through three different large courts, filled with columns of great dimensions, the traveller reached the sanctuary, surrounded by spacious halls supported by columns, and exhibiting the most beautiful mass of sculpture in the best style of execution.

"It is absolutely impossible," again exclaims Belzoni," to imagine the scene displayed, without seeing it. The most sublime ideas that can be formed from the most magnificent specimens of our present architecture, would give a very incorrect picture of these ruins. It appeared to me like entering a city of giants, who, after a long conflict, were all destroyed, leaving ruins of their various temples, as the only proofs of their former existence. The temple of Louqsor," he adds,

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presents to the traveller at once one of the most splendid groups of Egyptian grandeur. The extensive propylæon, with the two obelisks, and colossal statues in the front; the thick groups of enormous columns, the variety of apartments, and the sanctuary it contains; the beautiful ornaments which adorn every part of the walls and columns, cause in the astonished traveller an oblivion of all that he has seen before."

So far Belzoni: and in this he is borne out by Champollion, who speaks of Thebes in terms of equal admiration. "All that I had seen, all that I had admired on the left bank," says this learned Frenchman," appeared miserable in comparison with the gigantic conceptions by which I was sur

rounded at Karnac.

I shall take care not to

attempt to describe any thing; for either my description would not express the thousandth part of what ought to be said, or, if I drew a faint sketch, I should be taken for an enthusiast, or, perhaps, for a madman. It will suffice to add, that no people, either ancient or modern, ever conceived the art of architecture on so sublime and so grand a scale as the ancient Egyptians. Their conceptions were those of one a hundred feet high; and the imagination which, in Europe, rises far above our porticos, sinks abashed at the foot of the 140 columns of the Hypostyle hall at Karnac."

The third grand building of Thebes was the Memnonium; that is, the tomb, or palace, of the Pharaoh Osymandias, whom the Greeks have supposed to be the same as Memnon. In the middle of the first court there was the greatest colossus ever raised by the Egyptians. It was the statue of king Osymandias, 75 feet high. Behind it there was an entrance which led into a second court, surrounded by porticos, supported by 50 other colossuses; and after crossing several porticos and different apartments, one arrived at the celebrated library, on the entrance of which was an inscription, the signification of which was, "The medicine of the mind."

To the south of the Memnonium lies MedinehTabou, an Arabian village, the monuments of which evidently prove that it was at one time the residence of a Pharaoh, or at least of some great

person of his court. The assemblage of these monuments consists of a temple, and a large mass of buildings, some smaller and some larger. Amongst others, there is a small palace of one story, in high preservation, having still a staircase, its windows, doors, and balconies. The basis of this last is supported by figures of men; and at a little distance, a large palace, with courts in front, and adorned with basso relievos, which are mostly historical. They represent an Egyptian sovereign attacking a body of people, whose dresses evidently shew them to be Persians. The king obtains the victory, pursues the fugitives, besieges one of their towns, returns triumphant, offers sacrifices to the gods, and the like.

Besides these monuments Thebes offers an immense number of others, equally grand and equally interesting; among which we ought to reckon the tombs of the Pharaohs, in a valley to the northwest of the town. At the bottom of this valley, which is very narrow, the traveller is struck by several openings made in the rock: they are small doors, surmounted by basso relievos, and representing an oval, in which there is a scarabeus, and the figure of a man with the head of a hawk. On both sides of this symbolical representation there are two men in the act of adoration.

Each tomb, consisting of a great number of rooms cut into the rock, covered with sculpture and pictures, has a separate entrance. In the most inward apartment of each tomb, often supported

by columns or pilasters, lay the sarcophagus that inclosed the mummy. It is invariably made of one block of granite, and covered, inside and out, with hieroglyphics. The cover is also of one single block, and at the top is sculptured, in alto relievo, the figure of the person to whom the tomb belongs. There have been discovered, in these apartments, pieces of sculpture which give a perfect idea of the furniture used by the Egyptians, made in precious wood, and covered with stuff worked in gold. The easy chairs, the stools, and the couches, are very elegant, and extremely tasteful. The figure of their harps, and the great number of strings which they had, evidently shew that they belonged to a system of music both complicated and refined. At the time of Strabo, they reckoned forty-seven of these tombs, some of which had been opened. The total number of those which have been now opened amounts to eight.

It is also to the north-west of Thebes, and in the chain of the Lybian mountains, that they have excavated tombs for the inhabitants of this renowned city. Innumerable galleries, more than two miles in length, were destined to receive the embalmed bodies of the citizens of Thebes. In many other parts, and above all to the west of the colossuses of Memnonium, the mountain is entirely hollow, and filled with tombs, more or less splendid.

These tombs are still in existence; and if the ruins of Thebes fill the mind with admiration, how

can we divest ourselves of the painful sensation arising from the consideration that all these magnificent ruins, from which much information might be collected, remain in a spot now so desolate and uncivilized?

Such was mighty Thebes, the first, the most ancient capital of the Egyptian empire. And though many of these splendid buildings were raised or restored under the Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty, yet most of them derived their origin during the time of the hieratic government; that is, when the priesthood held the supreme authority, both religious and civil. But this sort of government lasted only for a time; and with the change of government began the desertion and the decay of Thebes. An individual, called Menes, wrested from the hands of the priests the temporal power; and, to get out of the way of their influence and authority, he went to reside in Lower Egypt. In that part of the country there was a beautiful vale, at the foot of what is called the Lybian chain of mountains, which the Nile divided into two very unequal portions. To improve the strength and salubrity of this charming spot, Menes caused a new canal to be dug, into which he forced the waters of the Nile; and in the old bed of the river he laid the foundation of a new city, the celebrated Memphis, to which the Egyptians gave the name of Mafi, or Mefi, and occasionally even Menouf.

To prevent the possibility of an inundation,