e its magnificence and grandeur, though they faw it only in its ruins; fo auguft were the remains of this city. In Thebes, now called Said, have been discovered temples and palaces which are ftill almost entire, adorned with innumerable columns and ftatues. One palace especially is admired, the remains whereof feem to have exifted purely to eclipse the glory of the most pompous edifices. Four walks extending farther than the eye can fee, and bounded on each fide with fphinxes, compofed of materials as rare and extraordinary as their fize is remarkable, ferve for avenues to four porticoes, whofe height is amazing to behold. Befides, they who give us the defcription of this wonderful edifice, had not time to go round it; and are not fure that they faw above half; however, what they had a fight of was aftonishing. A hall, which in all appearance flood in the middle of this ftately palace, was fupported by an hundred and twenty pillars fix fathoms round, of a proportionable height, and intermixed with obelisks, which fo many ages have not been able to demolish. Painting had displayed all her art and magnificence in this edifice. The colours themselves, which fooneft feel the injury of time, still remain amidst the ruins of this wonderful ftructure, and preferve their beauty and luftre; fo happily could the Egyptians imprint a character of immortality on all their works. Strabo, who was on the fpot defcribes a temple he faw in Egypt, very much refembling that of which I have been speaking. The fame author, defcribing the curiofities of Thebais, fpeaks of a very famous ftatue of Memnon, the remains whereof he had feen. It is faid that this statue, when the beams of the rifing fun firft fhone upon it in the morning, uttered an articulate found*. And indeed. Strabo himfelf was an ear-witness of this; but then he doubts whether the found came from the ftatue. • Thevenot's Travels. f Lib. xvii. p. 805. 8 p. 816. * Germanicus aliis quoque miraculis intendit animum, quorum præcipua fuere Memnonis faxea effigies, ubi radiis folis illa eft vocalem fonum reddeus, &c. TACIT. Annul. 1. ii. c. 61. CHAP VOL. I. I CHAP. II. Middle Egypt, or Heptanomis. MeMere we was any farely temples, efpecially that EMPHIS was the capital of this part of Egypt. of the god Apis, who was honoured in this city after a particular manner. I fhall fpeak of it hereafter, as well as of the pyramids which flood in the neighbourhood of this place, and rendered it fo famous. Memphis was fituated on the weft fide of the Nile. h Grand Cairo, which feems to have fucceeded Memphis, was built on the other fide of that river. The caftle of Cairo is one of the greatest curiofities in Egypt. It ftands on a hill without the city, has a rock for its foundation, and is furrounded with walls of a vaft height and folidity. You go up to the caftle by a way hewn out of the rock, and which is so easy of afcent, that loaded horfes and camels get up without difficulty. The greateft rarity in this caftle is Jofeph's well, fo called, either because the Egyptians are pleased with afcribing their most remarkable particulars to that great man, or be cause there is really fuch a tradition in the country. This is a proof, at least, that the work in queftion is very ancient; and it is certainly worthy the magnificence of the most powerful kings of Egypt. This well has, as it were, two ftories, cut out of the rock to a prodigious depth. One defcends to the refervoir of water, between the two wells, by a ftair-cafe feven or eight feet broad, confifting of two hundred and twenty fteps, and fo contrived, that the oxen, employed to throw up the water, go downwith all imaginable eafe,thedefcent being scarce perceptible. The well is fupplied from a fpring, which is almoft the only one in the whole country. The oxen are continually turning a wheel with a rope, to which buckets are faftened. The water thus drawn from the first and lowermoft well, is conveyed by a little canal,. into a refervoir, which forms the fecond well; from h Thevenot. whence whence it is drawn to the top in the fame manner, and then conveyed by pipes to all parts of the caftle. As this well is fuppofed by the inhabitants of the country to be of great antiquity, and has indeed much of the antique manner of the Egyptians, I thought it might deferve a place among the curiofities of ancient Egypt. Strabo fpeaks of fuch an engine, which, by wheels and pullies, threw up the water of the Nile to the top of a vaft high hill; with this difference, that instead of oxen, a hundred and fifty flaves were employed to turn these wheels. The part of Egypt of which we fpeak, is famous for feveral rarities, each of which deferves a particular examination. I fhall relate only the principal, fuch as the obelisks, the pyramids, the labyrinth, the lake of Maris, and the Nile. SECT. I. The Obelisks. EGYPT feemed to place its chief glory in raifing monuments for pofterity. Its obelisks form at this day, on account of their beauty, as well as height, the principal ornament of Rome; and the Roman power, defpairing to equal the Egyptians, thought it honour enough to borrow the monuments of their kings. An obelisk is a quadrangular, taper, high spire, or pyramid, raised perpendicularly, and terminating in a point, to ferve as an ornament to fome open fquare; and is very often covered with infcriptions or hieroglyphics, that is, with mystical characters or symbols ufed by the Egyptians to conceal and difguife their facred things, and the myfteries of their theology. * Sefoftris erected in the city of Heliopolis two obelifks of extreme hard ftone, brought from the quarters of Syene, at the extremity of Egypt. They were each one hundred and twenty cubits high, that is, thirty fathoms, or one hundred and eighty feet*. The emperor i L. xvii. P. 807. * Diod. lib. i. p. 37. * It is proper to observe, once for all, that an Egyptian cubit, according to Mr. Greaves, was 1 foot 9 inches and about of our measure. I 2 Auguftus, |