WITH THE TROOPS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 160, 15 May 1940, Page 3

WITH THE TROOPS

ON LEAVE AT LUXOR (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service) EGYPT. April 10. To Avhat has been described a one of the most frequented shrine of tourist culture in the Avhol world, members of the Second Nei Zealand Expeditionary Force weir able to paj r a visit at Easter. Tliei tour is here described by a membe of the party. The French Cabinet crisis havin? settled itself, and as the R.A.F seemed to be keeping the Hun in hi place about 250 budding Egyptolog ists from New Zealand went on leav to Luxor, some 450 miles from Cairo at Easter. Just before departure oi the Thursday evening, mail fron home was distributed —a welconn Easter present for those who wen lucky enough to get it. Unit transport took us to tli< Cairo railway station, where Ave in stalled ourselves in specially fumi gated carriages on the Luxor Ex press. The lights of the city wen soon lost, and an occasional statiioi and a glimpse of palm trees agains an inky sky were all we saw as wf; rushed southwards. To sleep in t train is always a work of art, bul despite this many spent a gooc night. The long wooden seats tool< some of us, the racks made bunk: for others, but the best bed of all was a hammock fashioned from blankets. Inspection of the Temples. Dawn next day showed us a different Egypt. The fertile belt of the Nile Valley was much wider, and looking with sleepy eyes and good imagination across miles of green fields to mist-covered ranges, one sould almost feel at home. Soon, liowever, the familiar "fellahin"— the men in their turbans, and nightshirt dresses, and the women in their unattractive black, but with that splendid bearing of people who iarry burdens on their heads—were ;o be seen making for the fields, rhere is no 40-hour week in Egypt's •ural life, where man, woman, child ind beast waste no hours of dayight. Two. days were available in which 0 see some of the most wonderful 'gmains of a period known as the 'new empire," dating from a few housand years B.C. The first day Ave ;pent on the east bank of the Nile "the side of life"),, inspecting the remples of Luxor and Karnak. These indent edifices, despite earthquake, :onquest and flood, and though com iletely buried for hundreds of years, tand to-day after excavation in a nuch better state of preservation han the Forum of Rome. Remarks ble as it may seem, no mortar was iscd in the construction of columns ip to 70 feet in height and Avails wicc as high. The great blocks of tone were doAvelled together with ronze or sycamore wood. How the ncient Egyptians accomplished hesc marvellous feats of building 'ill cease to cause men. to r onder. The Snake Charmer. The efforts of a snake charmer in lie Temple of Luxor -should not be irgotten. For a large sum and at reat personal danger—according to imself —he produced cobras, grass lakes and scorpions from under )cks. We tried to prove his bona des by getting him up to the ho-t ;1, but he said he could not do that 5 it Avas 'bad propaganda' for the lanagement, if snakes Avere found 1 the hotel gardens! A trip down the Nile to the emple of Karnak in moonlight Avas grand finale to the first day. We ere up early next morning to cross le Nile to the Avest bank ("the side death"). Everything Ave saw cerinly had to do Avith "pompa mor-; s." Temples and tombs are an elolent reminder of the importance the Egyptian of the life to come, r Avhile these monuments to the »ds and to the Pharaohs can still : seen, no evidence has been found their earthly dwellings. Preservation of Paint. Tut-Ankh-Amon's tomb is the Jht most people look forward to the Valley of the Kings, for it caped the attention of robbers as result of the builders' clever trick tunnelling under another tomb, d Avas only recently discovered, le golden coffin case lies in 'the rcophagus as it lay 3300 years ago, it the treasures of the tomb are 1 in the Cairo Museum. Having en them one can visualise the glitring brilliance which must have tonished the robbers Avhen they okc into the much grander tombs

of some of the other Pharaohs. Where precious stones once scintillated only scars on the walls now remain. The paintings, however, are still there. The paint might have been applied yesterday. In some tombs where work ceased, in accordance with custom, on the death of the Pharaoh, it looks as if a stop-work meeting had just been called and the workers would be back any moment. Those artisans, however, had no trade unions, and their lives ended with the work lest any tongue should tell where the Pharaoh lay. The Greatest Statue. We saw also the mortuary tenv pies of Ramescs II and 111, which were as interesting and well-pre-served as those of Luxor and Karnak. The greatest statue in Egypt, that of Rameses 11. carved from one solid block of black granite, 57 feet high and weighing a thousand tons, now lies broken on the ground— the work of the Persians, who ac-> complished the destruction by build ing a fire around the statue and throwing water on it to cool it suddenly. Near the temple can be seem mud bricks; perhaps they were the ones the children of Israel "made without straw." The great Colossi of Memmq'ri were the last items in the day's sightseeing. Mutilated, grotesqui and isolated, these twin statues of Amenophis 111 once stood guard before a temple which has long since disappeared. Soldiers of Persia, Greece, Rome, Turkey and France have passed this way, and twice within a quarter of a century soldiers of New Zealand have been there. Probably even the Roman Legionaries were offered the "last original scarab" at a price starting at five talents and ending at three piastres! A Trade Boom For Luxor. As the gharries took us back t'o the station after dinner, the populace turned out to cheer the cavalcade on its way—for the "wealthy squatters" from New Zealand had brought a trade boom to Luxor. The train, hard seats, little sleep, Cairo . . . once again we were back to realities. Still, it is cooler here in camp, there are no scarabs for sale, and) there are fewer flies.