THE TROOPS IN EGYPT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 142, 16 May 1940, Page 14

THE TROOPS IN EGYPT.

ON LEAVE AT LUXOIL (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service.) April 10. To what has been described as one of the most frequented shrines of tourist culture in the- whole world, members of the Second Now Zealand Expeditionarv Force were able to pay a visit at Easier. Their tour is here described by a member of the party.

Tho French Cabinet crisis having settled itself, and as the R.A.F. seemed to be keeping the Hun in Ids place, about 250 budding Egyptologists from New Zealand went on leave to Luxor, some 450 miles from Cairo, at Easter. Just before departure on the Thursday evening, mail from hoinc was distributed a welcome Easter present for those who v’cre lucky enough to get it. Two days, were available in which to see some of the most wonderful remains of a period known as the “new empire," dating from a few thousand years B.C. The first day we spent on the east bank of the Nile (“the side of ftfe”), inspecting the Temples of Luxor and Karnak. These ancient edifices, despite earthquake, conquest and flood, and though completely buried for hundreds of years, stand to-day after excavation in a much better state of preservation than the Forum of Rome. Remarkable as it may seem, no mortar was used in the construction of columns up to 70 feet in height and walls twice as high. The great blocks of stone were do welled together with bronze or sycamore wood. How the ancient Egyptians accomplished these marvellous feats of building-will never cease to cause men to wonder. Tho efforts of a snake charmer in the Temple of Luxor should not be forgotten. For a large sum and at great personal danger—according to himself—he produced cobras, grass snakes and scorpions from under rocks. A trip down the Nile to the Temple of Karnuk in moon light, was n grand finale to the first day. We were up early next mtiming to cross the Nile to the west bank (“the side of -death”). Everything we saw certainly had to do with “pompa mortis.” Temples and tombs are an eloquent reminder of the importance to the Egyptian of the life to* come, for while these monuments to tho gods and to the Pharaohs can still he seen, no evidence has been found of their earthly dwellings.

Tutankhamen's tomb is the sight most people look forward to in the Valley of the Kings, for it escaped the attention of robbers as a result of the builders’ clever trick of tunnelling under another tomb. The golden coffin case iios in the sarcophagus as it lay 3300 years ago, but the treasures of the tomb are all in the Cairo Museum. Having seen them, one can visualise the glittering brilliance which must have astonished tho robbers when they broke 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. Tho 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 the work lest any tongue should tell where the Pharaoh la5 r . We saw also the mortuary temples of Ramoses 11. and 111., which were as interesting and well-preserved as those of Luxor and Karnak. The greatest statue in Egypt, that of Harnesses 11., carved from one solid block of black granite, 57 feet high and weighing a thousand tons, now lies broken on the around —the work of the Persians, who accomplished the destruction by building a fire around the statue and throwing water on it to cool it suddenly. Near the temple can he seen mud* bricks: perhaps they were the ones the children of Israel “made without straw.” . The great Colossi of Memnon were the last items in the day’s sightseeing. Mutilated, grotesque 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 I within a quarter of a century soldiers of New Zealand have been there. Prob- ! ably even the Roman Legionaries were : offered the “last original scarab” at a price starting at five talents and ending at three piastres! As the gharries took us back to the station after dinner, the populace turned out to cheer the cnvalcnde on its „- av for the “wealthy squatters” from New Zealand had brought a trade boom to Luxor. The train, hard scats, little sleep, Cairo -• • once again we were back to realities.