size, sculptured with a square sail, different from any now employed on the Nile. In the first chamber of this building were paintings, in bas-relief, of men, deer, and birds, the men engaged in planning and preparing certain pieces of furniture, hewing blocks of wood, and pressing out skins either of wine or oil. The top of the second chamber is hollowed out in the form of an arch. In this apartment, it is added, the figures and hieroglyphics are exceedingly beautiful. On the right is represented a quarrel between some boatmen, executed with great spirit; and, a little farther on, a number of men engaged in the different pursuits of agriculture,-ploughing, hoeing up the ground, bringing in their corn on asses, and storing it in the maga zines. On the west are several vases painted in the most vivid colours; and on the south a band of musicians playing on the harp, flute, and a species of clarionet, together with a group of dancing women, tinged of a yellow colour, as is the case in most of the temples of Upper Egypt. In the same structure are two other chambers, one unembellished, the other having carved on its walls a variety of figures and hieroglyphics. In a fifth of these mortal dwellings were similar inscriptions on a thick coat of white plaster, executed, as it would appear, with a wooden stamp or mould.

Many others of these ancient sepulchres were cleared out, and found to consist of a number of different apartments, variously disposed, but similarly decorated with carvings and paintings, according, perhaps, to the wealth or caprice of those who erected them; one, in particular, from the delicacy of its colours, its general pleasing aspect, and superior style of execution, was deemed deserving of the closest attention. It is further observed, that, in all of them, there were discovered fragments of bitumen, great quantities of mummy-cloth and of human bones, which seemed to remove all doubt of their having served the purpose of entombing the dead. A very important circumstance yet remains to be noticed. In some one apartment of all these monumental edifices was a deep shaft or well, from the bottom of which a narrow passage conducted to a subterraneous chamber. One of these shafts, cleared out by Mr. Caviglia, was sixty feet deep, and in the room a little to the south of the lower extremity of the pit was standing, without a lid, a plain but highly-finished sarcophagus, of the same dimensions nearly

as that in the Pyramid of Cheops, though still more exquisitely polished. This discovery supplies a strong argument in support of the opinion that all the Pyramids were used as sepulchres, whatever may have been their primary and more important object.

As to the comparative antiquity of the mausoleums just described, Mr. Salt entertained an opinion different from that of most writers; considering the ground in which they stand as the burial-place of the kings of Egypt prior to the construction of the Pyramids, and as having been connected with Heliopolis before the seat of government was transferred to Memphis. The more general belief, however, is, that these edifices are not only much more recent than the vast structures which they surround, but that in a majority of cases they are composed of the coating of the Pyramids, removed from their surface either by violence or by the effects of time. As a confirmation of this view, it may be stated that the walls of these tombs are formed of the same kind of stones which were used for coating the more majestic monuments, and covered with hieroglyphics, as were also the casings of the Pyramids at a remote epoch. On these last Abdollatiph says that he himself saw as many inscriptions as would fill ten thousand volumes; and other authors have recorded the same fact in language equally strong. A circumstance mentioned by Mr. Salt appears to us to be completely decisive of the question. He saw a stone, bearing an inscription of hieroglyphics and figures, built into one of the walls upside down,-a fact which proves beyond a doubt that it had constituted a part of some other structure before it was placed in its present position. It is probable, too, that the little mounds which diversify the surface of the neighbouring country were originally buildings of the same description, but of a still higher antiquity; and that they have gradually mouldered down into the shape they now exhibit, under the pressure of age and the wasting influence of the elements.

In examining the interesting district which includes Djizeh, Abousir, Sakhara, and Dashour, and which may even be regarded as extending to the borders of Lake Moris, the contemplative spirit finds itself in a great city of the dead,-reading the annals of a mighty people, the impres sions of whose power and genius are most closely associated

with emblems of mortality,—whose thoughts must have been constantly occupied with the value of posthumous fame, and who appear to have spent their lives in preparing a receptacle for the body after all its earthly attachments should have passed away. At the present hour, the wide plain of Memphis is in the possession of those who urged its labours or presided over its affairs three thousand years ago. The peasant or the traveller, accordingly, who seeks a dwelling in that desolate region, must enter the precincts of a tomb, and share an apartment with bones which have been insensible during many centuries, and be surrounded with figures and inscriptions which point to events not recorded in any other history. No nation of the ancient world has so successfully perpetuated its existence through the medium of death. The actual inhabitants of Egypt sink into insignificance when compared with the mouldering dust of their ancestors; and the proudest edifices which they have raised since the days of the Pharaohs produce not on the mind of the spectator any other feeling than that the sons have gradually degenerated from the power or ambition of their fathers.

We reserve for another chapter an account of the ruins, more strictly architectural, which continue to adorn the sites of the ancient cities, especially in the upper division of the kingdom.

CHAPTER V.

The Literature and Science of the Ancient Egyptians.

Remains of Egyptian Literature scanty but valuable-Meaning of Hieroglyphics-Picture-writing-Progress towards an Alphabet; Illustrated by the Hebrew and other Oriental Tongues-Different Modes of Writing practised by the Egyptians, Epistolographic, Hieratic, and Hieroglyphic properly so called-Discovery of Rosetta Stone-Researches of Dr. Young and Champollion-The Practice of Chinese in rendering Words Phonetic-The Advantages of the Hieroglyphical Method-Discoveries of Mr. Salt-Anecdote of King Thamus-Works of Thoth or Hermes-Quotation of Clemens Alexandrians-Greeks learned History from Egypt-The Numerical System of the Ancient Egyptians The Arabians derived their Arithmetical Signs from Egyptians.

THE materials for this section of our work are neither abundant nor various; but they are, nevertheless, extremely satisfactory, and point out, in a manner free from all ambiguity, the first steps taken by man' in his attempts to communicate his thoughts through the medium of written language. The literature of ancient Egypt, we must admit, does not, like that of Greece, call forth our admiration by splendid poems and regular histories; nor, like that of the Hebrews, by preserving the events of the primeval world in a record sanctioned by the Spirit of Eternal Wisdom. But, notwithstanding, in the brief notices which have come down to our age of the methods adopted by the early Egyptians for giving permanency to their conceptions, we have a treasure which, to the philosopher, is more valuable than the sublime verses of Homer, and, in a merely grammatical point of view, not inferior to the inspired narrative of Moses itself. We allude to the system of hieroglyphics; the knowledge of which is very important, both as exhibiting authentic specimens of picture-writing the original expe dient of the rude annalist-and also as indicating the path which led to that nobler invention-the use of an alphabet. The term hieroglyphic literally denotes sacred sculpture, and was employed by the Greeks in reference to those figures and inscriptions which they found engraven on the

temples, sepulchres, and other public buildings of Egypt. The practice, however, out of which it arose, appears to be common to the whole human race in the first stage of civilization; being dictated to them by necessity, and suggested by the most obvious associations. Man learns to paint before he attempts to write; he draws the outline of a figure long before he is able to describe an event; he confines his representations to the eye during ages in which he can find no more direct means of addressing the understanding, or of amusing the fancy. In the infancy of society, all communication not strictly verbal is carried on through the medium of picture-writing; and this imperfect method continues in all countries until a happy accident, or the visit of a more refined people, makes known the secret of alphabetical notation.

When, for example, the Spaniards first landed on the shores of America, the event was announced to the inhabitants of the interior by rough drawings of men, arms, and ships; some specimens of which have been preserved by Purchas, to whose laborious diligence we are indebted for the best account of European discovery and conquest in the western hemisphere. But, generally speaking, the aid of an alphabet so completely supersedes the more primitive usage, that, in most countries, all traces of the latter are speedily forgotten; and it is only by a remote and rather indistinct species of reasoning that the philosophical grammarian endeavours to connect the refined literature of a polished age with the rude efforts of the savage to imbody his thoughts in external signs. The monuments of Egypt, from their extreme durability, supply a history which nowhere else exists of the successive steps which conduct mankind from the first point to the last in the important art now under our consideration. Our limits will not permit us to enter into an investigation which would itself occupy an entire volume; we shall therefore confine ourselves to a general statement of first principles, and to such an illustration of them as may prove intelligible to the young reader, who may not have other opportunities of studying this important subject.

The first and simplest expedient, then, is that already mentioned, of attempting to convey and perpetuate the knowledge of an event by forming a rude picture of it.