Cairo from Upper Egypt, is the only traveller whom I have met who appears never likely to be wearied of Egypt and its monuments. He has discovered, during his recent voyage, in one of the villages of the Thebaid, a most curious and interesting relic of antiquity. It is an obelisk, one of the most ancient in existence, as it bears the name of Amunoph the Second, who began to reign about 1,300 years before the Christian era, in the 160th year of the 18th dynasty, and succeeded Thothmes the Third, also called Moris. The date of this obelisk is therefore anterior to that of the Sphinx, which was the work of Thothmes the Fourth. It is formed from the red granite of Upper Egypt, and its hieroglyphics, which inscribed on one face only, are perfect and entire. Its height is seven feet and a quarter from the base to the apex. The altitude of the pyramidion which surmounts it is equal to the width of the square base, about onetenth of the whole height, according to the usual proportion of obelisks. Lord Prudhoe has effectually insured this valuable monument from the demolition which has overtaken so many similar records of Egyptian history, by procuring the licence of Mehmet Ali to transport it to England.

are

Friday, March 16th.—I made, to-day, the interesting excursion to the remains of Helio

polis, or On, the most ancient city of the globe whose site can be still pointed out with certainty. It is distant from Cairo about two leagues and a half, NN.E. My ride lay partly over the sands of the desert, guided only by a camel-track, to the village of Mataryel, which, built of the white stone so plentiful in its vicinity, presents an advantageous contrast in appearance to the collections of mud-built hovels nearer to the banks of the Nile. On my way thither I had remarked, scattered here and there on the sand, fragments of petrified trees and palms. A small rill, in the middle of the village, overflows from a clear deep well, shaded by a broad-spreading sycamore; and beside the well lies the large gnarled stump of a tree, which, on close inspection, I perceived to be a lump of lignite, hard and heavy as castiron. Here is the spring at which tradition says that Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus stopped to refresh themselves from the toils of their journey, when they fled from Herod; and the waters are, by the villagers, still held to retain a healing virtue from the Saviour's having been bathed in them.

From Mataryeh it is less than a mile to the obelisk which marks the site of Heliopolis. Around it are crumbling mounds, a league at least in circumference; and remains of walls, which are still, at some points, sixteen feet high, and sixty feet thick. These

may give us some indications as to the extent of the celebrated city, inferior in population to Thebes or Memphis, but in some respects more distinguished than either of those capitals. Here was the chief seat of learning, to which resorted inquirers from all climes, to be instructed in the wisdom of the Egyptians." Here stood the most famous observatory of the ancient world. Plato is reported to have studied during thirteen years in the College of Priests at Heliopolis, and Strabo was shown the rooms which the philosopher was said to have occupied. It is a curious instance, however, of the uncertainty which attends antiquarian speculations, that while some authors have entered into laboured calculations of the benefits which Plato derived under the tuition of the Egyptian priests, and of the wonderful influence on the world of thought exercised by that circumstance, other writers maintain, with at least equal plausibility, that Plato never was at Heliopolis at all.

History informs us that the son and successor of Sesostris raised two obelisks here. Subsequent sovereigns of Egypt added many others, of which some have been transported elsewhere, and some broken in pieces. That which alone remains entire on this site is

* Thebes and Memphis are said to have numbered 1,000,000 inhabitants between them. The population of Heliopolis is not computed to have exceeded 150,000.

formed from one block of red granite, about sixty-seven feet in height. Being less exposed to injury from atmospheric influence than those near the sea at Alexandria, it is in excellent preservation, and looks quite a marvel of beauty,

66 Standing, amid the wilderness, alone."

In vain we seek here any mark to fix the site of the famous Temple of the Sun, whose designation comes down to us alike under the Egyptian name, On; the Hebrew, Bethshemesh; and the modern, Heliopolis. The fable that, in this temple, the Phoenix, "sole bird," returned, after 1,461 years, to die, and to spring renewed from its ashes, represents under a lively figure the cycle of centuries which brought the common year of the Egyptians, containing 365 days, and the astronomical year, of about 365 days and 6 hours, to coincide in termination. Such allegorical expressions of scientific truths, interpreted literally by the unlearned, have doubtless given rise to many of the fabulous legends perpetuated from remote ages.

Nothing attests more strongly the ancient preeminence which belonged to the "City of the Sun," than the circumstance recorded in the forty-first chapter of Genesis, that Pharaoh, after he had lavished the treasures of royalty on "the man whom the king delighted to honour," reserved as the crowning

distinction the hand of Asenath, daughter of the priest who was also the prince, or governor of On. "And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, ... Thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou.... Sce, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; ... and he gave him to wife Asenath the daughter of Poti-pherah priest of On." (Gen. xli.)

Saturday, March 17th.-I have renewed, at Cairo, an acquaintance which I formed some years since, at Malta, with Mr. Crusé, a German minister, supported in Egypt by the Church Missionary Society. He showed me his schools, which are attended by Mahometan as well as by Christian pupils. The upper school, consisting of twenty elder boys, includes Copts, Arabs, and Abyssinians. The most apt scholar of all, Mr. Crusé tells me, is 66 a Habyshn," or Abyssinian. In the Copts, their distinctive character of countenance is strongly marked: brilliant deepblack eyes, of the same long almond-shape which is seen sculptured on old Egyptian monuments; teeth, very fine and white; lips, like those of the Abyssinian race, full even