The Sunday Oregonian., October 13, 1907, Magazine Section, Page 8, Image 42

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1 tfltfsftM:
:,-.. Jf'. : .JM
!'' . ' - ' -; Jk f Wiih.'ii. oppresUr oThe. Hebrews.
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These Egyptian workmen are paid by erv Americaru- 0 rp SI
BT PRANK O. CARPENTER.
LLi day long I have been wander
ing about through the tombs of
the Kings who ruled Egypt three
er four thousand rears ago. I have
gone down Into the subterranean cham
bers which the Pharaohs who op
pressed the Irsaelltes dug out of the
olid rocks for their burial vaults, and
have visited the tombs of other Kings
wen older than they. The last resting
places of more than SO of these mon
archs of early Egypt have already been
discovered; and the work Is still going
en, with new finds of historical value
very year.
Yankee Explorers in Egypt.
Bom of the best excavation Is being
4one by Americans. This Is the case
I1 along the Nile Valley. While at
Cairo I found the money of Harvard
College and the Boston Museum uncov
ering the oemeteries of the nabobs and
paupers who were burled under the
hadow of the Oreat Pyramid of Giieh
sit the time of King Cheops. The Egyp
tian exploration fund, which is sup
ported by Oreat Britain, Canada and
the United States, has a small army
operating near Luxor, and a large part
of the valley In which th.ese royal
tombs lie Is now In the hands of Theo
dore M. Davis, a wealthy American
Who has his laborers busy all Winter
long, year after year, digging up the
debris and looking for these wonderful
evidences of Egypt's past. During my
Strip of today I met a young archaeolo
gist, who Is In charge of the Davis
excavations, and it was he who showed
me through the tombs of the Klnge
end explained the symbols and pic
tures on the walls. I went to that
part of the valley where the excava
tion Is now going on and took pic
tures of a gang: of 150 Egyptian men and
boys now working there.
Tlio Valley of the Kings.
But first let me tell you something
about the place which these ancient
Egyptian monarchs selected for their
burials. They wanted to hide their re
mains in such a way that posterity
could never And them, and to cover
them so that future generations would
not Imagine that they and their treas
ures lav beneath. Our cemeteries are
chosen Tor the beauty of their sur
roundings. We like to turn up our toes
to the daisies and to have the green
trees whisper a requiem over our heads.
The old Egyptian kings wanted the dry,
thirsty desert, and they chose this re
gion, about as far up the Nile valley
s Cleveland is Inland from the Atlantic
and fully six miles back from the green
strip on which their people lived. I can
Imagine no place more dreary. At this
point the Nile Is walled on the west by
thirsty limestone mountains. As far as
the waters reach the valley is the green
est of green; but beyond them lies a des
ert as drear as any part of the Sahara.
There ts not a blade of gregs: not a sprig
of veiretatlon of any kind. There Is noth
ing but sand and dry mountains, the lat
ter almost as ragged as the wildest parts
of the Rockies. Some of the stones are
built up In great precipices; In other
places there are fort-like bluffs and other
convulsions of nature.
Near Old Thebes.
To visit this valley one first comes to
Ijuxor, which is Just about on the site
of Old Thebes, the capital of Egypt in
the days of Its roost brilliant past. The
city lay on both sides of the Nile, but
Luxor )f on the east bank, and I had
to cross the river In a ferry-boat and
Tide far-pa hoiu) ct sa thxoujjJi lie desexjybere
' g-'t - C Blimg rtn, mirr iT. ,.1irTPmil8rgil51g (Iff"1
before I came Into the valley of the
kings. However, my donkey boy was a
good one and his donkeys were young.
His name was Joseph, and the brute I
bestrode was called "Gingerbread."
Gingerbread had a slice of skin about
as big as a dollar removed from his
rump, and Joseph pricked this spot from
time to time to hurry him onward. We
crossed the green fields, winding our way
In and out along the canals, until we
came to the desert and entered a wild
gorge walled with rocks of yellow lime
stone and with a conglomerate mixture
of flint and limestone of curious forma
tion. The gorge shows evidences of hav
ing been cut out by some mighty stream
of the past. There are masses of debris
along the sides, and the way Is rough
except on the road which has been made
by the explorers.
Looking at the valley from the Kile one
would not suppose that It was anything
other than a desert gorge, and It was not
until' I was right In it that I realized it
was a cemetery. There are no grave
stones or monuments, and the kings ob
literated every sign that might indicate
their' burial places. They dug out great
chambers under the bed of this drled-up
river and arranged cisterns for their
proper drainage, but when they hod fin
ished, they left everything as It was In
nature; and for this reason their tombs
remained for ages untouched and tin
known. In the Tombs.
From time to time, however, one or
another was discovered by future gen
erations. Strabo, the Greek geographer,
who was alive when Christ was born,
speaks of 40 of them as being worthy of
a visit, and others are mentioned by
writers later on. During our generation
most of them were again lost, and It was
not until some Arab grave-robbers began
to sell curious antiquities that It was
found that the tombs had again been
discovered and were being rifled by these"
vandals. The archeologists then went to
work, and their explorations have re
sulted in the opening up of tomb after
tomb, until we now have what might be
called a subterranean city of the dead
here In the heart of the Libyan desert.
The tombs are nothing like our burial
vaults. They are large rooms cut out of
the solid rock, with walls as straight and
aa smooth as those of a mason. They
are reached by many steps, going down
inclined planes until they bring vou far
below the surface of the valley and aw-iy
down under the mountains. Each king
had bis own tomb, and he decorated It
with sketches and paintings representing
the life of his time. The ceilings, are
beautiful. From some of them the fig
ures of gods and goddesses look down
upon you. Others are colored In geomet
ric lines, and in some men and women
are carved In bas-reliefs out of the solid
rock and then painted. Many of the
scenes are religious, and from them the
Egyptologist is able to tell us what the
people of that day believed. They aso
show how they worked and lived when
our remotest ancestors were savagM In
the wilds of Europe and Asia.
In some of the tombs I saw the mas
sive stone boxes in which the mummies
of the dead kings lay, I measured cne
which was ten feet long, six feet wide
and eight feet high. It was hollowed out
of a solid block of granite and It weighs
many tons. That mighty burial casKot
was cut out of the quarries of Assouan,
far above here, on the banks of the Nile.
It must have been brought down the
river on a barge and carried to this
place. When it was on the ground it
had to be lowered down Into the vauli.
and that without modern machinery.
As I went through the tombs I saw sav
eral such caskets, and the archeologist
who guided me showed me the hales in
the stone walls of the entranceways
beans had; been, put aSJOS la Ci
American Archeologists Are Digging
Up the Kings of Pharaoh's Time
der that ropes might be used to prevent
these stone masses sliding too far when
let down. It is a difficult job for ua to
handle iron safes of even four-feet cube.
One of these stone boxes would weigh as
much as several such, safes, and the old
Egyptians carried them where they
pleased. . ,
With Pharaoh's Engineers.
Indeed, I venture the civil engineers of
the Pbaroahs could teach our people
much. . All about this region there are
enormous monuments which It would
puzzle the engineers of today to handlo.
Take the Colossi of Memnon, the two
mighty stone figures In the Nile Valley
within a few miles of where I am now
writing. Each is as high as a six-story
house, and the stone pedestalB upon
which they sit rise 13 feet above the
ground. I rode by them as I came home
from the valley of the kings, and climbed
up and ran the tape measure over their
legs. The legs measure 19 feet from sole
to knee. The feet are each 10 feet in
length, so long that one would n'l the
box of a farm wagon from end to end,
and so wide that It could hardly be fitted
within It. The arms, from finger tips to
elbow, each measure 15 feet, and the
middle finger of each hand is a yard and
a half long.
As I stood beside the pedestal, with my
feet on Gingerbread's saddle, I could not
reach the top, and I find it difficult to
grve any comparative idea of the enofr
moifs weight of the structures.
These two mighty figures sit ride by
side on the edge of the Nile Valley. They
were erected in honor of an Egyptian
king who lived 3500 odd years ago :and
the temple, which he constructed behind
them, has now entirely disappeared. Xhey
are right on the edge of the valley, with
the desert mountains in the rear. My
way was through green fields, and as 1
looked at them I . thought of how they
had watchd the people sowing and reap
ing for more than 3500 years.
Unearthing: the Oldest of Temples.
The oldest temple of Egypt by 1000 years
is now being unearthed here by the
agents of the Egyptian Exploration Fund.
This lies near the famous temple of Der
al Bahari, and In a branch valley from
where the tombs of the kings are. When
I visited it the excavators were at work,
and the men in charge told me they had
great hopes of making valuable discov
eries. It was with James Teackle Den
nis, the American representative of the
excavation fund, that I went over the
temple. I met him at the little one-story
house which forms the laboratory and
home of the foreign explorers, and had a
chat with the other members as to the
progress of the worK. The fund is now
supporting here a number of specialists
from Canada, England and the United
States, who are superintending the Egyp
tian laborers. They have quite an army
of men at work and have been success
ful. Of what they find one-half goes to
the museum at Cairo and the balance to
the countries which subscribe to the fund
In proportion to the amount of their sub
scriptions. The chief money from
America has come from Boston. New
York, Baltimore and Washington, and
our share of what is now being unearthed
will go to the museums of those cities.
Last year tue only subscriber from Balti
more was Mr. Dennis, and his subscrip
tion was 1100. The finds were so many,
however, that he was able to send to
the Johns - Hopkins Museum articles
which at auction would have brought at
least V1500.
Mr. Dennis tells me that the present
outlook for the work of the fund is ex
ceedingly hopeful. He expects that an
other great stone cow, like that which
has been discovered and is now in the
Cairo Museum, will be unearthed, as such
tilings are usually found in couples. He
expecja rouclj iron the aoil undo? theljnonarohs-of that-djLib&lffUiX armies
temple, to which I. have already referred,
and says that the people of 6000 years
ago usually stored their relics in such
places far below ground. There was a
pyramid in the center of the temple, and
It ts believed that there Is a tomb below
this in which may be pictures, articles
and Implements of times far back of any
yet presented. We may have the actual
paintings of the customs of 4700 years
ago, drawings of the men at work and
pictures of the Implements used by them.
If this is so, America will have her share
of all things discovered.
Not far from these monuments are the
ruins of the Temple of Rameses II, the
Pharaoh who oppressed the Egyptians
and would not let them go. Among them
I saw the remains of a statue of that
old king, which show that they belong
to a structure at least 60 feet high. There
is no granite nearer here than in the
quarries of Assouan, and this mighty
statue must have been cut out there and
brought down the Nile to Thebes, a dis
tance of 13S miles.
Toting; the Obelisks.
Consider the obelisks which the Egyp
tians made at those quarries and carried
down the Nile to Thebes and also to Cairo
and Alexandria. There are two obelisks
still at this place. Tou may see them in
the great Temple at Karnak, which is
not more than a 20-mlnute walk from
Luxor. They weigh something like 400
tons each, and it would take 1600 horses
to haul them, if they were broken up and
loaded upon wagons. Each Is one solid
block of granite and each was carried in
that shape to this place. There are In
scriptions on the Der. al Bahart Temple
which show that these two obelisks were
dug out of the quarries, covered with
hieroglyphic carvings, brought here and
put up all in the space of seven months.
I doubt whether our engineers could do
the iob as quick or as well.
We thought It a wonderful work to
bring the Alexandria obelisk from E&ypt
to New Tork. It was carried there in
the hold of a steamer, and to load It the
bow of the vessel had to be cut and the
obelisk dragged in. The obelisk at Paris
was carried across the Mediterranean on
a barge, and that which now stands in
London was brought ' there In an Iron
water-tight cylinder, which was carried
to Alexandria In pieces and built around
the obelisk as it lay upon the shore.
When the great stone Was thoroughly
encased, the whole was rolled into the
sea and thus towed to London. After
landing, the modern engineers had great
trouble to get the obelisks where they
wanted them. That of New York was
rolled along upon iron balls which ran
In Iron grooves, laid down for the pur
pose, and that of London was slid over
greased ways to the place where it now
stands on the banks of the Thames.
In the Footsteps of Pharaoh.
I have always thought of the Pharaoh
who oppressed the Israelites and forced
them to make bricks without straw as
living at Memphis, near where Cairo now
stands. The truth is, he had a great city
there, but his capital and favorite home
was about 450 miles farther up the Nile
valley, at the very spot where I now am.
It was known as Thebes and It was one
of the greatest cities of antiquity. It
covered almost as much ground as Paris
and it is said to have had more than a
million people. The city had walls so
thick that chariots drawn by a half dozen
horses abreast could easily pass as they
galloped along them. It had 100 gates
and its temples, and private houses were
the wonder of the world. Some . of the
residences were five stories high, the
skyscrapers of those days. Thebes was
noted for its wealth, and its riches were
added to by the successful wars which
the kings waged with other nations. The
of both Infantry and cavalry. Some of
the kings bad as many as 20,000 war
chariots, and ancient writers say that
there were scattered along the Nile from
here to Memphis 100 stone stables, each
large enough to accommodate 200 war
horses.
How Pharaoh Looked.
It brings one close to the days of the
Scriptures when one can put his hands
on the very same things - that were
touched by old Pharaoh; when one can
visit the temples In which he worshiped;
can sit on the statues erected In his
honor, and can look at the tomb In which
his royal bones were laid away. One feels
closer still when he can look at the
mummy Itself and actually see the hard
hearted old heathen almost as he was
when alive.
I have gone through all these experi
HORSES THAT TURN ROGUES
1 Natural Racers That Will Not Run at Times and Cannot Be Cured of Sulking.
(ii OOK at the old rogue ears
I pricked, tall a-swlshing, and he
won't run fast enough to keep
himself warm, although everybody knows
that If he'd try he could beat anything
now running on the New York tracks,"
observed a keen trainer at the Bay to a
Sun reporter the other afternoon when
the once fine thoroughbred, Carngorm,
now turned rogue,' was clomping along in
the sulks, far in the rear of a very ordi
nary field of horses. "There's a cracker
Jack that can't be figured on at all any
more now that he's turned mean and
cunning and sour. He was meant for one
of the clinkers of the gameT but he has
always been more or less of a sulker.
Now he's gone completely Into the rogue
class, and there's no curing that.
"Fortunately, not many of them do go
cunning that way. Still it's easy to re
member plenty of Instances of soured
horses. Ormonde's Right, for Instance,
was meant for a topnotcher, but his dis
position was always against him. He was
a man-eater from an early age, and had
to be muzzled. He had the conformation
and the power to run fast and all day,
but he turned cranky and mean and
crafty early In his career. He'd have
been one of the main ones If it hadn't
been for that. Toward his finish on the
main tracks he'd have a decent streak
occasionally and then something could be
got our of him he'd just forget to sulk,
that Is.
"Under bamboozling and petting and
cajolery he'd go out once In a great
while and put it all over the best of
them, but even his trainer never could
tell when . that ons Intended to run
straight and true, and so he was never
any kind of a betting proposition. Ordi
narily he'd stand stock still at the bar
rier, or wheel when the barrier flew up,
or if he got off he'd sulk if the boy tried
to kick him a little to make him over
take his flying field, and then, just to
show that he could do It If he wanted to,
he'd take after the field and catch his
horses easily, and then, having done that
much, he'd pin his ears and chuck it aa
if somebody' d hit him behind the ear
with a beer mallet.
"The Keenan rogue got off In front
and just tincanned along In that position,
leading by eight or ten lengths to the
very middle of the stretch, and at that
point he was going as easy as a slag
train bound, iown- -a taefi grade a4 4
H'3
36
Terople. at Thebes, sKowin. obelisk-lv
comineioratin Pharaoh's victories.
ences. I saw here today the temple in
which the King's mummy was found, and
I have made notes of old Pharaoh him
self as he lay before me In his casket in
the museum at Cairo. The oppressor of
the Hebrews was a good-looking man.
His mummified face shows a broad fore
head, a strong Roman nose, a long chin
and a firm, iron jaw. He had big ears
set close to the head, luxuriant brown
hair and an Adam's apple which rose
and fell as he swallowed. Some of his
teeth, notwithstanding their SOOO-odd
years, are still sound, and they show
plainly out of a pair of thin lips. He
was a tall man, as can tie judged from
his mummy, and the records show he had
a Kingly air.
The man was known as Rameses II.
He was one of the greatest Kings of
ancient Egypt; his temples are scattered
throughout the Nile Valley and his sta
tues are the largest ever discovered. One
brakes off. Then he suddenly pinned
his ears and began to flail his tall up
and down, and then he stopped so sud
denly that his boy almost went over
his head. Keenan deliberately permit
ted every other horse ,ln the race to
pass him, and it was estimated that the
story of his renewed sweetness of tem
per, which his trainer really believed
In himself, cost the Calcutta bettors that
day something like a million of our
money.
"Still another great American race
horse that developed into an utterly im
possible rogue before being shipped from
this country to race in England was the
Dwyers' shifty Sly Fox,- that raced
around the New York tracks nine or ten
years, ago. It was toward the latter
part of his 8-year-old career that Sly Fox
developed the sulky, disposition that
afterward made him so notorious in Eng
land. He'd been campaigned a lot dur
ing his first two years on the turf, and
when he began to curl up under steady
racing his trainer did the usual things
that are tried to nip the sulky bug in
horses from the beginning. But Sly Fox,
possessor of one of the most dazzling
turns of speed ever seen in an American
thoroughbred, went from bad to worse
before being shipped to' England.
"He was all the greater rogue for the
fact that he pretended in his work that
he was just crazy to race. He almost
pulled his exercise boy out of the saddle
in taking his exercise gallops, and stood
willingly and docilely at the webbing
when being schooled at the barrier, thus
deliberately. It almost seemed, seeking to
throw out the ' impression among his
hopeful handlers that he was as sweet as
a seasoned walnut. And he'd keep up
this mean deception right till post time
in his regular races, parading to the
barrier with the others with all of the
politeness of a dancing master.
"As soon as he faced the flag in an
actual race, however, he'd begin to
prop himself like a blllygoat that
thinks he can stop a trolley car, and
then the bettors who'd gone te the
horse on the theory that he might act
as nice in a race as in his gallops had
to groan In spirit to see Sly Fox" get
left at the post almost every time.
"I was one of the unwise ones al
ways taking a chance on Sly Fox in
the days when his temper was first
beginning to sour, before ha left this
country for England. The horse's
price went up in every race, of course,
when the layers saw what a cinch It
was that he wouldn't get off or run
anything like the race he was capable
of running, but I always fell for the
chance that eotno dax eld) Sly Fox.,
5. -vs3!
KJT
was found In the delta which measured
42 feet in height, and there are others at
Abu SImbel In Nubia, about as far up
the Nile as Chicago is distant from the
mouth of the Hudson, which are 66 feet
high. They are seated on thrones and
are hewn from the solid rocks. These
statues stand right in front of the temple,
which is cut out of the rock and which,
by the way, is an evidence that Pharaoh
was not as hard-hearted as he is gen
erally represented. The temple is said
to have been erected by him in honor of
his favorite wife, Nefert-Ari, and about
It are statues of his children, which show
that he loved his family. Besides, the
Bible says that the Lord hardened Pha
raoh's heart and that this waa evidently
the reason why he would not let the
Israelites go. The fact that his heart
needed to be hardened shows that It was
'soft, and It is probable that the old Kins
was a fairly good fellow after all.
would change his mean mind and fool
them all.
"I was in that state of mind one
day when I dropped into a poolroom in
Chicago, where I was preparing a
horse for the American Derby, just to
take a look at the board, and saw Sly
Fox's name chalked up among the
starters in a stake race on a New
York track.
"When I noticed that they were of
fering 20 to 1 against him, I was par
ticularly In mind to take a chance on
the rogue. That struck me as being
all out of line on the Sly Fox horse,
no matter how badly he'd been acting,
and so I dug into the pajams and
brought out a fifty to bet on him. A
number of cronies who were with me
joshed me, but I shoved in the fifty
and got a 1000 to $50 ticket to hold
In my hand while the agonizing call
ing off of the race was being done by
the operator.
"There they go at Gravesend!' the
operator sang out. 'Warrenton in the
lead,' then naming a couple of the oth
ers that were second and third at the
quarter, and then my pals In the room
had their swell chance to give me the
rib poke when the operator gave the
bawl, "Sly Fox was left at the post!'
"Unable to stand their rough guying
in those circumstances, especially as
they had all played Warrenton to cop
and Warrenton called out as being
away out In front right into the
stretch I started for the door, with
my ticket out, ready to be torn up.
"Well, I leave it to you to figure out
how stunned I was when the operator,
after having, of course, made ne men
tion of Sly Fox since the announce
ment that he'd been left at the post,
came out with the whoop:
" "Sly Fox wins, e-e-e-easy, by five
lengths!"
"Naturally enough, everybody In the
room took that for a mistake. But it
wasn't any mistake. ' It was simply an
example of the ability of the Sly Fox
rogue. Sly Fox really had been left
absolutely at the post In that race. But
when the field was a good 60 yards In
front of him be suddenly made up his
mind that he didn't care to be beaten
that day, and he set sail for 'em. He
caught them one by one around the
far turn, and he nailed Warrenton, the
leader, right within the sixteenth pole,
breaking that one's heart, and he
romped down to the wire by the five
lengths mentioned by the Chicago
operator.
"Well, I got my thousand win, but I
didn't bet after that on any more noto
noua rogues, i found it too exltlnV j