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the smallest being not less than thirty feet in length. The pyramids are thought to have been intended for royal sepulchres: they are of so remote antiquity that their foundation is utterly unknown. There is a room which contains a sarcophagus in the greatest pyramid. Below Memphis is Arsinoe, or Crocodilopolis, now Feium, near the lake Moris, at the South end of which was the celebrated labyrinth, which contained 3000 chambers, 1500 above and as many below, in which the kings and sacred crocodiles were buried: it contained twelve principal halls, built by as many kings, and its ruins are still very magnificent. Another Moris was a canal now called Bathen, running North and South below that already described, and was excavated by human · industry, being 900 stadia in length and four in breadth. Below the Southern end of this latter Moris is Hermopolis Magna, now Ashmuneim, the last city of Heptanomis. We then proceed to Ægyptus Superior, in which we may notice Ptolemais Hermii, antiently a powerful city, now an inconsiderable village called Girge. Below it was the great city of Abydos, the palace of Memnon, now a ruin called Madfune. West of it was a fertile spot, in the midst of the desert, called the Oasis Magna, now El-wah. Returning to the Nile, below Abydos was Tentyra, now Dendera, a city at variance with Ombos, the former killing, the latter adoring the crocodile: a horrible instance of religious fury, which took place in consequence of this quarrel, is the subject of the 15th satire of Juvenal. Opposite to Tentyra, on the other side the Nile, is Coptos, or Kypt, from which a road was made by Ptolemy Philadelphus 258 miles in length, across the desert to the port of

Berenice on the Sinus Arabicus, by which the merchandise of India was transported to the Nile. Below Coptos, was the magnificent city of Thebes, called by the Greeks Diospolis, from the worship of Jupiter there, and distinguished by the epithet of Hecatompylos, or the hundred-gated, from the city of Boeotia which had seven gates. The ruins of this astonishing city occupy a space of twenty-seven miles in circumference, on either side the Nile, containing several villages, the chief of which is Luxor. That part on the Western side of the Nile, which was called Memnonium, now Habon, contains many stupendous monuments. In the adjacent Lybian mountains are hewn sepulchres of the Ægyptian kings. Near Thebes was the celebrated statue of Memnon, which was said to utter a sound when struck by the first beams of the sun. It still exists*, though broken, and is covered with the names of the most illustrious antient writers and monarchs, or generals, who have thus recorded, with their own hands, their attestation to the fact of having heard the sound. + Some idea of the strength of this antient city may be obtained from the account given us by Herodotus, who tells us, that it could send out from each of its hundred gates 20,000 footmen and 200 chariots to oppose an enemy‡: it was ruined by Cambyses the Persian. Below Thebes is Ombos, already mentioned, and below it was Syene, or

* It has been brought to London while this edition was in the press, 1818.

† Hence Juvenal

Dimidio magicæ resonant ubi Memnone chordæ
Atque vetus Thebe centum jacet obruta portis.

See also Homer. Iliad. IX. 383.

S

Juv. Sat. XV, 5.

Assouan, the extreme town of Upper Egypt, where was a celebrated well, the bottom of which at the time of the summer solstice was exactly illuminated, the sun being perpendicular over it. Juvenal was sent into a kind of honourable exile to this place. Near it is the Mons Basanites, or mountain of touchstone, from which the Ægyptians used to make ornamental vases and household utensils. Opposite to Syene, on the Sinus Arabicus, was Berenice, already mentioned. At the extreme point of the Sinus Heroopolitis was Arsinoe, called afterwards by the celebrated Cleopatra after her own name; it is now Suez. Midway, on the coast, between Arsinoe and Berenice, which were so called from the names of two of the queens of Egypt, is Myoshormus. About a mile South of Syene were the smaller cataracts of the Nile; the greater cataracts were more to the South, in Æthiopia.

It is not necessary to take more than a very rapid view of the remainder of Africa. The natives living along the Southern part of the Red Sea were called Troglodytæ, and inhabited caves in the earth. On this coast was Adulis, or Arkiko, and westwards the city of Auxume, which is still Auxum, in Abyssinia: North Westwards, on the Western or true branch of the Nile, was Meroe. The river Astapus, or Abawi, which flows through Nubia to a place called Coloe Palus, or Bahr Dembea, was known to the antients, and was mistaken by Mr. Bruce for the Nile: the real Nile, or Bahr el Abiad, flows far to the South West of this, and its sources are still unknown, but are placed in a chain of mountains called the Mountains of the Moon, South of the Nubæ Memnones; and by the Arabian geographers, our only authority, the

Niger or Gir of the antients, called by them the Nile of the Negroes, empties itself into an immense lake in which the Nile rises. * Under the names of Zingis and Azania the antients seem to have known the coasts of Zanguebar, and Ajan, nor ought we to omit mentioning that the

* The Niger has been ascertained to flow from West to East, and in the interior of Africa to form a very considerable river. In order to enable it to form a junction with the Nile in some great lake in the interior, we must suppose some practicable passage by which the Niger may descend regularly from West to East, and by the continuance of which the Nile may also descend from West to North East till it takes its Northern direction through Egypt, where it flows nearly from South to North. In other words, no chain of mountains must be so situated between the Niger and the Nile as to prevent their meeting by breaking the level. This was asserted to be the case by the antient geographers, but being contrary to general experience on such an extent of the earth's surface, was contradicted by the most intelligent of the later geographers; yet it appears from the late discoveries of Mr. Park, that the Niger undoubtedly flows from West to East, and I therefore hope I may be allowed, with becoming diffidence, to express an opinion of the possibility of a fact which has nothing but presumptive evidence to contradict it, and which has some, though certainly weak authority, in its favour. I merely mean to say, that it is not impossible; and that as the Apurimac flows from the Western side of South America to the North Eastern, the Niger may flow from the Western side of Africa to the Eastern, till stopped by the mountains of Abyssinia and Æthiopia, when it would naturally form an immense lake, from which its course may be continued under the name of the Nile; and the increase of that lake and its tributary waters by periodical rains may cause the periodical inundations of the Nile. Mr. Park however in his last journey, and subsequent travellers, have entertained an opinion that the Niger, after passing Tombuctoo, turns to the South, the South West, and West, till it enters the Atlantic under the name of the Zaire, or Great River of Congo. The most recent accounts annexed to Riley's captivity tend to confirm this.

Ophir of Solomon has been thought to be the modern Sofala. The Garamantes have been already mentioned, and it merely remains to notice their Western neighbours, the Nigritæ, in Negroland, or Nigritia, and the Hesperii Æthiopes, in Guinea.

On the Western coast of the Atlantic the Fortunatæ Insulæ, or Canary Islands, were known to the antients, and were thought to be the residence of the blessed after death.* Below them were the Hesperidum Insulæ, either the Cape Verde Islands, or, if these are thought too far from the coast, possibly some small islands called the Bissagos, lying a little above Sierra Leone. Here was the famous garden of the Hesperides and the Golden Apples, the attainment of which was one of the labours of Hercules, who carried them off, having slain the watchful dragon that guarded the fruit.

* Ereptum Stygiis fluctibus Æacum
Virtus, et favor, et lingua potentium
Vatum, divitibus consecrat insulis.

Hor. Od. IV. 8, 25.

Arva, beata

Petamus arva, divites et insulas.

Reddit ubi Cererem tellus inarata quot annis

Et imputata floret usque vinea.

Hor. Epod. XVI. 41.

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