feet of Theba's wall towering above our heads. Those immense square piles of unused bricks were left by the Roman builders, when the imperial city called in her outposts to defend her own walls against invaders. Those excavations on our left have lately brought to light the ruined found. ation of the earlier Memnonium, destroyed by Cambyses, when not a temple of Thebes was left standing after the departure of the Persian invader. The materials of this and other primitive temples are everywhere to be seen, with their fine sculpture worked into the body of the walls of the more recent monuments.

Those chambers cut in the rocky face of the mountain, with their long piazzas and columns, could not have been tombs, but were doubtless residences of the wealthy Thebans. The interior is represented to enjoy an equal temperature throughout all seasons, and the meridian sun or the midnight chill of the plain below is never felt within them. It is scarcely twenty minutes since we left the Memnonium, and here we are in front of the great propylon, whose majestic gate. way opens upon the outer court of the temple of Medinat Abu. Having passed through several courts, we are now in an area which presents a very unusual appearance for an Egyptian temple; and well it may, for those rude columns which encumber it once supported the roof of a Christian church. The Coptic descendants of those Egyptians who assembled round that ruined altar, and there in meekness and humility joined their holy pastor in morning and evening devotions, still worship the true and living God in distant and obscure retreats, more in unison with their present degraded political state and servile dependance upon their Moslem lord.

Beyond this court you see a small temple, which we will leave on our right, and pass over the south wall of this court by means of the accumulated rubbish which covers it. We are now in the second story of a palace, perhaps once the

residence of those sovereigns who were always under the tutelage of the priesthood. Its ruined state presents nothing remarkable, except that its architecture differs materially from the temple style of building, being less massive. Through its lower story is the passage to the Grand Temple, which we will next visit.

The rubbish which encumbers the first great court con. sists of the dilapidated huts of the degraded Arabs, who infest some of the most perfect temples of Egypt, and bury them under the ruins of successive series of mud-built vil.

lages. The propylon, which rears its proud head far above the temple, is one hundred and seventy-five feet long. Hav. ing passed through its gateway, we are now in another court one hundred and twenty feet square, with a piazza on each side; in front of us is a second propylon. Let us pass through this, and in the next great court we will find the ruins of another Christian church. The interior of the great temple is so encumbered with mud and rubbish, that we will not now attempt to explore the mysterious chambers contained in the stupendous fabric, which measures five hundred feet by one hundred and fifty. Its height, you will perceive, cannot be ascertained, as the present surface of the ground is within a few feet of the roof. If any obelisks or colossal statues ever graced these courts (of which there can be no doubt), they have either been removed, or lie buried deep under the sand. It would require a week to examine even what remains above ground of the pictorial history of battles, sieges, triumphs, and processions, civil, military, and religious, all in bas-relief of extravagant dimensions. A month would not suffice to scan the miles of hieroglyphic lines which adorn the corridors, piazzas, and columns of the various outer courts. Cast your eyes round, and behold on every side the divinities of Thebes, in the form of almost every beast, reptile, and insect that is to be found upon the earth, in the air, or in the water, and then form your own

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opinion of what must have been the horrible and degrading worship practised in the dark chambers of yon buried temple.

Listen to the muse of Ovid:

"Where she sings,

How the gods fled to Egypt's slimy soil,
And hid their heads beneath the banks of Nile;
How Typhon from the conquer'd skies pursued
Their routed godheads to the seven-mouth'd flood:
Forced every god, his fury to escape,

Some beastly form to take, or earthly shape.
Jove (so she sung) was changed into a ram,
From whence the horns of Libyan Ammon came :
Bacchus a goat; Apollo was a crow;

Phœbe a cat; the wife of Jove a cow,

Whose hue was whiter than the falling snow;
Mercury to a nasty ibis turn'd,

The change obscene, afraid of Typhon mourn'd:
While Venus from a fish protection craves,
And once more plunges in her native waves."

Juvenal, after he had visited these temples eighteen hun. dred years ago, and returned to Rome, thus alludes to the monstrosities of Egyptian worship:

"Who knows not that infatuate Egypt finds

Gods to adore in brutes of basest kinds?
This at the crocodile's resentment quakes,
While that adores the ibis gorged with snakes!
And where the radiant beam of morning rings
On shatter'd Memnon's still harmonious strings,
And Thebes to ruin all her gates resigns.
Of huge baboon the golden image shines!

To mongrel curs, infatuate cities bow,

And cats and fishes share the frequent vow!
There leeks are sacred, there, 'tis crime, in sooth,
To wound an onion with unholy tooth;
Ye pious nations, in whose gardens rise

A constant crop of earth-sprung deities,

Nor sheep, nor kid to slaughter ye consign,
Meekly content on human flesh to dine!"

That colossal hero, with his chariots, horses, armies, navies, and captured cities, is Osiris, whose imperishable his

tory thus occupies the whole surface of the high walls, which are one mile in circuit.

These we must omit, for the intense heat of the meridian sun warns me that it is time for our noontide siesta.

We will profit by the cool shade of yonder tomb, and there repose for a couple of hours.

Selim, brush away those mummies and spread our carpets.

LETTER XVIII.

The Musical Memnon.-The lost City.-Crocodiles of the Nile.-Temple of Luxor.-View from the Propylon.-An Avenue of Sphinxes.-Temple of Carnac.-Its Architectural Greatness.-Egyptian Pantheon.-The Hall of Columns.-Iron known to the ancient Egyptians.-A Field of Desolation.

MOUNT again thy Pegasus, and hie with me across the Theban plain, to where the towers of proud Diospolis rear their mighty heads beyond the eastern bank of Nile.

First, we will retrace our steps upon the rocky flat to where the foundations of the elder Memnonium lie uncov. ered; and thence proceed along the broad avenue, now lined with broken statues, which once was the via sacra from Luxor to the fane of Memnon. Hold! what are those two gigantic masses of rock directly in front of us towards the east? Spur on, and in five minutes you will find yourself where

"Shatter'd Memnon's still harmonious strings"

are lifted high in air.

Behold, we are now at the base of these twin statues, whose lofty heads rise fifty feet above the soil. You will perceive that the material of which they are composed is neither the red granite of Syene, nor the common sandstone

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of the Nile, but a sort of nondescript quartzy substance from the neighbouring mountains. It would now probably be beyond the power of man to move such immense masses of rock any great distance from the quarry; they weigh each seven hundred tons! The base on which each of them is seated measures thirty feet in length, eighteen feet in breadth, and eight feet thick; each one solid mass.

Who can say how many thousand years these majestic gods of Egypt have been seated on their everlasting thrones? It is now thirty-one centuries since Sesostris and his hosts defiled through this outer barrier of the Memnonium on their way to Persia and India. Twenty-five centennial suns have cast the shadows of these statues towards the western desert, since the armies of the Persian Cambyses heard the last révéillé from the musical mouth of Memnon, ere they perished in the Libyan sands. Exasperated by the loss of his army, against the horns of Ammon of the Oasis, the Persian conqueror vented his rage upon the early monuments of Thebes. Yet these giant statues resisted the power of the destroyer, and, for ages after, the matin songs of the Memnon were daily listened to by wondering multitudes. Although his harp is broken, and his Æolian airs have long been hushed, yet the breezes that now sigh through his rent bosom carry a music to the soul, which, to be appreciated, must needs be heard.

The most generally received opinion respecting the manner in which the musical sounds from the Memnon were produced, is, that they proceeded from an accidental or natural fissure in the stone in the upper part of the body.

The cold air of the night entering into the cavity, became rarefied and expanded by the first rays of the rising sun, and, on its issuing from a small aperture, a slight sound was heard; as the sun's power became stronger and the stone more heated, the air rushed out with greater violence, producing a sound at the end of the first hour like that of a trumpet.