"Here are the dimensions of this enormous work: From one end of the space where the temple stands to the other is 1180 feet, and it is about 600 feet from one side to the other. The enclosing wall is 25 feet thick and from 60 to 100 feet high, so that it formed quite a fortification in the days before the invention of gunpowder. A small army could find plenty of room inside the walls of Karnak, and be able to repel a force of ten times its strength. "All the space included within the walls is covered with ruins of a most magnificent architecture, and it is not difficult to imagine that you are in the heart of a great city of past ages, rather than in the ruins of a single building. In one place there are the fragments of a fallen obelisk, and close by it is an obelisk, upright and uninjured, 92 feet high and 8 feet square at the base. It is said to be the largest existing obelisk, and the inscriptions show that it was made and set up in its place inside of seven months. Remember that it was hewn from the quarries at Assouan, and brought here in a single block. If you want to know how the ancient Egyptians did it, we give up the conundrum at once. "Never mind the obelisk just now; we want to show you into the great hall of the temple. And such a hall as it is! "Stop and think of it as you read the figures, and see if they don't take away your breath. [Illustration: THE GREAT HALL OF KARNAK.] "It is the grandest hall in the world! It is 329 feet long and 170 feet broad, and down its centre there are two rows of columns, twelve in all, each of them 60 feet high, without counting capital and pedestal, and 12 feet in diameter. Then there are one hundred and twenty-two other columns arranged in fourteen rows, seven on each side of the two central rows, so that the whole room seems to consist of little else than columns. What a capital place for a game of hide-and-seek! How the Egyptian children must have enjoyed it if they were permitted to play here, which we very much doubt! [Illustration: GRAND COURT-YARD OF THE TEMPLE.] "These one hundred and twenty-two columns are each 42 feet high and 9 feet in diameter. Altogether there are one hundred and thirty-four columns in the hall of the temple, and they are all closely covered with sculptures. They once supported a roof, but it is nearly all gone now, and some of the columns have fallen. The stones used in building the temple were of great size, and they lie around us in all directions; they do not appear very large till you come close up to them, and then you seem dwarfed into nothing by their greatness. Everything is on so grand a scale that you forget the dimensions of individual things until you are side by side with them.