[*] The temple of the Goddess Mut.

They are there, the cats, or, to speak more exactly, the lionesses, for cats would not have those short ears, or those cruel chins, thickened by tufts of beard.  All of black granite, images of Sekhet (who was the Goddess of War, and in her hours the Goddess of Lust), they have the slender body of a woman, which makes more terrible the great feline head surmounted by its high bonnet.  Eight or ten, or perhaps more, they are more disquieting in that they are so numerous and so alike.  They are not gigantic, as one might have expected, but of ordinary human stature—­easy therefore to carry away, or to destroy, and that again, if one reflects, augments the singular impression they cause.  When so many colossal figures lie in pieces on the ground, how comes it that they, little people seated so tranquilly on their chairs, have contrived to remain intact, during the passing of the three and thirty centuries of the world’s history?

The passage of the march birds, which for a moment disturbed the clear mirror of the lake, has ceased.  Around the goddesses nothing moves and the customary infinite silence envelops them as at the fall of every night.  They dwell indeed in such a forlorn corner of the ruins!  Who, to be sure, even in broad daylight, would think of visiting them?

Down there in the west a trailing cloud of dust indicates the departure of the tourists, who had flocked to the temple of Amen, and now hasten back to Luxor, to dine at the various tables d’hote.  The ground here is so felted with sand that in the distance we cannot hear the rolling of their carriages.  But the knowledge that they are gone renders more intimate the interview with these numerous and identical goddesses, who little by little have been draped in shadow.  Their seats turn their backs to the palaces of Thebes, which now begin to be bathed in violet waves and seem to sink towards the horizon, to lose each minute something of their importance before the sovereignty of the night.

And the black goddesses, with their lioness’ heads and tall headgear—­seated there with their hands upon their knees, with eyes fixed since the beginning of the ages, and a disturbing smile on their thick lips, like those of a wild beast—­continue to regard—­beyond the little dead lake—­that desert, which now is only a confused immensity, of a bluish ashy-grey.  And the fancy seizes you that they are possessed of a kind of life, which has come to them after long waiting, by virtue of that expression which they have worn on their faces so long, oh! so long.

*****

Beyond, at the other extremity of the ruins, there is a sister of these goddesses, taller than they, a great Sekhet, whom in these parts men call the Ogress, and who dwells alone and upright, ambushed in a narrow temple.  Amongst the fellahs and the Bedouins of the neighbourhood she enjoys a very bad reputation, it being her custom of nights to issue from her temple, and devour men; and none of them would willingly venture near her dwelling at this late hour.  But instead of returning to Luxor, like the good people whose carriages have just departed, I rather choose to pay her a visit.