oracle, so difficult and dangerous of access through the Libyan Deserts *, consulted by Alexander the Great, who, by the flattery of the priests, was saluted as the son of Jupiter, and whose head, on some of his medals, bears a ram's horn in token of this descent. The site of this temple, which had been long unknown, has been at length, probably discovered by an English traveller, Mr. Browne, in the year 1792, in a fertile spot called the Oasis of Siwah, situated in the midst of deserts, five degrees nearly West of Cairo. + Ægypt is bounded on the West by Marmarica and the Deserts of Libya, on the North by the Mediterranean, on the East by the Sinus Arabicus, or Red Sea, and a * I cannot avoid quoting a sublime passage in the first part of the Botanic Garden of the late Dr. Darwin, descriptive of the invading army of Cambyses overwhelmed by those mighty columns of sand, which may be called the waves, or rather the moving mountains of the desert. Wave over wave the driving desert swims, Bursts o'er their heads, inhumes their struggling limbs. Botanic Garden, Part I. Canto II. v. 489. + Considerable confirmation is given to this discovery by the visit of Mr. Horneman to the same spot, A. D. 1798, and the question seems to be fully decided in an able memoir written by Sir William Young, Bart. Horneman appears to have discovered the Fons Solis. line drawn in a North East direction from Arsinoe, or Suez, to Rhinocorura, or El-Arish, which separates it from Arabia, and on the South by Ethiopia. It is one of the most antient countries known, highly memorable both in sacred and profane history, and the mother of all the arts and sciences of the antient civilized world. Ægypt was governed from time immemorial by kings, the earliest of whom recorded in Scripture had the general name of Pharaoh. It is called in Scripture Misraim (traces of which are still clearly to be found in its modern Turkish appellation of Misr) from its first king, one of the sons of Ham, B. C. 2188: it was conquered by Cambyses, B. C. 525, afterwards subject to its native kings, and again to the Persians, till after the death of Alexander, it was refounded into a kingdom by Ptolemy, one of his generals, B. C. 323, and continued under the government of the Ptolemies till, after the battle of Actium and the death of the celebrated Cleopatra, it was reduced by Augustus into a Roman province, B. C. 31, A. U. C. 723. The original natives are called Copts, to distinguish them from the Arabs and Turks, and in the proper modification of this word, Kypt, we can plainly discover the elements of the antient classical term Ægyptus. Except on the coast, there are few positions but those on the bank of the Nile, whose annual inundations fertilize the adjacent country, and are the source of its prosperity. Ægypt is divided into Ægyptus Inferior, or Ægypt towards the sea, and Ægyptus Superior, or Upper 1 Ægypt, being more inland, called also the Thebais, from the great city Thebes in this district. Between Ægyptus Inferior and Ægyptus Superior was a small district called Heptanomis, as containing (seven of those nomes, or Prefectures, into fifty-three of which the whole country was divided. Ægyptus Inferior extends along the sea from the Sinus Plinthinetes, or Arabs Gulph, to the Sirbonis Palus, or Sirbonian Bog, and even somewhat beyond it. The celebrated city of Alexandria, built by Alexander the Great, B. C. 332, the capital of Ægyptus Inferior, stood on the Western side of the Delta, or large triangular island formed by the Nile, which comprised almost the whole of Ægyptus Inferior. Here was the celebrated library, consisting of 700,000 volumes, which is said, but without any very positive proof, to have been destroyed by the Saracens, at the command of the caliph Omar. Alexandria, before the discovery of the passage round Africa by the Cape of Good Hope, was the great mart for all the merchandise between Europe and the East Indies, which was transported from thence to Arsinoe, or Suez, at the top of the Red Sea, and so to India. The island of Pharos, which had a celebrated light-house, was joined to the continent by a dike, or causeway, called from its length the Heptastadium. Eastern side of the city was the lake * The wine made in its vicinity was celebrated. Mentemque lymphatam Mareotico. On the South Mareotis *, or Hor. Od. I. 37, 14, Mariout. At the Western mouth of the Nile, a little beyond Alexandria, was Canopus *, whence that branch is called the Canopic, now Maadi. Near to it was a city called Nicopolis, built in commemoration of a victory obtained by Augustus over Antony: but the modern victory of Aboukir, gained by Lord Nelson over the navy of France, Aug. 1, 1799, will render the same spot infinitely more celebrated among succeeding generations. The next mouth of the Nile is called Bolbitinum Ostium, where is now Raschid, or, as the Europeans call it Rosetta. In the interior of the Delta, nearly below Rosetta, was Sais, now Sa, antiently the capital of Lower Egypt. The Sebennytic mouth of the Nile was so called from the city Sebennytus, an inland city, now Semenud. Next to it was the Phatniticum Ostium, one of the principal mouths of the Nile, near the city of Tamiathis, or Damiata. The Mendesian mouth was so called from Mendes, now Ashmur-Tarah; the Tanitic from Tanis, the Zoan of the scriptures, now San. The Eastern branch of the Nile was called the Pelusiotic, from the strong city of Pelusium, now Tireh, one of the keys of Ægypt at its mouth. East of Pelusium is Mount Casius, and East of it the Palus Sirbonis, or Sirbonian Bog, now called Sebakel Bardoil. Here Typhon the murderer of Osiris, is fabled to have perished; and the country being covered with deep and moving sands, is called Al-Giofar, and has always * Hence Canopus from its vicinity to Alexandria, was called Pellaan. Nam qua Pellæi gens fortunata Canopi Virg. Georg. IV. 287. rendered the approach to Egypt on this side very difficult and dangerous to an invading enemy. * North East of the Sibonis Palus is Rhinocorura, now ElArish, the remotest Eastern limit of Egypt and of Africa. At about an equal distance between Pelusium, the apex of the Delta, and the Western branch of the Sinus Arabicus is Heroopolis; which gave to that branch the name of the Sinus Heroopolitis; it was the residence of the antient shepherd kings of Ægypt. South West of it the Jews had a city called Onion, and a temple, which continued from the time of Onias who built and called it after his own name, to that of Vespasian. Onias was nephew to Menelaus, and the rightful successor to the priesthood of Jerusalem, but being rejected by Antiochus Eupator, who made Alcimus high priest, he fled to Ægypt, and persuaded Ptolemy Philometor to let him build this temple there, about 173 years B. C., which subsisted 243 years. At the very apex of the Delta was Heliopolis, or,On, the city of the sun, and a little below it was the Ægyptian Babylon, probably built during the time of the Persian power in Ægypt: it occupied the site of Old Cairo. On the Western bank of the Nile, fifteen miles South of the Delta, was the renowned city of Memphis, the antient metropolis of all Ægypt. Near it are those stupendous and immortal works, the Pyramids : the largest of these is, at the lowest, 481 feet in perpendicular height, and covers eleven acres of ground; it is built of hewn stones, * A gulph profound as that Sirbonian bog |
