Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851.. Various
more applied to Mr. Salt, and undertook the furtherance of his scheme, to convey to England the bust of Memnon. So eager was he, that the same day, the Italian set out for the ruins of Thebes, and hired a hundred natives, whom he made clear away the sand which half covered the stone colossus. With a large staff in his hand, Belzoni commanded his army of Mussulmans, directed their labors, astonished them with displays of his physical strength, learned to speak their language with marvelous facility, and speedily came to be regarded by them as a superior being, endowed with magical power.
One day, however, his money failed; and at the same time the rising of the Nile destroyed in two hours, the work of three months. The fellahs rebeled: one of them rushed toward Belzoni, intending to strike him with his dagger. The Italian coolly waited his approach, disarmed him; and then, seizing him by the feet, lifted him as though he had been a hazel wand, and began to inflict vigorous blows on the other insurgents with this novel and extemporary weapon of defense. The lesson was not thrown away: very speedily the fellahs returned to their duty; and after eighteen days' incessant labor, Memnon trembled at his base, and was moved toward the bank of the Nile.
The embarkation of this enormous statue presented difficulties almost as great as those which attended its disinterment and land transport. Nevertheless, the intelligence and perseverance of Belzoni surmounted every obstacle; and he brought his wondrous conquest to London, where its arrival produced a sensation similar to that caused more recently in Paris by the sight of the Obelisk of Luxor. Loaded with praise, and also with more substantial gifts, Belzoni, now become an important personage, returned to Egypt and to his friend Mr. Salt. The latter proposed to him to go up the Nile, and attempt the removal of the sand-hills which covered the principal portion of the magnificent temple of Ebsamboul. Belzoni readily consented, set out for Lower Nubia, ventured boldly among the savage tribes who wander through the sandy desert; returning to Thebes, he was rewarded, not only by the success of his special mission, but also by discovering the temple of Luxor.
In all his undertakings, however enterprising, Belzoni was aided and cheered by the presence of his wife. The expedition to Nubia was, however, thought too hazardous for her to undertake. But in the absence of her husband she was not idle; she dug up the statue of Jupiter Ammon, with the ram's head on his knee; which is now in the British Museum.
The temple of Luxor had been so completely and for so long a period, buried in sand, that even its existence remained unsuspected. It had been dedicated to Isis by the Queen of Rameses the Great; and the descriptions which travelers give of it, resemble those of the palaces in the "Arabian Nights." Four colossal figures, sixty-one feet in height, are seated in front. Eight others, forty-eight in height, and standing up, support the roof of the principal inner hall, in which gigantic bas-reliefs represent the whole history of Rameses. Sixteen other halls, scarcely smaller than the first, display, in all their primitive splendor, many gorgeous paintings, and the mysterious forms of myriads of statues.
After this discovery, Belzoni took up his temporary abode in the valley of Biban el Mouloch (Tombs of the Kings). He had already remarked there, among the rocks, a fissure of a peculiar form, and which was evidently the work of man. He caused this opening to be enlarged, and soon discovered the entrance to a long corridor, whose walls were covered with sculptures and hieroglyphical paintings. A deep fosse and a wall barred the further end of the cave; but he broke a passage through, and found a second vault, in which stood an alabaster sarcophagus, covered with hieroglyphics. He took possession of this and sent it safely to Europe. His own account of these difficulties is extremely interesting:
"Of some of these tombs many persons could not withstand the suffocating air, which often causes fainting. A vast quantity of dust rises, so fine that it enters the throat and nostrils, and chokes the nose and mouth to such a degree, that it requires great power of lungs to resist it and the strong effluvia of the mummies. This is not all; the entry or passage where the bodies are is roughly cut in the rocks, and the falling of the sand from the upper part or ceiling of the passage causes it to be nearly filled up. In some places there is not more than the vacancy of a foot left, which you must contrive to pass through in a creeping posture, like a snail, on pointed and keen stones, that cut like glass. After getting through these passages, some of them two or three hundred yards long, you generally find a more commodious place, perhaps high enough to sit. But what a place of rest! surrounded by bodies, by heaps of mummies in all directions; which, previous to my being accustomed to the sight, impressed me with horror. The blackness of the walls, the faint light given by the candles or torches for want of air, the different objects that surrounded me, seeming to converse with each other, and the Arabs, with the candles or torches in their hands, naked and covered with dust, themselves resembling living mummies, absolutely formed a scene that can not be described. In such a situation I found myself several times, and often returned exhausted and fainting, till at last I became inured to it, and indifferent to what I suffered, except from the dust which never failed to choke my throat and nose; and though, fortunately, I am destitute of the sense of smelling, I could taste that the mummies were rather unpleasant to swallow. After the exertion of entering into such a place, through a passage of fifty, a hundred, three hundred, or perhaps six hundred yards, nearly overcome, I sought a resting-place, found one, and contrived to sit; but when my weight bore on the body of an Egyptian, it crushed it like a band-box. I naturally had recourse to my hands to sustain my weight, but they found no better support; so that I sunk altogether among the broken mummies, with a crash of bones, rags, and wooden cases, which raised such a dust as kept me motionless for a quarter of an hour, waiting till it subsided again. I could not remove from the place, however, without increasing it, and every step I took I crushed a mummy in some part or other. Once I was conducted from such a place to another resembling it, through a passage of about twenty feet in length, and no wider than that a body could be forced through. It was choked with mummies, and I could not pass without putting my face in contact with that of some decayed Egyptian; but as the passage inclined downward, my own weight helped me on: however, I could not avoid being covered with bones, legs, arms, and heads rolling from above. Thus I proceeded from one cave to another, all full of mummies piled up in various ways – some standing, some lying, and some on their heads."
Afterward, Belzoni traveled to the shores of the Red Sea, inspected the ruins of Berenice; then returned to Cairo, and directed excavations to be made at the bases of the great pyramids of Ghizeh; penetrated into that of Chephren – which had hitherto been inaccessible to Europeans – and discovered within it the sacred chamber where repose the hallowed bones of the bull Apis. The Valley of Faioum, the Lake Mœris, the ruins of Arsinoë, the sands of Libya, all yielded up their secrets to his dauntless spirit of research. He visited the oasis of El-Cassar, and the Fountain of the Sun; strangled in his arms two treacherous guides who tried to assassinate him; and then left Egypt, and returned to Padua with his wife.
The son of the humble barber had now become a rich and celebrated personage. A triumphal entry was prepared for him; and the municipal authorities of his native city met him at the gate, and presented him with an address. Manfredini was commissioned to engrave a medal which should commemorate the history of the illustrious traveler. England, however, soon claimed him; and on his arrival in London, he was received with the same honors as in his own country. Then he published an account of his travels, under the following title: "Narrative of the Operations and recent Discoveries in the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs, and Cities of Egypt and Nubia, &c."
In 1822, Belzoni returned to Africa, with the intention of penetrating to Timbuctoo. Passing in the following year from the Bight of Benin toward Houssa, he was attacked with dysentery; was carried back to Gato, and thence put on board an English vessel lying off the coast. There, with much firmness and resignation, he prepared to meet his end. He intrusted the captain with a large amethyst to be given to his wife, and also with a letter which he wrote to his companion through good and evil days. Soon afterward, he breathed his last. They buried him at Gato, at the foot of a large tree, and engraved on his tomb the following epitaph in English —
"Here lies Belzoni, who died at this place, on his way to Timbuctoo, December 3d, 1823."
Belzoni was but forty-five years old when he died. A statue of him was erected at Padua, on the 4th of July, 1827. Very recently, the government of Great Britain bestowed on his widow the tardy solace of a small pension.
Giovanni Belzoni, the once starving