Cairo to Kisumu : $b Egypt—The Sudan—Kenya ColonyCarpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
History
Cairo to Kisumu : $b Egypt—The Sudan—Kenya Colony
Carpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
Egypt -- Description and travel; Kenya -- Description and travel; Sudan -- Description and travel
There is no place like this Museum of Cairo in which to study the Egypt
of the past. Room after room is walled with the coffins of monarchs who
reigned thousands of years ago, and in other caskets the bodies embalmed
are exposed to view. I looked a long time upon the face of King Rameses
who is supposed to have gone to school with Moses. The king who built
Thebes, Karnak, and other great cities, was the man who oppressed the
Israelites, although not the one whom the Lord afflicted with plagues
thereby causing the Exodus. He was the Alexander of Egypt, the Napoleon
of the Nile valley three thousand odd years ago. He conquered the
countries about him and was rolling in wealth. “... now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.”
Rameses is remarkably well preserved. His iron jaw is as firm as when he
uttered commands in his capital, the hundred-gated city of Thebes. His
enormous nose is still prominent. The face, though black, is wonderfully
life-like and the teeth shine out as white as when he brushed them after
his morning tub, something like four thousand years ago. I noted the
silky, fuzzy hair over his black ears and longed for a lock of it for my
collection of relics.
Then I looked up and saw a great curled wig of black hair which the
records state was made for King Rameses, and wondered why the spiced old
gentleman below did not match his wig to his natural flaxen hair.
Near this casket is one containing Seti I, the Pharaoh who preceded
Rameses, another great warrior and conqueror, who is said to have made
a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea. Not so far away is the mummy of
Meneptah, the tyrant who hardened his heart against the Israelites and
would not let them go. Seti lies in his coffin with his black arms
crossed and his black head cushioned on yellow grave clothes. His
features are as peaceful as perhaps they seldom were in life and he
appears to sleep well.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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