, was the capital. In course of
time they moved down the peninsula, and subdued the Deccan and the
whole of the south. The celebrated rock temples of Ellora, and the
sculptured cave of Elephanta, are some of the many monuments left by
these Brahmins, the descendants of Abraham the Hebrew. Every traveller,
in viewing these wonderful remains is forcibly reminded of similar
remains in Egypt and Nubia—unmistakable proof of the works having been
executed under the guidance of the same inspired intellect.
The colonies left by Moses or Manu in the peninsula of India within the
Ganges were distinctly traceable in the days of Alexander the Great,
the southern colonists being swarthy, tall, and handsome, not unlike
Ethiopians, whilst those of the northern latitudes were much fairer,
and not unlike the Egyptians, and those still farther south were Jews.
Of such as these were the forces and followers of Moses in his progress
over the earth.
After conquering the whole peninsula he left the mainland and went over
to the island of Ceylon. The Cingalese are well versed in biblical
history; and they even believe that Adam and Eve came to Ceylon after
their expulsion from the garden of Eden. There are remains of former
grandeur and colossal statues to mark the presence of the god-like
Lawyer in the island.
From the island of Ceylon he went by sea and landed on the opposite
peninsula, or India beyond the Ganges. The neighbourhood of Siam has
splendid ruins of most noble buildings and statuary. In Bangkok, the
capital of Siam, the temples and all other religious buildings are
evidently of Egyptian origin. The Siamese of the present time, from the
King to the peasant, live in poor houses of wood or bamboo; and they
frankly admit that they did not build those ancient monuments, and do
not even know who were the builders of them.
Recent travellers in Chin-India speak in rapturous terms of the ruins
of Angkor, the great temple in Siam. One writer says: “The ruins of
Angkor are as imposing as the ruins of Thebes or Memphis, and more
mysterious”; while another thinks that “one of these temples, a rival
to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michael Angelo, might
take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is
grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome.”
The following description of these wonderful ruins is taken from the
work of a recent traveller who visited them:—[59]
“The ruins of Angkor are situated in the province of Siamrap, eastern
Siam, in about lat. 13° 30’ N. and long. 104° E. We entered upon an
immense causeway, the stairs of which were flanked with six huge
griffins, each carved from a single block of stone. This causeway,
which leads directly to the main entrance of the temple, is 725 feet in
length, and is paved with stones, each of which measures four feet in
length by two in breadth. On either side of it are artificial lakes fed
by springs, and each covering about five acres of ground. We passed
through one of the side gates and crossed the square to a _sala_
situated at the very entrance of the temple. Embosomed in the midst of
a perfect forest of cocoa, betel-nut, and toddy palms, and with no
village in sight, excepting a dozen or more huts, the abodes of priests
having the charge of it; the general appearance of the wonderful temple
is beautiful and romantic as well as impressive and grand. A just idea
of it can hardly be conveyed by writing; it must be seen to be
understood and appreciated. Still, perhaps, a detailed description
might assist the imagination somewhat in forming a proper estimate of
the grand genius which planned, and the skill and patience which
executed, such a masterpiece of architecture.
“The outer wall of Nagkon Wat—which words signify a city or assemblage
of temples or monasteries—about half a mile square, is built of
sandstone, with gateways on each side, which are handsomely carved with
figures of gods and dragons, arabesques, and intricate scrolls. Upon
the western side is the main gateway, and passing through this and up a
causeway (paved with slabs of stone three feet in length by two in
breadth) for a distance of a thousand feet, you arrive at the central
main entrance of the temple. About the middle of the causeway, on
either side, are image-houses, much decayed and overgrown with rank
parasitic plants; and a little farther on are two small ponds, with
carved stone copings, which in most places are thrown down.
“The foundations of Nagkon Wat are as much as ten feet in height, and
are very massively built of the same volcanic rock as that used in the
construction of the ‘Angels’ Bridge.’ The entire edifice, which is
raised on three terraces, the one about thirty feet above the other,
including the roof, is of stone, but without cement; and so closely
fitting are the joints as even now to be scarcely discernible. The
quarry where the stone was hewn is about two days’ travel—thirty
miles—distant; and it is supposed the transportation of the immense
boulders could only have been effected by means of a water
communication—a canal or river, or when the country was submerged at
the end of the rainy season. The shape of the building is oblong, being
796 feet in length and 588 feet in width, whilst the highest central
pagoda rises some 250 odd feet above the ground, and four others, at
the angles of the court, are each about 150 feet in height.
“Passing between low railings, we ascend a platform composed of
boulders of stone four feet in length, one and a half feet in width,
and six inches in thickness, and enter the temple itself through a
columned portico, the façade of which is beautifully carved in
basso-relievo with ancient mythological subjects. From this doorway, on
either side, runs a corridor, with a double row of columns, cut—base
and capital—from single blocks, with a double, oval-shaped roof
covered with carving and consecutive sculptures upon the outer wall.
“This gallery of sculptures, which forms the exterior of the temple,
consists of over half a mile of continuous pictures, cut in
basso-relievo upon sandstone slabs six feet in width, and represents
subjects taken from Hindoo mythology—from Ramayana, the Sanscrit epic
poem of India, with its 25,000 verses describing the exploits of the
god Rama and the son of the King of Oudh. The contests of the King of
Ceylon, and Hunaman, the monkey god, are graphically represented. There
is no key-stone used in the arch of this corridor, and its ceiling is
uncarved. On the walls are sculptured the immense number of 100,000
separate figures (or at least heads). Entire scenes from the Ramayana
are pictured; one, I remember, occupies 240 feet of the wall.
“Weeks might be spent in studying, identifying, and classifying the
varied subjects of this wonderful gallery. You see warriors riding upon
elephants and in chariots, foot soldiers with shield and spear, boats,
unshapely divinities, trees, monkeys, tigers, griffins, hippopotami,
serpents, fishes, crocodiles, bullocks, tortoises, soldiers of immense
physical development, with helmets, and some people with beards. The
figures stand somewhat like those on the great Egyptian monuments, the
side partly turned towards the front; in the case of the men, one foot
and leg are always placed in advance of the other; and I noticed,
besides, five horsemen, armed with spear and sword, riding abreast,
like those seen upon the Assyrian tablets in the British Museum. In the
procession several of the kings are preceded by musicians playing upon
shells and long bamboo flutes. Some of the kings carry a sort of
battle-axe, others a weapon which much resembles a golf-club, and
others are represented as using the bow and arrow. In one place is a
grotesque divinity, who sits elegantly dressed upon a throne surmounted
by umbrellas; this figure, of peculiar sanctity, evidently, has been
recently gilded, and before it, upon a small table, there were a dozen
or more ‘joss-sticks’ kept constantly burning by the faithful.[60] But
it is almost useless to particularise when the subjects and style of
execution are so diverse. Each side of the long corridor seemed to
display figures of distinct feature, dress, and character.
“‘The most interesting sculptures,’ says Dr. Adolf Bastian, the
President of the Royal Geographical Society of Berlin, who explored
these wonderful ruins in 1864, ‘the most interesting sculptures at
Nagkon Wat are in two compartments, called by the natives respectively
the procession and the three stages (heaven, earth, and hell). What
gives a peculiar interest to this section is the fact that the artist
has represented the different nationalities in all their distinctive
characteristic features, from the flat-nosed savage in the tasseled
garb of the Pnom, and the short-haired Lao, to the straight-nosed
Rajaput, with sword and shield, and the bearded Moor, giving a
catalogue of nationalities, like another column of Trajan in the
predominant physical conformation of each race. On the whole there is
such a prevalence of Hellenic cast in the features and profiles, as
well as in the elegant attitude of the horsemen, that one might suppose
Xenocrates of old, after finishing his labours in Bombay, had made an
excursion to the east.’
“There are figures sculptured in high relief (nearly life-size) upon
the lower parts of the walls about the entrance; all are females, and
apparently of Hindoo origin. The interior of the quadrangle, bounded by
the long corridor just described, is filled with galleries—halls,
formed with huge columns, crossing one another at right angles. In the
Nagkon Wat as many as 1,532 solid columns have been counted, and among
the entire ruins of Angkor there are reported to be the immense number
of 6,000, almost all of them hewn from single blocks and artistically
carved. On the inner side of the corridor there are blank windows, each
of which contains seven beautifully turned little columns. The ceilings
of the galleries were hung with tens of thousands of bats and pigeons,
and other birds had made themselves comfortable nests in out-of-the-way
corners.
“We pass on up steep staircases, with steps not more than four inches
in width, to the centre of the galleries which here bisect one another.
There are two detached buildings in this square. In one of the
galleries we saw two or three hundred images—made of stone, wood,
brass, clay—of all shapes and sizes and ages (some of the large stone
idols are said to be 1,400 years old).
“We walk on across another causeway, with small image-houses[61] on
either hand, and up a steep flight of steps, fully thirty feet in
height, to other galleries crossing each other in the centre above
which rises the grand central pagoda, 250 feet in height, and at the
four corners of the court four smaller spires. These latter are much
dilapidated and do not now display their full height; the porticoes
also bear evidence of the presence of the ‘heavy hand of time.’
“There is one more gallery, and then we come to the outer corridor, and
pass through a magnificent doorway to the rear of the temple, and walk
round to our _sala_, not knowing which to admire the most, the vastness
of the plan or the propriety and grace of the performance.
“The principal ruins of Siam and Cambodia yet discovered lie in the
province of Siamrap, as already stated. At about three miles north-east
of Angkor, on the opposite side of the Siamrap river, are the ruins of
a city called Pentaphrohm, the citadel of Taphrohm, and near it is a
_wat_ styled Phrakeoh, or the Gem Tower, presenting the same
combination of a royal and priestly residence as Angkor and Nagkon Wat.
Some of these temples and palaces, with their columns, sculptures, and
statues, are quite as interesting, though not so well-preserved, as
those at Angkor. About four miles east of Nagkon Wat are two other
remains of antiquity, Bakong and Lailan.
“In the province of Battambong, forty or fifty miles south-west from
Siamrap town, there are also ruins, temples, monasteries, and palaces,
and indeed the whole valley of the Makong river to the very borders of
China is spread with ruins of more or less magnitude, beauty, and
interest. Near the monastery of Phrakeoh is an artificial lake called
Sasong (the royal lake), built by the kings of Pentaphrohm, and
surrounded with pleasure-houses for their recreation. Dr. Bastian
thinks that it must have been a work of immense labour, and the whole
population of Cambodia of to-day would scarcely be able to raise such a
gigantic structure.
“The lake of Sasong he describes as being ‘of oblong shape, about 2,000
feet broad and 4,000 feet long, and surrounded by a high embankment of
solid masonry. Some of the blocks are fourteen to sixteen feet long and
highly finished. In convenient places square platforms were built
overhanging the water, with broad flights of steps leading down to it,
and in such places the huge masses of stone laid on each other are
embellished by delicate chisellings, bearing the figures of serpents,
eagles, lions (in their fabulous shapes as Naga, Kruth, Sinto) on the
ends. In the middle of the lake is a small island with the remains of a
former palace upon it. Of all the figures used for ornaments, that
which recurs most frequently is that of the Naga; and the Chinese
officer who visited Cambodia in 1295 describes already ‘the pillars of
the stone bridges adorned with serpents, each of which had nine heads.’
“About half a mile north-west of Nagkon Wat there are the ruins of an
observatory, built upon the summit of a hill perhaps 500 feet in
height. A foot-path leads up this hill through the thick jungle. The
first indication of any antiquities thereabouts is two immense stone
griffins, one standing on each side of the path; and next we pass a
small image with the head of an elephant and the body of a human being;
it is the elephant-headed Ganesh—the god of wisdom of the Hindoo
mythology. This hill is cut in five terraces paved with stone, and
having staircases, each about twelve feet in height, ornamented with
stone lions upon their balusters; and at the corners of each terrace
are small image-houses.
“The building is quadrilateral, and covers the entire crest of the
hill, there being four entrances; the central spire is now an unshapely
mass of large boulders, all overgrown with trees, shrubs, and vines.
From the summit we obtained an extensive view of the surrounding
country. To the north there extended from east to west a range of low
blue hills; to the south-east we could just discern the placid waters
of Lake Thalaysap; to the south lay the quaint old town of Siamrap, and
to the south-west there was another large lake of bright, clear water.”
On his arrival in the southern portion of the peninsula beyond the
Ganges, the great Lawgiver evidently set his followers to execute the
wonderful monuments above described.
The sculptures on the walls of the palace of Angkor represent exploits
of bravery and conquest, from the first invasion of Ind to the arrival
of the invaders on the island of Ceylon, and to their landing in Siam.
The observatory shows that Moses loved astronomy, and pursued the study
of that science in the distant east as he had done in Thebes.
When these noble undertakings were completed—which serve as
_souvenirs_ of his visit to the country—he, no doubt, left a colony to
protect them, and proceeded northward, where there are ample traces
which clearly indicate the route. The country he came to was like that
which is on the other side of the Bay of Bengal, inhabited by various
tribes of savages.
The empire he founded here was called the Empire of Brahma, and the
people Brahmins. The scriptures were expounded, and the doctrine of the
Lawgiver propagated, so that the natives of the country to this day
relate the fall of Adam, and all the particulars regarding that
memorable event. The following is a literal translation, by Dr. Mason,
of some rude verses which the Karens have preserved:—
“Anciently, God commanded, but Satan appeared bringing destruction.
Formerly, God commanded, but Satan appeared deceiving unto death.
The woman Eu and the man Tha-nai pleased not the eye of the dragon.
The dragon looked on them, the dragon beguiled the woman and Tha-nai.
How is this said to have happened?
The great dragon succeeded in deceiving—deceiving unto death.
How do they say it was done?
A yellow fruit took the great dragon, and gave to the children of God;
A white fruit took the great dragon, and gave to the daughter and son
of God.
They transgressed the commands of God, and God turned His face from
them.
They kept not all the words of God—were deceived, deceived unto
sickness.
They kept not all the law of God—were deceived, deceived unto death.”
It is evident that this tradition came from a written source, and there
is no other source than the books of Moses.
There is in the Christian world an erroneous acceptation of the first
and second chapters of the first book of Moses. Expounders of the
Pentateuch, of our enlightened age, err with respect to these two
chapters, and the consequence of this error is much confusion among
believers. These expounders say that God created only one man at the
creation of the world; and that when this man complained of _ennui_ and
loneliness, then the Almighty created the woman to keep him company.
This account of the creation of man has been the cause of many
controversies and divisions and secessions from the true faith.
In the first chapter of Genesis, Moses records the creation of heaven
and earth with all the contents of each of them. Man, male and female,
was created on the sixth day—not one couple, but many couples, as
other animals were created; they were without number. And the Almighty
blessed them, and told them to multiply and replenish the earth, and
subdue it; to have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl
of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. He
gave them every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the
earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding
seed, for meat, &c.
This was accomplished on the sixth day; and “on the seventh day He
rested from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh
day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His
work which God had created and made.”
After this first seventh day, God created Adam, and the Lord God formed
_this_ man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life; and he became a living soul. “And the Lord God
planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put _this_ man whom he
had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree
that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also
in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it
was parted, and became into four heads.”
The man Adam was ruddy, for the earth or dust out of which he was
formed was red. The rest of the men who were created on the sixth day
were black, for the garden of Eden was divided from the rest of
negroland by the river Nile, which surrounded it entirely. During the
heavy rains in this portion of Africa, the waters of the lakes
overflow, the Nile, passing in its course through the red soil of
Ethiopia, gets tinged with that colour; and the waters, after entering
Egypt, retain that hue for a long distance towards the Mediterranean
Sea.
“And the Lord God took the man (Adam) and put him in the garden of
Eden, to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man,
saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for
in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” So this man
alone, of all the created human beings, received this commandment from
God.
There is sculptured on the wall of a palace in Upper Egypt, which
Norden, the Danish traveller saw and sketched, a group of three persons
with a tree in the centre. The principal personage in this group is
seated, and is addressing a man standing before him, as if giving the
commandment above stated. The third figure is of a man standing behind
the seated person, with a sarcastic expression of countenance. This
sculpture no doubt represents the event in question.
After this, Eve was created. And it is recorded that “the serpent was
more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.”
He tempted the woman, and succeeded in making her break the commandment
which God had given to Adam.
Now there is another sculpture in Upper Egypt, representing a man with
a serpent’s head. So that the creature that tempted and seduced Eve was
a man; and he made her commit two sins: she broke the commandment of
God, and her troth to her husband. When she had thus doubly sinned, she
beguiled her husband, and persuaded him to disobey his Creator.
The Lord God visited the garden of Eden at certain hours of the day,
and Adam and Eve attended as keepers of it. But when the time of the
visit of the Lord God arrived, the man and his wife hid themselves, so
that the Lord called for Adam, “and said unto him, Where art thou? And
he said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I
was naked; and I hid myself. And He said, Who told thee that thou wast
naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou
shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be
with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
“And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast
done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And
the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou
art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; _upon
thy belly shalt thou go_, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy
life; and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy
seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his
heel.”
From this it is evident that the serpent, before he was cursed by God,
walked erect as a man, and it was only after the curse that he became
the creeping animal that we see him now. The Almighty, in His pity,
made coats of skins for Adam and Eve, and clothed them. This is another
proof that this man and his wife were different from the rest of
mankind, for these clothe themselves, whereas savages, to this day, go
about without clothing of any kind—perfectly naked as in the day they
were created.
Moses, in thus separating these two from other beings, gave a beginning
to the Jewish nation, as descending from the children of God. He was
the historian of this nation, and it was for these people that he wrote
his laws and ordinances of religion. Other nations of the earth are
only mentioned by him in his records incidentally, as coming in contact
with his nation by chance or accident.
The confusion made by the seventy elders who translated the Pentateuch
from the Hebrew into Greek, by having added six verses to the second
chapter of the book of Genesis, has caused great mischief in the
Church, resulting in disbelief of the Bible. If these first six verses
were removed from the second chapter, the version would be quite
correct, and as it was intended by Moses.
Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden, and, proceeding to
the East along the Nile, they made the caves in the rocks their
dwelling-place. In due time Eve gave birth to the child conceived in
sin, and she called him Cain. She had another son after this, whom she
called Abel. Cain had the vices of the serpent, and consequently hated
this younger brother; and when they became old enough to offer
sacrifices to God, he found that while his brother’s offering was
accepted, his was rejected. Thereupon high words were spoken, and,
rising up in anger, he struck his brother and killed him.
“And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I
know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And He said, What hast thou done?
the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And
now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to
receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; when thou tillest the
ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a
fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
“And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear.
Behold, Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth;
and from Thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a
vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that
findeth me shall slay me.
“And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain,
vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon
Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the
presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of
Eden.”
Here we have the first mention of intercourse between the people that
were created in the world on the sixth day, and a descendant of Adam
and Eve, who were created by the Lord God in the second week, and
placed by themselves in the garden of Eden. This land of Nod, on the
east of Eden, where Cain took up his abode, and married a woman of the
land, must have been near Noph in Egypt.
It is said Eve had another son, after the death of Abel and the
departure of Cain; he was named Seth. In the Pentateuch the children of
Adam and Eve are called the sons of God; and the descendants of the
human family in the world at large were styled the sons and daughters
of men.
In Munipúr snake-worship is still in existence. It is reported
that:—“The Raja’s peculiar god is a species of snake called Pakúng-ba,
from which the royal family claim descent. When it appears it is coaxed
on to a cushion by the priestess in attendance, who then performs
certain ceremonies to please it.
“This snake appears, they say, sometimes of great size, and when he
does so it is indicative of his being displeased with something. But as
long as he remains of diminutive form it is a sign he is in good
humour. Pakúng-ba is a snake by day, and by night assumes the human
form. A house is prepared for it, and when it appears the priests give
intimation of it, and all the head men and most orthodox Hindus, from
the Raja downwards, do _poojah_ (worship) before it.”[62]
The colonists left by Moses in his progress through the different
countries of Eastern Asia claim descent from celestial beings,
especially in India beyond the Ganges, in China, and other kingdoms as
far as the western shores of America. This claim originated from their
being the direct descendants of Adam and Eve. The savages among whom
they dwelt in bygone days admitted the claim, and, moreover, credited
them with divine attributes.
The kings of Burmah consider the throne-room of their palace, where
they receive homage from their subjects and strangers, as holy ground,
and have made it a rule that all who seek the royal presence shall put
off their shoes. Embalming the dead is also practised in Burmah, the
members of the royal family, when they die, being embalmed—a custom
brought by Moses from Egypt. The title of Phra among the Siamese is
also imported from Egypt, being used in both countries as a royal
appellation.
The inspired Lawgiver proceeded eastward from the kingdom of Brahma,
and entered China. The inhabitants of this immense tract of land lying
along the sea-shore were savages, ignorant of the arts and comforts of
civilized life. He imparted to them the knowledge of agriculture and
astronomy, arithmetic and navigation, and all the useful arts and
sciences. He reclaimed them from the darkness of profound ignorance,
and gave them laws for guidance in their duties towards God and their
fellow-beings.
Moses also taught these people to read and write; the writing being in
hieroglyphics, similar to that of Egypt. He established here a form of
government resembling that of the other kingdoms he had founded on his
route. And when he had reclaimed these savages and raised them to a
height of civilization equal to that of Egypt, he departed, leaving a
colony to continue the good work which he had begun.
It is remarked by Dr. Mason, that “there have been Jews in China from
time immemorial, and that ancient copies of the Pentateuch, written on
sheep-skins, have been found in their possession.”
Since the departure of Moses the kingdom of China, which he founded,
has many times been invaded by different nations of Western Asia; and
has had conquerors so savage that they ordered all the books to be
burnt, and compelled the people to adopt many strange customs, which
prevail in China even to this day. So that the Chinese were more
civilized in the days immediately succeeding Moses’ time than they are
in this century.
The country along the sea-board adjoining China is Corea; and the
Lawgiver visited this country also before he crossed over to the island
of Japan. The original Coreans were savages, like all their primitive
neighbours; and here the god-like Lawgiver imparted to the ignorant men
the same lessons he had given in all the countries along his route. He
formed the peninsula of Corea into a dependency of China; so that its
annals are included in the History of China.
The Coreans have a knowledge of the writings of Moses; and a system of
caste prevails as in the Eastern parts of India. The colonists were, of
course, the nobles of the land. A traveller states:—[63]
“The features of a very considerable portion of the natives I had an
opportunity to see during my travels in the country bore an expression
so noble and so marked, that they might have passed for Europeans, had
they been dressed after our fashion. This was also most strikingly
observable in a great number of children, whose handsome, regular
features, rosy skin, blue eyes, and auburn hair really made it so
difficult to distinguish them from European children that at first I
could not account for their looks but by believing them to be of
European descent—an impression which had, of course, to be abandoned
as altogether false and erroneous after penetrating further into the
interior, when appearances of the same nature became of daily
occurrence.”
From the peninsula of Corea Moses and his followers crossed over to the
beautiful island of Japan, in the North Pacific Ocean, not far distant
from the continent of Asia. The people inhabiting the numerous isles
which compose the kingdom of Japan were savages—ignorant and
superstitious, like the rest of the children of Nature, whom the
Lawgiver had met in his journey, and whom he reclaimed from the
darkness of ignorance to the knowledge of God and His commandments.
Here he taught the Japanese as he had other people; and after giving
laws and ordinances for their guidance, he departed, leaving a colony
to govern the country.
CHAPTER VIII.
MISSION OF MOSES IN THE WEST.
Proceeding still further eastward Moses landed on the western coast of
North America. He found the natives inhabiting this vast tract of land
as savage as those he had left on the continent and the adjacent
islands of Asia—profoundly ignorant of God, living like the animals
around them, and going about as nude as in the day when they were first
created. The god-like Lawgiver founded an extensive empire in this
wilderness, and brought these savages under subjection, and taught them
all things necessary for their happiness and well-being. This empire
was Mexico.
In this new empire he constructed monuments resembling those of Upper
and Lower Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia; he set up statues, built pyramids,
aqueducts, palaces, and bridges. His works he embellished with
sculpture portraying the battles his forces had fought with the
different nations that opposed their landing to occupy the country. And
he brought his new subjects to the same state of civilization as the
ancient Egyptians of his time. The following extracts are from the work
of a modern traveller, concerning the pyramids and other ruins of
Mexico:—[64]
“We arrived at Chollula after a pleasant ride over plains covered with
corn-fields, interspersed with plantations of the _Agava Americana_.
This city was, before the conquest, one of the most considerable
belonging to the ancient Mexicans. It was famed for its idols, its
sanctity, and its pagan worship.
“The Teocalli or temple is composed of alternate layers of clay and
sun-burnt brick, forming an immense pyramid, divided into regular
stages, or platforms; but time, and the growth of the prickly pear, the
tuna, or nopal, and other vegetables, have left but little of its
original form visible, and it now resembles a natural hill; the high
road from Puebla is cut through a part of it, which serves to show its
internal structure.
“We ascended by a steep winding road, partly cut into steps, to a level
area of 140 (one hundred and forty) feet long, on which stands a very
neat church, ninety feet in length, with two towers and a dome; from
this exalted platform the spectator enjoys a most lovely landscape. We
descended with reluctance the side of this pyramid, whose base is more
extensive than that of the Great Pyramid of Egypt. It is covered with
trees of great variety, some species of which I had never before seen;
but they had evidently been planted there.
“On our descent to the plains we visited two detached masses,
constructed, like the great pyramid, of unburnt brick and clay. The one
to the north-east had been cut or taken away; its broken sides were so
perpendicular as to prevent access to its summit. The other detached
piece has been engraved by Humbolt, whose figure of the great pyramid
conveys an idea of its ancient rather than its present state, nor is
the church on its summit like the original.
“The corner-stone of the building now occupied by the lottery-office,
and fronting the market for shoes, is the head of the serpent-idol, of
great magnitude, which I should judge was not, when entire, less than
seventy-feet in length. Under the gateway of the house, nearly opposite
the entrance to the mint, is a fine statue, in a recumbent posture, of
a deity, bearing the human form, and ornamented with various symbols;
it is about the size of life, and was found a few years since in
digging a well.
“The house at the corner of a street at the south-east of the great
square is built upon and in part supported by a fine circular altar of
black basalt, ornamented with the tail and claws of a gigantic reptile.
In the cloisters behind the Dominican Convent is a noble specimen of
the great serpent idol, almost perfect, and of fine workmanship; this
monstrous divinity is represented in the act of swallowing a human
victim, which is seen crushed and struggling in its horrid jaws.
“The only works of art of the inhabitants of the city of Mexico before
the conquest, then called Tenochtitlan, now publicly seen, are the
great Calendar Stone, popularly called Montezuma’s watch, and the
Sacrificial Stone, or the grand altar, once standing in the great
temple before the principal idol. The former measures twelve feet in
diameter, and is cut from one large block of porous basaltic stone. It
is supposed to have been placed in the roof of the great temple in the
same manner as the Zodiac was in the temple of Tentyra in Upper
Egypt.[65] It now stands against the north-west wall of the cathedral,
and is an attractive object of antiquarian research, and a striking
proof of the perfection the nation to which it belonged had attained in
some of the sciences; few persons, even of the most enlightened cities
of Europe, of the present day, would be capable of executing such a
work.
“From the first moment I beheld it I determined, if possible, to convey
to Europe a fac-simile of so fine a specimen of Aztec skill. Through
the influence of Don Lucas Alarman, the prime minister, I obtained
permission of the clergy to erect a scaffold against the cathedral, and
took an impression of it in plaster, which was afterwards carefully
packed up, and with some difficulty conveyed to Vera Cruz. It has
fortunately arrived safely in England, and now forms one of the
subjects of the exhibition of Ancient Mexico to be seen in the Egyptian
Hall.
“The Sacrificial Stone, or altar, is buried in the square of the
cathedral, within a hundred yards of the Calendar Stone. The upper
surface only is exposed to view, which seems to have been done
designedly. As I had been informed that the sides were covered with
historical sculpture, I applied to the clergy for the further
permission of having the earth removed from around it, which they not
only granted, but moreover had it performed for me at their own expense.
“I then took casts of the whole. It is twenty-five feet in
circumference, and consists of fifteen groups of figures, representing
the conquests of the warriors of Mexico over different cities, the
names of which are written over them.
“After a pleasant ride over a country not very fertile, we reached the
gates of Tescuco. Some time before approaching the immediate vicinity
of the city, you are apprised that you are near a place of great
antiquity. You pass the large aqueduct for the supply of the town,
which is still in use, and you also pass the ruins of several stone
buildings of great strength.
“On entering the gates, to the right are seen those artificial tumuli,
the teocalli of unburnt brick so common in most Indian towns, supposed
to be temples, tombs, or places of defence, or perhaps serving for all
these purposes. The foundations and ruins of temples, fortresses,
palaces, and other extensive buildings, are alone sufficient to attest
its former consequence and splendour; but it is likewise well known to
have been in earlier times the seat of Mexican literature and art. It
was the Athens of America, and the residence of historians, orators,
poets, artists, and the great men of every department of the sciences
who existed in those days.
“What a subject for contemplation does this collection of ruins present
to the reflecting mind! The seat of a powerful monarch, whose subjects
(if we may judge from their works) were probably an enlightened people,
existing and flourishing long before the continent of America was known
to Europe, and yet a people whose customs, costume, religion, and
architecture strongly resembled those of an enlightened nation of
Africa.”
Mr. Bullock continues:—
“We soon arrived at the foot of the largest pyramid (at Otumba), and
began to ascend. It was less difficult than we expected, although, the
whole way up, lime and cement are mixed with fallen stones.[66] The
terraces are perfectly visible, particularly the second, which is about
thirty-eight feet wide, covered with a coat of red cement eight or ten
inches thick, composed of small pebble-stones and lime. In many places,
as you ascend, the nopal trees have destroyed the regularity of the
steps, but nowhere injured the general figure of the square, which is
as perfect in this respect as the Great Pyramid of Egypt.
“We everywhere observed broken pieces of instruments like knives, arrow
and spear-heads, &c. composed of obsidian, the same as those found on
the small hills of Chollula; and, on reaching the summit, we found a
flat surface of considerable size, but which has been much broken and
disturbed. On the north-east side, about half-way down, at some remote
period, an opening has been attempted.
“Dr. Oteyza, who has given us the measure of these Pyramids, makes the
base of the largest six hundred and forty-five feet in length, and one
hundred and seventy-one in perpendicular height. I should certainly
consider that the latter measurement is considerably under the mark,
and that its altitude must be half its breadth.”
There is no doubt that these Mexican pyramids were built by Moses for
the same purpose as those in Egypt; and that these were similarly
finished off with casing-stones, to preserve the corn from the effects
of the elements, like their prototypes throughout Egypt. Dr. Robertson
in his _History of North and South America_, says:—
“As far as one can gather from their obscure and inaccurate
descri
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