neighbourhood of Saccara, several other places, no doubt, of sepulture, besides the pyramids, intervening, it will thereby much better accord with the history of Charon, and his ferrying dead bodies from Memphis over the Acherusia, to the pyramids, or to the plains of the mummies, or Elysian fields, than the remote and extensive lake of Myris.

We may observe further, and it will point out to us perhaps the reason why we find no remains of the ancient Memphis, that the situation of it was very low, even in the very bed of the old river. For Herodotus* acquaints us, that the river ran formerly along the side of the sandy hills of Libya; but that this old channel was dried up, by bending off the river with a rampart, αγκώνα προσχωσαντα, a hundred furlongs higher up the stream, or to the southward, according to the parallel account in Diodorus Siculus †, and thereby making it flow in a new channel, more at equal distances, where it was turned off betwixt the Libyan and Arabian mountains. This bending of the Nile, where the river is forced to flow,

is kept up,' says he, and repaired every year 'with strong ramparts, by the Persians; for if it

was suffered to be broken down, all Memphis 'would be in danger, rλ, of being swal'lowed up by the stream.' In this manner, Menes is said, απογεφυρώσαι την Μέμφιν, or to have made land, xg, of what was before water; or, to have

χέρσον,

* Vid. supra, p. 79. note.

dried

+ Diod. Sic. Bibl. 1. 1. p. 46.

μιλιον

dried up, so as to pass over dry-shod that spot of ground upon which Memphis was built. Or perhaps sugars may have a contrary meaning to Qugar, (as, among other compound words, anodishow is contrary to ) and may here signify the same as ποιησαι μη γεφυρώθη ή Μέμφις, i. e. to contrive it so that Memphis should not be raised upon arches. Because junxisse pontibus Memphin, as axeyspugwrai is rendered in the Latin version of Valla, conveys no proper idea of this undertaking; and aggessisse Memphin, as it is in the margin, though it be agreeable indeed to the alterations that have been made in some other cities, as will be hereafter mentioned, could not here be a matter of fact.

For Memphis, at this time, down to the age of Herodotus, had no higher situation than the ancient bed of the river; and we may presume, that it continued the same, at least the greatest part of it*, in after ages; its safety and preservation depending all along upon the keeping up these mounds and ramparts, which fortified it against the encroachments of the Nile. But after Alexandria was built, and became the chief mart for trade and navigation, and also the abode of the Egyptian kings, Memphis, by losing in this manner the residence of the court, together with its former commerce, would in proportion

lose

* Strabo indeed, by acquainting us that the royal edifices were built upon a rising ground, seems to insinuate that the city itself was low. Ιδρυται βασίλεια, ά νυν μεν κατέσπαςαι και εσιν ερημα, εφ' ύψος καθηκοντα μέχρι τις κατω της πολεως εδαφος. Ρ. 555. edit. Casaub.

lose the many families and the numerous retinue that, in one relation or other, depended upon them both.

As the inhabitants therefore, in a few ages, for want of trade and employment, might be so gradually reduced and impoverished, as to be incapacitated, either to undergo the fatigue or expence of keeping up these mounds and ramparts, it is very probable that at length they might be necessitated entirely to abandon both them and their city. Memphis being thus left, without an inhabitant, naked and open to the ravages and devastations of the Nile; and the danger to which it was exposed for want of these ramparts of being swallowed up, xaтavov, beginning now to take place, the period of time could not be long, before the whole face and appearance of it would be so greatly changed and altered, as not to afford the least trace or footstep of its ancient grandeur and magnificence, or even that such a city had ever been.

Neither am I singular in this opinion. It is confirmed by the learned author of the Description of the East. It is very extraordinary,' says he, p. 39. that the situation of Memphis 'should not be well known, which was so great and famous a city, and for so long a time the capital of Egypt; but as many of the best materials of it might be carried to Alexandria, and afterwards, when such large cities were built near it, as Cairo and those about it, it is no wonder that all the materials should be carried

away

away to places so near, and so well frequented; and the city being in this manner levelled, and 'the Nile overflowing the old ruins, it may easily be accounted for how every thing has been 'buried or covered over, as if no such place had ' ever been.' Mr Maillet likewise, in his description of Egypt, (p. 275.) is of the same opinion, though more concise: De cette Memphis, autrefois si fameuse et si considerable, a peine restet-il assez de traces, pour pouvoir nous assurer de sa veritable situation.'

CHAPTER V.

Of the Land of Goshen, of Arabia Petræa, and of the Encampments of the Israelites therein.

AFTER having thus adjusted the ancient situation of Memphis, let us return to the opposite shore, to the Arabian banks of the Nile, at Kairo and Mattarea, which, in the sacred geography, were a part of the land of Goshen or of Rame

ses.

For Joseph, when he invited his father and brethren into Egypt, tells them, (Gen. xlv. 10.) that they should dwell in the land of Goshen, and be near him. Goshen then must, at that time, have been adjacent to the seat of the Egyptian

kings. Now, (to omit other arguments that might be drawn from the history and succession of the Egyptian dynasties), as a west wind, Exod. x. 19. took away the locusts and cast them into the Red Sea, this metropolis may be much better fixed at Memphis, whose situation exactly answers to this circumstance, than at Zoan or Mansourah, as it is now called, a city of the Tanitic Nomos, twenty leagues to the northward; and consequently, where the same wind could not have blown them into the Red Sea, but into the Mediterranean, or else into the land of the Philistines, which lies directly to the eastward of it. For the land of Zoan, (Psal. lxxviii. 12. 43.) where the fearful things are said to have been done, was probably another appellation only for the land of Egypt, or the land of Ham, by taking, as usual in poetical compositions, a part for the whole, or, in the instance before us, one of the most remarkable places of Egypt, such as Zoan might be in the time of David, or the composer of that Psalm, for the whole country.

And indeed, provided Zoan had been then, as it might have been afterwards, the metropolis or the seat of the Pharaohs, towards which, Jacob and his children were to direct their marches, how comes it, that at their first setting out, they took their journey from the vale of Hebron (Gen. xxxvii. 14. xlvi. 1.) to Beersheba? which would lie too much upon the left hand; and not towards Gaza, and the sea coast of the Philistines, which would have certainly been the nearest, and the

most