[Illustration: 062.jpg ONE OF THE LIONS OF GEBEL-BARKAL]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the two lions of Gebel-
Barkal in the British Museum

Two of the small buildings which he there dedicated to Khnûmû, the local
god, were still in existence at the beginning of the present century.
That least damaged, on the south side of the island, consisted of
a single chamber nearly forty feet in length. The sandstone walls,
terminating in a curved cornice, rested on a hollow substructure
raised rather more than six feet above the ground, and surrounded by
a breast-high parapet. A portico ran round the building, having seven
square pillars on each of its two sides, while at each end stood two
columns having lotus-shaped capitals; a flight of ten or twelve steps
between two walls of the same height as the basement, projected in
front, and afforded access to the cella. The two columns of the façade
were further apart than those at the opposite end of the building, and
showed a glimpse of a richly decorated door, while a second door opened
under the peristyle at the further extremity. The walls were covered
with the half-brutish profile of the good Khnûmû, and those of his
two companions, Anûkît and Satît, the spirits of stormy waters. The
treatment of these figures was broad and simple, the style free, light,
and graceful, the colouring soft; and the harmonious beauty of the whole
is unsurpassed by anything at Thebes itself. It was, in fact, a kind of
oratory, built on a scale to suit the capacities of a decaying town, but
the design was so delicately conceived in its miniature proportions that
nothing more graceful can be imagined.*

* Amenôthes II. erected some small obelisks at Elephantine,
one of which is at present in England. The two buildings of