their faces become marvellously life-like.  We are almost tempted to think that a smile plays over their lips as the first beams touch them.  The remaining chambers consist of a hypostyle hall nearly square in shape, the sanctuary itself being between two smaller apartments, and of eight subterranean chambers excavated at a lower level than the rest of the temple.  The whole measures 178 feet from the threshold to the far end of the Holy of Holies.  The walls are covered with bas-reliefs in which the Pharaoh has vividly depicted the wars which he carried on in the four corners of his kingdom; here we see raids against the negroes, there the war with the Khati, and further on an encounter with some Libyan tribe.  Ramses, flushed by the heat of victory, is seen attacking two Timihu chiefs:  one has already fallen to the ground and is being trodden underfoot; the other, after vainly letting fly his arrows, is about to perish from a blow of the conqueror.

[Illustration:  228.jpg THE FACE OF THE ROCK AT ABU SIMGEL]

His knees give way beneath him, his head falls heavily backwards, and the features are contracted in his death-agony.  Pharaoh with his left hand has seized him by the arm, while with his right he points his lance against his enemy’s breast, and is about to pierce him through the heart.  As a rule, this type of bas-relief is executed with a conventional grace which leaves the spectator unmoved, and free to consider the scene merely from its historical point of view, forgetful of the artist.

[Illustration:  229.jpg RAMSES II.  PIERCES a Libyan chief with his lance]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Mons. do Bock.

An examination of most of the other wall-decorations of the speos will furnish several examples of this type:  we see Ramses with a suitable gesture brandishing his weapon above a group of prisoners, and the composition furnishes us with a fair example of official sculpture, correct, conventional, but devoid of interest.  Here, on the contrary, the drawing is so full of energy that it carries the imagination hack to the time and scene of those far-off battles.

[Illustration:  230.jpg RAMSES II.  STRIKES A GROUP OF PRISONERS]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Insinger.

The indistinct light in which it is seen helps the illusion, and we almost forget that it is a picture we are beholding, and not the action itself as it took place some three thousand years ago.  A small speos, situated at some hundred feet further north, is decorated with standing colossi of smaller size, four of which represent Ramses, and two of them his wife, Isit Nofritari.  This speos possesses neither peristyle nor crypt, and the chapels are placed at the two extremities of the transverse passage, instead of being in a parallel line with the sanctuary; on the other hand, the hypostyle hall rests on six pillars with Hathor-headed capitals of fine proportions.