Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/231

at Abu Simbel. The Egyptologist's explanation of this puzzle is, of course, a familiar one. Magnificent as may have been, and doubtless were, the palaces of the Egyptian kings, it was not necessary for their constructors to aim at anything more than temporary splendour. If the palace served the purposes of the king and his successors for a few generations it was enough. He looked to the temple to perpetuate his memory, and to the deeply graven sculpturings on its walls to keep his name and his exploits in everlasting remembrance. What mattered it whether the house in which Rameses abode during his short life on earth remained or disappeared, so long as the record of his great deeds was imperishably secured? His tomb, of course, was built for eternity on other grounds. It was part of his religion to make it so if possible, just as it was a matter of religious duty to provide if he could for the punctual supply of his entombed mummy with the aliment necessary for the due sustenance of its