dead, he looms over the Egypt of to-day. Everywhere you meet his traces,
everywhere you hear his name. You say to a tall young Egyptian: "How big
you are growing, Hassan!"

He answers, "Come back next year, my gentleman, and I shall be like
Rameses the Great."

Or you ask of the boatman who rows you, "How can you pull all day
against the current of the Nile?" And he smiles, and lifting his brown
arm, he says to you: "Look! I am strong as Rameses the great."

This familiar fame comes down through some twenty years. Carved upon
limestone and granite, now it seems engraven also on every Egyptian
heart that beats not only with the movement of shadoof, or is not buried
in the black soil fertilized by Hapi. Thus can inordinate vanity prolong
the true triumph of genius, and impress its own view of itself upon
the minds of millions. This Rameses is believed to be the Pharaoh who
oppressed the children of Israel.

As I sat in the Ramesseum that morning, I recalled his face--the face
of an artist and a dreamer rather than that of a warrior and oppressor;
Asiatic, handsome, not insensitive, not cruel, but subtle, aristocratic,
and refined. I could imagine it bending above the little serpents of the
sistrum as they lifted their melodious voices to bid Typhon depart, or
watching the dancing women's rhythmic movements, or smiling half kindly,
half with irony, upon the lovelorn maiden who made her plaint:

"What is sweet to the mouth, to me is as the gall of birds;
Thy breath alone can comfort my heart."