breathing difficult. They hid their faces in the ground, and we could only uncover our own for a moment, to behold this chaos of mid-day darkness, and wait impatiently for its abatement. Alexander's journey to the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, and the destruction of the Persian armies of Cambyses in the Lybian Desert, rose to my recollection, with new impressions made by the horror of the scene before me; while Addison's admirable lines, which I also remembered with peculiar force on this occasion, seemed to possess as much truth as beauty, So where our wide Numidian wastes extend, And smothered in the dusty whirlwind dies.' The few hours we remained in this situation were passed in unbroken silence. Every one was occupied in his own reflections, as if the reign of terror forbade communication. The fury of the desert gale spent itself, like the storms of ocean, in sudden lulls and squalls; but it was not until the third or fourth interval, that our fears were sufficiently conquered to address each other; nor shall I soon lose the recollection of the impressive manner in which that was done. Allah kereem !' 'God is merciful!' exclaimed the poor Bedouin, although habit had familiarized him with these resistless blasts. 'Allah kereem!' repeated the Egyptians, with terrified solemnity; and both my servant and myself, as if by instinct, joined in the general exclamation. The bold imagery of the eastern poets, describing the Deity as avenging in his anger, and terrible in his wrath, riding upon the wings of the whirlwind, and breathing his fury in the storm, must have been inspired by scenes like these. It was now past sun-set, and neither of us had yet broken our fast for the day. Even the consoling pipe could not be lighted in the hurricane, and it was in vain to think of remaining in our present station, while the hope of finding some bush for shelter remained. We remounted our camels, therefore, and departed. The young moon afforded us only a faint light, and all traces of the common road were completely obliterated. The stars were not even visible through so disturbed an atmosphere, and my compass was our only guide. The Arabs knew a spot, near Sheick Amedid, where banks and trees were to be found; and confiding in my direction for the course thither, we resumed our journey. After a silent ride of five tedious hours, this garden of repose appeared in sight; and, bleak and barren as it was, in truth, fatigue and apprehension gave it the charms of Eden. Here we alighted, fed our weary animals, and like sailors escaped from shipwreck, rejoiced in that delightful consciousness of security, which is known only in the safety that succeeds danger. - DESERT OF EL OUADI. FEBRUARY 24. The poor Arabs suffering in the night from cold, and the wind being still too high to keep a fire, without some one watching, for which all were too fatigued, we divided our straw mats in fragments between them for a covering, and weariness had so prepared me for repose, that my sleep was as sweet and uninterrupted as the most tenacious child of sickness could desire. We arose with the sun, congratulated each other over our coffee on a better day, and went together to view the ruins near this spot, which correspond in their situation with those marked in Arrowsmith's map, as the Serapeum and Sheick Amedid. Foundations of two large buildings appear above the sand, which has accumulated round them; but so imperfect are the remains, that neither plan nor dimensions could be taken with accuracy. They form two mounds, at a less distance than a mile from each other, and the stones, now rude and shapeless, differ from all others that I had ever seen in ancient or modern buildings. They are of a dull red color, and extremely porous, resembling the fretted free-stone at Alexandria, except in color only, an effect I was at first disposed to attribute to the same cause, namely, the operation of a salt and humid air; but on examining them more closely, I found this could not be, as their extraordinary hardness alone would resist the action of the atmosphere. Their porosity seems rather the effect of a former state of fusion, as it was not unlike some portions of lava, which I have seen from Mount Etna and Vesuvius; and although those masses were without any definite shape, their smoothed surface resisted the impression of all other stones thrown on them. There are no mountains of such a substance in Egypt, that I am at all aware of; nor among all the fragments of antiquity that I have seen, do I remember any thing to which it bears a resemblance. It has certainly undergone some violent change by fire, or was originally an artificial composition. In the Literary Panorama for March, 1813, in an extract from Mr. Kinnier's Geographical Memoir of the Persian Empire, mention is made of some curious masses, which I cannot but imagine to have resembled the ones in question. That gentleman, in describing the Pyramid of Nimrod, or Tower of Babel, as one of the remains of the ancient Babylon, says: On the top and sides of the mound I observed several fragments of different colors, resembling in appearance pieces of misshapen rock. Captain Frederick examined these curious fragments with much attention, and was at first inclined to think they were consolidated pieces of fallen masonry; but this idea was soon laid aside, as they were found so hard as to resist iron, in the manner of any other very hard stone, and the junction of the bricks was not to be discerned. It is difficult to form a conjecture concerning these extraordinary fragments, (some of which are six and eight feet in diameter,) as there is no stone of such a quality to be procured any where in the neighboring country, and we could see nor hear of no building of which they could form a part.' Upon this the reviewer remarks: It never occurred to our travellers that these could be artificial; yet we know that Mr. Wedgewood, the celebrated manufacturer of pottery, insists that the enormous masses of stone at Stonehenge are artificial, and that modern art is able to compose the like. We should be glad to know,' he continues, whether these Babylonian rocks bear any resemblance to the rocks at Stonehenge; indeed, we could be glad of having a specimen of them submitted to some of our modern tests; for should both these wonderful, massive and ancient structures prove to contain such materials, artificial and alike, the coincidence would prove not merely curious, but extremely interesting, and historically important.' A recollection of this question induced me to pursue my examinations with more scrutiny, but it only left me still more in doubt. That they were not stone, I was disposed to believe, from the characteristics which distinguished it from all other kinds that I had seen; but that they should be an artificial composition, seemed as difficult to suppose, from the want of an apparent motive for so making them, as their size was comparatively small; more particularly when I remembered that the obelisks at Luxor, the colossal Memnon at Thebes, and the column of Pompey at Alexandria, were positively and indisputably single granite blocks, hewn from the mountains beyond the cataracts, and transported down the Nile; unless, indeed, these dubious masses were the fragments of a ruder and an earlier age. I tried every possible method to detach a piece of one of these blocks, to take with me as a specimen, but in vain; nor were we more successful in our search after some small pieces that might have been scattered round, although we sought for them in every direction. It would be hazarding too much to say that these were the remains of antediluvian works; but I should be deficient in candor, if I did not confess that the rude irregularity of form and size in the masses themselves, the want of order in their arrangement, their present appearance, and the evident proofs one meets at every step, of the surrounding plain having been once covered by the sea, very forcibly impressed me with such an opinion on the spot. The whole of the country here looks like a ruin of nature; trees and bushes overwhelmed with sand, their tops only visible in several places, and every where the surface scattered over with broken shells and marine productions: while underneath, at the distance of a few feet, is a fine bed of earth. Our present route through this desert was infinitely more interesting than that by which we journeyed from Cairo to Suez, and every step we took, convinced me that we trod on a soil once teeming with fertility. In some places the sand had grown into large hills, the round and smooth swellings of which were like the heaving billows that linger when a storm at sea is spent; in others, its surface was rippled by the gale of yesterday, and looked even now like the breezy wavings of a ruffled lake. At a few paces distant, we frequently lost sight of each other in those hollow valleys, like boats boarding, on the ocean, when the ships sink between the waves, and suddenly remount upon the summit of their foam. Trees and bushes were still seen in abundance, some half buried, others com. pletely covered, and a few bared of the earth around their very roots; but, excepting a small black scarabeus, and a lizard, whose body resembled that of the toad, in shape and size, not a living creature was to be seen. Nature herself seemed abandoned by her children. The solitary raven was not even to be found, nor did the twitter of the desert-swallow once disturb this awful and impressive silence. We travelled on for about four hours in this way, and I felt myself oppressed with melancholy, amid the reflections which the grandeur of these solitudes inspired, when we entered at length a fertile valley, placed like an island of verdure amid surrounding barrenness, where Nature had retired to an arbor of dalliance, and life and animation seemed restored. It stretched for some length from east to west, was enclosed between high mounds running in that direction, and deriving an additional charm from this powerful contrast, it appeared like a perfect garden of beauty. Here, too, we found a spring of excellent water, about five feet in depth, with several vestiges of former wells, resorted to by the desert Arabs. Gazelles and hares were in abundance; we saw also several flocks of wild ducks; and the chirping of birds in the bushes was like the music of a new creation. It was impossible to resist the temptation of halting at so charming a spot as this, where we had water, shade, fire-wood, and herbage, all blessings of greater worth to us than crowns or diadems. We alighted, therefore, turned loose the camels and dromedaries to graze, discharged the brackish and now almost putrid water of Suez, to fill our skins afresh, prepared a fire, and feasted on a hasty pilau of boiled rice, with an appetite that kings might envy. In resuming our journey, we continued along this narrow valley, and reached, in less than half an hour, the ruins at Abou-Keshabe. If the bed in which we had recently been travelling be considered the remains of the westerly part of the ancient canal, its breadth is here nearly double that of the bed leading from Suez to the northward, which might have been the case, since the great work of Darius is only mentioned in general terms to have been broad enough for the admission of two trirèmes abreast, whereas that of Ptolemy has a specific number of feet assigned, with which it precisely corresponds. The direction of this channel also corresponds exactly with the account of Herodotus, who describes it as running from west to east. The embankment on each side is here lined with trees and bushes, half buried in the sand, while the ravine formed by its deserted bed is one wild garden. Appearances certainly inclined me to believe the excavation artificial; and the want of all connecting trace between this branch and that of Suez may be owing to the overwhelming sands which intervene, and which, added to neglect, must have hastened its destruction; the difference of the soil being as much the cause of the preservation of the one, as of the annihilation of the other. On ascending the heights of Abou-Keshabe, we saw on every side the remains of an extensive city, certainly not less than five miles in circumference, judging from the dispersion of the fragments in the plain. In the centre were the walls of small and private dwellings, not exceeding ten or twelve feet square, built of unburnt bricks, and laid with cement, in great regularity. Of these confined rooms there were a great number, and, ancient as their situation and arrangement evidently showed them to be, they only offered an additional proof that the humble citizens of antiquity were but poorly lodged, that private opulence was almost unknown, and that while the subjection of the people confined them to poverty, the privi leged tyrannies of royalty and priesthood exhausted both the public. wealth and labor in works sacred either to government or religion. In the southern part of the ruins, we found a large mass of rosecolored granite detached from any building, and half hidden in the earth. It appeared to be a superficial slab, of about six feet by three, and three inches thick, standing erect, after the manner of a tombstone. On its eastern face were sculptured three figures, nearly the size of life, in the sitting posture of the colossal statues at Thebes, and of those so frequently seen in the recesses of Egyptian mausoleums, with the hands extended on the knees. The central figure bore a warrior's helmet; those on each side were crowned with globes, on one of which was a fine scarabeus, with extended wings. Each of the three figures were bearded, and wore their long hair, or shawl that covered it, falling over the shoulders, and pressing the ears forward, like the Great Sphinx at Gizeh, the hero in the centre having his more highly ornamented than the others. The figures were beautifully drawn, the sculpture bold, and the relief of the fullest kind. As a detached monument, I had seen nothing like it in Egypt; but both its size and execution proved it to be the remnant of some great work, now rather annihilated than overthrown, since this is the only portion that visibly remains. Among the heaps of the adjacent ruins, we found fragments of coarse glass vessels, little more than semi-transparent, and some pieces of highly-glazed earthenware. Decayed shells, corals, and other marine productions, were abundant, and seemed to suggest that this spot, as well as that of the Serapeum, had been overflowed, either at the time of, or subsequent to, its destruction. While wandering over the site of this fallen city, there appeared to me great reason for assenting to the opinion of Monsieur Aymé, as quoted by Lord Valentia, who thinks it the remains of the ancient Heroöpolis, as answering to the local situation of the place from whence the Hebrews departed, when they fled from Egypt, mentioned by Josephus, under the same name, (Antiq., lib. 2, cap. 7,) and described as the place where the Patriarch Jacob, on his way down to Egypt, met his son Joseph; as well as by Moses, under the name of Goshen or Ramesses, where he also says that Joseph went up to meet his father Israel. That writer describes it as lying between On, or Heliopolis, and the land of Canaan. Strabo mentions it as being near to Arsinoë, and at the top of the gulf to which it gave its name. And Ptolemy describes it as lying on the confines of Arabia, with the canal of Trajan running through it. With all those descriptions, these remains actually correspond, admitting the Red Sea to have formerly flowed considerably to the north of Suez, and the remains of the canal here to be that implied by Ptolemy as the canal of Trajan, of neither of which facts, those who have visited the spot would doubt. This chain of thoughtful speculation was, however, soon interrupted by the appearance of some Bedouin shepherds, timid boys, who were returning to their tents with the herds and flocks which they had been feeding in the valley, during the day, and who gave us the Moslem salutation of 'Salam Alaikom!' as they passed. We had |