418 plint's natueal histoet. [Book y. 



Dogs\ and that of Hercules already mentioned^. We next 

 come to Arsinoe^, and Memphis^, which has been previously 

 mentioned ; between which last and the Nome df Arsino- 

 ites, upon the Libyan side, are the towers known as the 

 Pyramids, the Labyrinth* on Lake Moeris, in the construc- 

 tion of which no wood was employed, and the town of 

 Crialon^. Besides these, there is one place in the interior, 

 on the confines of Arabia, of great celebrity, the City of 

 the Sun^. 



Mount Alabastemus, now Mount St. Anthony, and the hiU of Alabas- 

 trites, now the C6teau Hessan, ^ 



* Or Cynopolis, the chief place of the Cynopolite nome. The Dog- 

 headed deity Anubis was worshipped here. The modem Samallus occu- 

 pies its site. This place was in the Heptanomis, but there were several 

 other towns of the same name, one of which was situate in the Delta or 

 Lower Egypt. 



* In C. 9, when speaking of the nome of Heracleopolites ; of which 

 nome, this place, called Heracleopolis, was the capital. It was situate at 

 the entrance of the valley of the Fayoum, on an island formed by the 

 Nile and a canal. After Memphis and Heliopolis it was probably the 

 most important city north of the Thebaid. It furnished two dynasties 

 of kings to Egypt. The ichneiunon was worshipped liere, from which it 

 may be inferred that the people were hostile to the crocodile. Its ruins 

 are inconsiderable ; the village of Anasieh covers part of them. 



3 The capital of the nome of Arsinoites, seated on the western bank of 

 the Nile, between the river and Lake Moeris, south-west of Memphis, in 

 lat. 29° north. It was called under the Pharaohs, " the City of Croco- 

 diles," from the reverence paid by the people to that animal. Its ruins 

 are to be seen at Medinet-el-Fayoom or El-Fares. 



■♦ Its magnificent ruins, known by the name of Menf and Metrabenny, 

 are to be seen about ten miles above the pyramids of Gizeh. 



5 This lay beyond Lake Moeris, or Birket-el-Keroun, at a short distance 

 from the city of Arsinoe. It had 3000 apartments, 1500 of which were 

 imderground. The accounts given by modern travellers of its supposed 

 ruins do not agree with what we have learned from the ancients respect- 

 ing its arcliitecture and site. The purposes for which it was built are 

 unknown. Its supposed site is called Havara. 



^ If this is not an abbreviation or corruption for Crocodilon, as Har- 

 douin suggests, it may probably mean the " town of Rams," from the 

 worship perhaps of that animal there. 



^ HeUopoHs or Rameses. In Scripture it is called by the names 

 of On and No — Gren. xli. 45 and Ezek. xxx. 15. It stood on the 

 eastern side of the Pelusiac arm of the Nile, near the right bank of 

 the Great Canal which connected the river with the Red Sea, and close 

 adjoining to the present overland route for travellers to India. It was 

 . one of the most ancient of the Egyptian cities j here the father-in-law of 



