Read Online The Twelve Rooms of the Nile by Enid Shomer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Enid Shomer
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her body.
Everyone, including the dragoman, Paolo, gathered eagerly as the boat moored alongside a patch of palms. Selina carried her hemp tote, packed with drawing supplies, on her shoulder. She squeezed Flo’s hand and stepped onto the gangplank. Flo and Trout followed. Behind them, four brawny Nubians would, if necessary, haul the travelers over the slope of windblown sand that rose, it seemed, a thousand feet up the mountain.
The climb was slow and arduous. Never look down, her father had told her when she was a child and they hiked the hills of Kent, near Embley. She focused on the colossi when they were visible, their blank eyes staring impassively into the sun, urging her on. The heat was building, and she was glad she’d worn only her brown Hollands. Unbleached linen was perfect for the climate of Egypt.
Trout struggled alongside, aided by a crewman who pushed her from time to time, his hands hovering just behind the broadest part of her back. Flo hoped to finish the ascent unassisted, but she wouldn‘t be shy about asking for help. Once she reached the great temple, she could rest. She planned to sit alone in the inner rooms and ponder the Egyptian religion. Unlike most Christians, she hadn’t dismissed the Egyptian gods and goddesses as false deities, viewing them, rather,as alternate conceptions of holiness. Surely, the theology of a people who had ruled for four thousand years was worth contemplating.
Trout grunted, and the crewman clamped onto her elbow to steady her. She was dressed for a visit to London, not the Nubian Desert, her cotton twill bodice and skirts already damp with sweat. In front of Flo, following in Paolo’s footsteps, Charles and Selina made steady progress. Selina stopped to speak, pointing at something, but the wind tossed aside her words.
At seventeen, Flo had climbed the stairs at Notre Dame—more than four hundred steps, her travel guide had crowed—to the parapeted rooftop and Paris below, dainty as a Persian miniature. Though not as high, this was considerably more difficult. At last she moved from the acutely angled ramp to a patch of level ground. It felt good to stand up straight after so much bending and trudging.
One Ramses was broken, the disjointed head and torso lying on the ground. Higher up, the first colossus was covered to his nostrils in sand. Arabs with shovels appeared to be digging out his visage. But despite neglect and damage, the temple seemed pristine, as if whatever had blasted the figure apart had happened centuries before, and it had been untouched ever since. Certainly no European had disturbed it, since Europe hadn’t known of Abu Simbel until the French conquered Egypt. Sailing up the Nile in 1817, Giovanni Belzoni must have gasped as she had when he rounded the bend in the river.
From a closer stance, it was even more incredible that the colossi had once formed part of the undifferentiated mountain they flanked. In a niche above the entrance—at perhaps three times life size—sat another splendid pharaoh wearing the traditional kilt and bearing the orb of the sun on his head. Ramses, she guessed, this one in the guise of his namesake, the sun god Ra.
Leaning against the shin of the headless Ramses (it must have been twenty feet from his sandal to his knee!), she felt small and yet more significant—like a jewel—the opposite of the diminution imposed by Chartres and Westminster Abbey. They had humbled her.Karnak, two weeks earlier, had been terrifying, the immense columns pressing in, threatening to crush her. She had felt overshadowed in every way. But Abu Simbel filled her with an awe that lifted her up and enlarged her. Paradoxically, the very enormity of the figures was comforting instead of intimidating. Sublime, she whispered aloud to no one in particular, gazing up at the serenely composed faces looming above her. Two tourists were creeping down from a niche in the rock alongside the shoulder of the southernmost colossus, and she
Everyone, including the dragoman, Paolo, gathered eagerly as the boat moored alongside a patch of palms. Selina carried her hemp tote, packed with drawing supplies, on her shoulder. She squeezed Flo’s hand and stepped onto the gangplank. Flo and Trout followed. Behind them, four brawny Nubians would, if necessary, haul the travelers over the slope of windblown sand that rose, it seemed, a thousand feet up the mountain.
The climb was slow and arduous. Never look down, her father had told her when she was a child and they hiked the hills of Kent, near Embley. She focused on the colossi when they were visible, their blank eyes staring impassively into the sun, urging her on. The heat was building, and she was glad she’d worn only her brown Hollands. Unbleached linen was perfect for the climate of Egypt.
Trout struggled alongside, aided by a crewman who pushed her from time to time, his hands hovering just behind the broadest part of her back. Flo hoped to finish the ascent unassisted, but she wouldn‘t be shy about asking for help. Once she reached the great temple, she could rest. She planned to sit alone in the inner rooms and ponder the Egyptian religion. Unlike most Christians, she hadn’t dismissed the Egyptian gods and goddesses as false deities, viewing them, rather,as alternate conceptions of holiness. Surely, the theology of a people who had ruled for four thousand years was worth contemplating.
Trout grunted, and the crewman clamped onto her elbow to steady her. She was dressed for a visit to London, not the Nubian Desert, her cotton twill bodice and skirts already damp with sweat. In front of Flo, following in Paolo’s footsteps, Charles and Selina made steady progress. Selina stopped to speak, pointing at something, but the wind tossed aside her words.
At seventeen, Flo had climbed the stairs at Notre Dame—more than four hundred steps, her travel guide had crowed—to the parapeted rooftop and Paris below, dainty as a Persian miniature. Though not as high, this was considerably more difficult. At last she moved from the acutely angled ramp to a patch of level ground. It felt good to stand up straight after so much bending and trudging.
One Ramses was broken, the disjointed head and torso lying on the ground. Higher up, the first colossus was covered to his nostrils in sand. Arabs with shovels appeared to be digging out his visage. But despite neglect and damage, the temple seemed pristine, as if whatever had blasted the figure apart had happened centuries before, and it had been untouched ever since. Certainly no European had disturbed it, since Europe hadn’t known of Abu Simbel until the French conquered Egypt. Sailing up the Nile in 1817, Giovanni Belzoni must have gasped as she had when he rounded the bend in the river.
From a closer stance, it was even more incredible that the colossi had once formed part of the undifferentiated mountain they flanked. In a niche above the entrance—at perhaps three times life size—sat another splendid pharaoh wearing the traditional kilt and bearing the orb of the sun on his head. Ramses, she guessed, this one in the guise of his namesake, the sun god Ra.
Leaning against the shin of the headless Ramses (it must have been twenty feet from his sandal to his knee!), she felt small and yet more significant—like a jewel—the opposite of the diminution imposed by Chartres and Westminster Abbey. They had humbled her.Karnak, two weeks earlier, had been terrifying, the immense columns pressing in, threatening to crush her. She had felt overshadowed in every way. But Abu Simbel filled her with an awe that lifted her up and enlarged her. Paradoxically, the very enormity of the figures was comforting instead of intimidating. Sublime, she whispered aloud to no one in particular, gazing up at the serenely composed faces looming above her. Two tourists were creeping down from a niche in the rock alongside the shoulder of the southernmost colossus, and she
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