Medinet-el-Fayoum, the capital of the province, where it branches off into a great number of smaller streams. Its bed is here cut through the solid rock, and shows that the Egyptians in old times were well acquainted with the principles of levelling. About five miles within the valley there is a bridge of ten arches running parallel with Joseph's River, which, serving as a dam when the inundation is low, lets the water pass when it is high, and is probably the sluice mentioned by Strabo and other ancient authors.

In a direction nearly due north from the bridge just described, there is a canal, now usually dry, but which, at the height of the flood, carries the water as far as the village of Tamieh, situated on the east side of the lake,-a distance of about twenty-two miles. This cut must have been formed through a bed of continuous rock, as appeared on sinking a shaft into the mud, which in some places was found twenty-three feet deep. Tamieh, which formerly stood on the edge of Moris, is now six miles from it,-an additional proof that the extent of the lake is very much contracted. In fact, so much neglected are the various channels which, after disburdening the Nile of its superfluous waters, used to carry them into this western valley, that the limits of the cultivable land are becoming every year more narrow; the Birket-el-Karoun is gradually retiring from its shores; and the approach of the desert towards the river is more and more facilitated.

The observations of Belzoni during his journey to the Oasis give much probability to the opinion that the reign of civilization had, at an early age, extended far into the Libyan waste. Ruins of towns, and other tokens of an improved population, meet the eye from time to time; masses of sand cover the monuments of an age comparatively enlightened, and deform plains which, there is every reason to believe, were at one time the scene of agricultural industry, of the arts, and of law. A similar inference might be drawn from an examination of the country which stretches to the southward of Tripoli; where are still to be found the relics of magnificent buildings, mixed with the shingle of the desert, and affording to the barbarians who now traverse that wilderness a constant triumph over the achievements of polished life. We ought not, therefore, to give way to an undue haste in concluding that the descriptions

of Lake Maris left to us by the ancient authors are much exaggerated. The pyramids mentioned by Herodotus, if we may form a judgment from the remains of those which still stand at the entrance of the valley, were built of brick, and may therefore long ago have yielded to the solvent power of the atmosphere, supplying perhaps part of those ruins which are at present found scattered along the beach. It is not to be imagined that they were placed in the deep basin formed by nature, and which is still occupied by the Birket-el-Karoun, but rather in that division of the lake which was prepared by art for the reception of the annual flood, at the period when Moris changed the course of the Nile from its more ancient channel.*

The Labyrinth is also mentioned by Herodotus as one of the greatest wonders of Egypt, and the most surprising effort of human ingenuity and perseverance. "It exceeds, I can truly assert, all that has been said of it; and whoever takes the trouble to examine them will find all the works of Greece much inferior to this, both in regard to workmanship and expense. The temples of Ephesus and Samos may justly claim admiration, and the Pyramids may individually be compared to many of the magnificent structures erected by the Greeks; but even these are inferior to the Labyrinth. It is composed of twelve courts, all of which are covered; their entrances are opposite to each other, six to the north and six to the south; one wall encloses the whole. The apartments are of two kinds; there are fifteen hundred above the surface of the ground, and as many beneath,-in all three thousand. Of the former, I can speak from my own knowledge and observation; of the latter, only from the information which I received. The persons who had the charge of the subterraneous apartments would not suffer me to see them, alleging that in these were preserved the sacred crocodiles, and the bodies

* Belzoni, vol. ii. p. 150-158; Jomard Déscrip. de l'Egypte, vol. ii. p. 8-43; Strabo, xvi. c. 1; Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, xi. p. 133; Pococke's Travels in the East; Wilford in Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. p. 245.

The words of Pliny are remarkable in regard to the extent of Lake Mæris, as compared with its limits in his own day :-"Inter Arsinoitem autem et Memphetem lacus fuit, circuitu cel. M.p., aut, ut Mutianus tradit ccccl. M.p. et altitudinis L. pass., manu factus a rege qui fecerat, Moridis appellatus." P. 69,

of the kings who constructed the Labyrinth. Of these, therefore, I presume not to speak; but the upper apartments I myself examined, and I pronounce them to be among the greatest triumphs of human industry and art. The almost infinite number of winding passages through the different courts excited my warmest admiration. From spacious halls I passed through smaller chambers, and from them again to large magnificent courts almost without end. The ceilings and walls are all of marble, the latter richly adorned with the finest sculpture; and around each court are pillars of the same material, the whitest and most polished that I ever saw. At the point where the Labyrinth terminates stands a pyramid one hundred and sixty cubits high, having large figures of animals engraved on the outside, and an entrance to the interior by a subterraneous path."*

The same historian relates that this stupendous edifice was constructed beyond the Lake Moris, near the City of Crocodiles, now better known as Arsinoë, or the Medinetel-Fayoum. He ascribes the design of the building to a determination of the twelve kings, who at that period governed Egypt, to leave behind them a monument worthy of their fame; and hence, perhaps, the number of the courts and gates by which the Labyrinth was distinguished.

Diodorus says that it was built as a sepulchre for Mendes, while Strabo intimates that it only stood near the tomb of the monarch who erected it. Pomponius Mela, again, speaks of it as having been constructed by Psammeticus; but as Mendes or Imandes is mentioned by several writers, it is probable that he was the king of the particular province in which the Labyrinth was placed, and who, as possessing the greatest influence and authority, might have his funeral monument set apart from the rest. It is, however, more worthy of notice that, although no other traveller gives so minute an account as has been supplied by Herodotus, the testimony of ancient times tends decidedly to support the main facts contained in his narrative. Strabo, for instance, describes the passages in the Labyrinth as being so numerous and artfully contrived that it was impossible to enter any one of the palaces, or to leave it, without a guide. Pliny,

* Lib. v. c. 9; Herodotus, book ii. chap. 148.

too, makes a reference to the Egyptian Labyrinth, which proves, at least, his conviction that it was worthy of the fame universally received concerning it, as also that it was the pattern of all the similar works which had been attempted in different parts of Europe.

But it must not be concealed that the curiosity of the moderns, who have employed themselves in searching for the remains of this superb structure, has been very generally disappointed; and, of consequence, that there is a great difference of opinion among them as to its local position. Larcher and Gibert, after a long investigation of the subject, have determined the situation of the Labyrinth to have been at Senures; while Pococke, Banier, and Savary follow the ancient historians in placing it beyond Arsinoë, in the direction of the Libyan Desert, and on the shore of Lake Moris. Amid the ruins of Karoun, accordingly, the attention of certain French travellers was particularly fixed by the appearance of several narrow, low, and very long cells, which, it was thought, could have had no other use than that of containing the sacred crocodiles; and these have, therefore, been imagined to correspond with the remains of the great building in question. But this suppo sition is not confirmed by the more diligent researches of Belzoni. Speaking of the place, he says, "I observed several pieces of white marble and granite, which has given me reason to think that there must have been some building of considerable importance in this place, for they must have had more trouble to convey it hither than to any part of Egypt, in consequence of the distance. But whatever remains of beauty might be seen in this town, it does not appear that this was the site of the famous Labyrinth, nor any thing like it; for, according to Herodotus and Pliny, there is not the smallest appearance which can warrant the supposition that any such edifice was here. The Labyrinth was a structure of three thousand chambers, one-half above and one-half below. The construction of such an immense building, and the enormous quantity of materials which must have been accumulated, would have yet left specimens enough to have shown where it had been erected, but not the smallest trace of any such thing is any where to be seen. The town was about a mile in circumference,

with the temple in its centre, so that I could not see how the Labyrinth could be placed in this situation."*

He is more inclined to adopt an opinion, founded on the narrative of the Roman naturalist, that this sumptuous monument of ancient taste must have stood in the neighbourhood of Terza, at the west end of the Lake Maris. He there observed several blocks of white stone and red granite, which evidently must have been taken from edifices of great magnitude. Reflecting on the description of Pliny, who places the Labyrinth in that very situation, he made the most diligent search among the remains of antiquity, to ascertain whether the marble fragments bore any evidence of the exquisite workmanship ascribed to the famed structure of Psammeticus. He admits that he saw not the smallest appearance of an edifice either on the ground or under it, but, at the same time, he beheld through all that part of the country a "great number of stones and columns of beautiful colours, of white marble and of granite." These materials of a splendid architecture he observed scattered about for the space of several miles, some on the road, and some in the houses of the Arabs, and others put to various uses in the erection of huts. It was not, therefore, without very plausible reasons that he arrived at the conclusion already stated; and we are satisfied that most of his readers will concur with him in the opinion that, by tracing those interesting ruins to their source, the site of the Labyrinth might yet be discovered. It is true, that having been but little elevated above the ground, the building may be already buried to a great depth under the mass of soil and sand which is constantly accumulating in all parts of the valley.t

Nothing is more certain than that the level of the lake, as well as of the adjoining land, must have been raised considerably since the first era of historical records. Belzoni himself observed, in one part of Moris, pillars and ruins of ancient buildings now nearly under water; and it is well known that the present rulers of Egypt have more than once found it necessary to erect new dikes upon the ancient mounds, to obviate the effects of an excessive inundation. Denon, too, remarks that at the mouth of this † Ibid. vol. ii. p. 161-165:

* Belzoni, vol. ii. p. 156.

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