6+ TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



is certainly true ; the foregoing difpute is a fufficient evi* 

 dence of this. 



But I will not fuffer it to be faid, that, foon after the 

 building of Alexandria, or in the time of the Ptolemies, this 

 was the cafe, becaufe Strabo * fays, that when he was in 

 Egypt, Memphis, next to Alexandria,, was the molt magnifi* 

 cent city in Egypt. 



It was called the Capital f of Egypt, and there was entire 

 a temple of Ofiris ; the Apis (or facred ox) was kept and 

 worfhipped there. There was likewife an apartment for 

 the mother of that ox Hill landing, a temple of Vulcan of 

 great magnificence, a large $ circus, or fpace for fighting 

 bulls ; and a great coloffus in the front of the city thrown 

 down : there was alfo a temple of Venus, and a ferapium, 

 in a very fandy place, where the wind heaps up hills of 

 moving fand very dangerous to travellers, and a number 

 of § fphinxes, (of fome only their heads being vifible) the 

 others covered up to the middle of their body. 



In the || front of the city were a number of palaces then 



in ruins, and likewife lakes. Thefe buildings, he fays, flood 



formerly upon an eminence ; they lay along the fide of the 



hill, firetching down to the lakes and the groves, and forty 



ftadia from the city ; there was a mountainous height, that 



had many Pyramids Handing upon it, the fepulchres of the 



kings, among which there are three remarkable, and two- 



die wonders of the world. 



This 



* Strabo. lib. vii. . 914-. fid. ibid. t Id. ibid, § Strabo, ibid. 



Id. ibid. 



