Note 95 — LETTER XXX.

Salamât “the greetings” are they called by earlier travellers. The proper pronunciation and meaning was first remarked to me by our intelligent old guide, Ἀuad. The Arabs are for confounding them, as salâm, salus, is pronounced with the dental sin, s’anam, idolum, with the lingual sâd. The plural, which is usually as’nam, here takes the feminine form s’anamât. That they were male figures had long since been indistinguishable from the battered heads. The stone of which the statues are formed is a peculiarly hard quartz brittle sandstone conglomerate, looking glazed, and with innumerable cracks. The frequent bursting of little particles of stone at sunrise, when the changes of temperature are most sudden, caused, according to my idea, the celebrated Memnon sounds, which were compared with the breaking of a violin string.