"Perhaps you have had enough of the achievements of the kings who lived three thousand years ago, and the monuments they left behind them. Well, there's the whistle, and we'll say good-bye to Medinet Aboo.
"What school-boy has not read about the Vocal Memnon at Thebes--the sitting statue that greeted the morning sun with its voice? Here it is, on the plain, some distance in front of the Rameseum, and it is supposed that an avenue of similar figures once led from the position of the Vocal Memnon up to the temple. There are two statues side by side, and they are known as 'the Sitting Colossi,' or simply 'the Colossi,' and are sufficiently large to be seen at a long distance.
[Illustration: THE COLOSSI DURING AN INUNDATION.]
"Each statue rises about fifty feet from a pedestal at least ten feet high, so that when they were erected they were doubtless more than sixty feet above the ground; but the inundations of the Nile have deposited the earth around them, and the pedestals are completely surrounded. When the river is at its height the two figures seem to be sitting in a lake. They were hewn from single blocks of sandstone; but one of them was injured, either by an earthquake or by the Persian invaders, and was reconstructed with blocks of stone of the same character as the original.
"They were made to represent Amunoph III., and were not, as many suppose, intended for divinities. The one nearest the north was known as the Vocal Memnon, that uttered a sound every morning when the rays of the sun fell upon it.
"Sometimes it was obstinate, and for several days refused to speak. Kings, and princes, and other great men made long journeys to see, and especially to hear it, and they waited patiently day after day, too, for its utterance.
"Sometimes, when a very great personage like the Emperor Hadrian came, it gave forth its utterance twice on the same morning. Then the whole of Thebes talked of the wonder, and the Emperor was regarded with special reverence.
"We went to see and hear it, and we did not go at sunrise, as was necessary to do three thousand years ago.
"We went in the afternoon, and for half a franc an Arab climbed up the statue and struck a stone that lies in the lap of the figure. We beat the Emperor Hadrian completely, as we heard the sound a dozen times instead of twice, and if we had given the Arab a franc he would have been delighted to pound the stone for half an hour.