inferior in extent to several cities of Christendom. However, it must be allowed to be exceedingly populous; for several families live in one house, and a number of persons live in each chamber of it. During likewise the busy time of the day, the principal streets are so crowded with people, that there is no small difficulty to pass by them.

The way that leads up to the castle, is cut through the rock; from whence this ridge of eminences seems to have been called Jibbel Moccatte, or Mocat-em, i. e. the mountain that is hewn or cut through. Besides other places of less account within the castle, we are first of all shewn a spacious magnificent hall, supported by a double row of large Thebaic columns; then we are shewn the Beer el Hallazoune, or the snail-like well†, which, with the stair case that goes winding round it, are hewn out of the natural rock. Both the hall and the well are looked upon by the inhabitants to be works of such grandeur and expence, that the patriarch Joseph, whose prison

they

* Provided the villages of old Kairo and Boulac, (whereof this lies two miles to the N. E. the other at the same distance to the W.) should have formerly belonged to this city, (and indeed the many interjacent ruins seem to point out something of this kind), then Kairo would not have been inferior in extent to the metropolis of Great Britain. Buntingius makes it to have the same dimensions with the ancient Nineveh, or to be sixty miles in circuit; equal to three days journey, according to the prophet Jonas, iii. 3.

+ This well consists of two stages, being in all about fortyfour fathom deep. The upper stage is sixteen feet broad one way, and twenty-four the other. The water, which is brackish, is drawn up in the Persian wheel by oxen.

they pretend likewise to shew us, is supposed to have been the founder. But the well was probably contrived by the Babylonians, when they first built the castle, as both of them are ascribed (the rebuilding of this rather) to Salah Oddin Joseph Ebn Job, by Abdol Caliph, in his History of Egypt, p. 85.

Over against Kairo, on the Libyan banks of the Nile, is the village Geeza, where we shall endeavour to prove, that Memphis was formerly situated; though at present it is entirely buried in soil. Twelve miles further, in the same direction, are the pyramids, erected upon that ridge of the Libyan mountains which bounds the inundation of the Nile to the westward. The castle of Kairo has the like mountainous situation on the Asiatic. side of the river; and, in this manner, the Nile is confined, for the space of two hundred leagues, quite up to the cataracts, à long chain of eminences, sometimes at four, sometimes at five or six leagues distance, constantly bounding the inundation on each side. Such in general is the plan, such likewise is the extent of the Land of Egypt. As for this Land of Goshen which lay contiguous to it, or, in the Scripture phrase, was near it, it will be described when we treat of Arabia.

CHAP

CHAPTER IV.

The ancient Situation of Memphis further inquired into and considered.

A LATE curious traveller has endeavoured to prove, that the ancient city Memphis was not situated at Geeza, where it has commonly been placed, but at Metraheny or Mohanan, several miles further to the southward. • What fixes,'

6

says he, Descript. of the East, vol. i. p. 41. the ⚫ situation of Memphis to this part, is Pliny's ac'count, who says, 1. xxxvi. c. 12. that the pyra

mids were between Memphis and the Delta.' But in answer to this, it may be remarked, that the same Pliny acquaints us in another place, (1. v. c. 9.) that the pyramids lay betwixt Memphis and the Arsinoite Nomos, and consequently must be to the westward of Memphis; as they actually are, provided Geeza is the site of that ancient city.

That this description of Pliny's is rather to be received than the former, appears from several geographical circumstances, taken as well from that author as from others. Diodorus Siculus (p. 45. § 50.) acquaints us, that Memphis was

"most

6

'most commodiously situated, in the very key or inlet of the country, where the river, beginning to divide itself into several branches, forms 'the Delta.' This account is further confirmed and more particularly circumstantiated by Pliny himself, who tells us, (1. v. c. 9.) that Memphis was only fifteen miles from the Delta; and Strabo, (l. xvii. p. 555.) that it was gives only, or ninety furlongs, which do not make twelve miles. Ptolemy makes a difference of ten minutes in their longitudes, and the like in their latitudes; whereby their distances, by computation, will fall in very nearly with Strabo's account, and make little more than XII miles. Whereas, if we are to look for Memphis at Metraheny or Mohanan, where this author has placed it, the distance of it from the Delta, (especially as it is laid down in his map), will be XL miles; i. e. more than thrice as much as it is recorded by Pliny, Strabo, and Ptolemy.

The near agreement therefore among these geographers, in the distance they have left us betwixt Memphis and the Delta; and the same continuing still to be the distance, as near as can be required, betwixt the Delta and Geeza, appears to be a much stronger proof for situating Memphis at Geeza, than any heap of ruins, or than any adjacent mounds or channels (as they are urged by that author) can possibly be in favour of Metraheny.

VOL. II.

*The point of the Delta Memphis

K

heny. For ruins alone, unless supported by other circumstances and arguments, will in no country determine the situation of any particular city; much less in Egypt, which boasted formerly of having twenty thousand *. Moreover, mounds and channels were so common all over Egypt, that, considering the fluctuating state of that country, and the yearly alterations that were made in it by the Nile, any one particular set or system of them, will be as uncertain and precarious a proof as ruins. Whereas the Delta is a fixed and standing boundary, lying at a determinate distance from Memphis, from which we find it no further removed in the ancient geography, than Geeza is in the modern.

But even upon a supposition that those traces of large mounds and channels, which are reported to be at Metraheny, were the remains of the ancient Memphitic rampart, yet they will by no means determine the site of this ancient city to have been there. They will rather prove the contrary; in as much as the rampart, mentioned by Herodotus, p. 141. is said to lie a hundred furlongs beyond it to the southward, (let us suppose Metraheny to be the very spot;) Memphis consequently should not be sought for there, but a hundred furlongs below it to the northward; i. e. a little more or less where we have the present Geeza.

*

Another argument why we may fix the ancient
Memphis

Πολις εν αυτη γενεσθαι τας απάσας τοτε δισμυρίας τας οικευμενας. Herod. p. 179.