222 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



can see the obelisk of Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, 

 where Plato studied for seventeen years the archives 

 of the Egyptian priests. It is a mistake to suppose 

 that this city was the residence of Joseph, the son of 

 Jacob. The dynasty of shepherds, under whose sway 

 Egypt at that time was, reigned at Suez, near Lake 

 Mensaleh, where Potiphar, the first minister of the 

 Pharaohs, also was, as the Scriptures tell us, chief 

 eunuch, a circumstance which pleads in favour of 

 Madame Potiphar and makes Joseph's attitude of 

 reserve all the more meritorious. 



" We pass close beside the pretty village of Ma- 

 tarie, surrounded by gardens, in the midst of which is 

 to be seen the Virgin's Tree. "We then pass Birket-el- 

 Haggi (the Lake of Pilgrims), where the great Mecca 

 caravan, conveying the sacred carpet to the tomb of 

 the Prophet, meets every year. 



" We see before us the massive palace of Abassie, 

 built by Abbas Pasha, and in which there are 2,000 

 windows, while beyond it, upon the other side of the 

 Nile, are the summits of the two great pyramids which 

 have been in existence not for forty, as is generally 

 said, but for sixty centuries. To the left are the 

 lofty steeples of the mosque built of oriental alabaster 

 inside the citadel by Mehemet Ali, which that great 

 man had arranged should be his burial place. He was 

 well entitled to have for his tomb a spot where he had 

 annihilated the representatives of barbarism and 

 which commanded the whole of the country which 



