The whole temple is built for the one hour of sunrise; and therefore the next morning we went ashore once more before the sun had risen. Sitting in front of the temple, facing the colossi, we watched the light increase upon the stone, the colour of which grew ever more warm and golden. It was as though the sandstone were illuminated from within, like thin alabaster. The serene faces of the great statues became as nearly godlike as any work of man can become. Their calm unmoved greeting to the sun, so different from that of us men, who must needs shade our eyes, being unable to look him in the face, had something sublime about it not convincingly to be explained away, and not to be diminished by the obvious fact that they were but masses of natural rock. I am not convinced that the mountains are dead, nor can I tell what gods of the western desert may not look out from this sacred hill through the eyes which the old men of Egypt have here made for them. Although I have seen this temple so many times, have watched the broken fragments of these colossi pinned back into position with iron bars, and have reckoned the tons of cement which have been shot into the cavities and cracks in their interior, yet still the spell of their monstrous dignity remains, they still seem to look to the eastern horizon with all the expectancy of living nature, and still speak with the voice of the winds of the dawn. As the sun rose high and the first mystery of the daylight passed into a less suggestive glare, we entered the inner halls of the temple, which are excavated in the rock, and wandered from room to room. The light here was strong enough at this time of day to illuminate the whole interior, so that even the corners were not in darkness. Some of the reliefs are extremely well executed, and there is one scene in particular, upon the left wall, representing the Pharaoh in the act of slaying a foreign soldier in battle, which is one of the great masterpieces of Egyptian art, though I do not find it quoted in any of the textbooks. At length we passed out into the sunlight once more, and, after lingering a short while longer, the internal call for breakfast induced us to return to the steamer. We weighed anchor at once, and in a couple of hours or so reached the village of Toshkeh, on our return journey down stream.