He was entering a long stretch of distance wherein
there was no inhabited town, and he was making ready to sleep in the
bari. Then he began to travel by day, for he was too far from Memphis
to fear pursuit, and rest in an open boat under a blazing sun would be
impossible.
The third evening he paused opposite a ruined city on the eastern bank
of the Nile. Hunters not infrequently went inland at this point for
large game, and although the place was in a state of partial
demolishment, Kenkenes hoped that there might be an inn. He tied his
boat to a stake and entered Khu-aten,[1] the destroyed capital of
Amenophis IV, self-styled Khu-n-Aten.
Here under a noble king, who loved beauty and had it not, the barbarous
rites of the Egyptian religion were overthrown and sensuous and
esthetic ceremonies were established and made obligatory all over the
kingdom. In his blind groping after the One God, the king had directed
worship to the most fitting symbol of Him--the sun.
He appeased the luminous divinity by offerings of flowers, regaled it
with simmerings from censers, besought it with the tremulous harp and
had it pictured with grace and vested with charm. And since the power
of the national faith was all-permeating, its reconstruction was
far-reaching in effect.
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