cient times; among which, the most remarkable were the Bahr Yousef, and another called the Hatn, -the line of which last, however, cannot be so distinctly traced at the present day. In the same district there were eleven large mounds or dikes, besides a considerable number of smaller size,—all provided with sluices to regulate the issue of water according to the state of the crops and the height of the inundation.

This precaution, on some occasions, must have been absolutely necessary. Belzoni tells us that the year in which he visited Fayoum an extraordinary overflow of the Nile sent such a quantity of water into the Lake Moeris that it rose twelve feet higher than it had ever been known by the oldest fisherman on its banks. Denon, in like manner, remarks that, if it were not for the dikes which stop the inundation, the great swells would soon convert the whole province into an inland sea,-an event which had nearly taken place about forty years ago, during an unusually high flood, when the river rose over the banks of Ilahon, and created an apprehension that it would lay the plain under water, or resume the channel which it had evidently occupied in remote ages. To remedy this inconvenience, a graduated mound has been raised near the village just named, where there is also a sluice erected, which, as soon as the inundation has got to the proper height to water the province without drowning it, divides the mass of fluid; taking the quantity necessary for irrigation, and turning aside the remainder by forcing it back into the river through other canals of a deeper cut, directed to a lower section of the stream.

We have already suggested that the great work of King Mœris is to be sought for not in the lake which bears his name, but in the immense excavations which connected it with the Nile, and in the mounds, the dams, and the sluices, which rendered it subservient to the important purposes of irrigation. Enough still remains to enable the reader to form some judgment of the extent and magnificence of the original undertaking. The French philosophers describe Fayoum, the ancient name of Arsinoë, as being of an oval figure, and forming a low table-land, gradually sloping towards the north and the south. Along the highest part of the ridge runs the Bahr Yousef as far as 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 twentytwo 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, a -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 Moris 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 per

haps 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 Birketel-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.*

severance.

The Labyrinth is also mentioned by Herodotus as one of the greatest wonders of Egypt, and the most surprising effort of human ingenuity and per"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 Pyra mids 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

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

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 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 Medinet-el-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;

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