BURIED CITIES. 441 



The ancient cities of Egypt are, for the most part, buried literally as well as 

 figuratively, as the annual overflow of the Nile brings down from one to eight 

 inches of sediment, and this is deposited over the entire valley. When the cities 

 were inhabited, the floods were kept from them by means of dikes, but after war 

 and pestilence had depopulated the entire country, the river every year swept 

 over palace and temple and tomb, and now the cities of the Pharaohs must often 

 be looked for under twenty feet of soil. The present city of Alexandria, for 

 instance, is builded on the ruins of the city of the same name, founded by Alex- 

 ander. This was, in its day, second only to Rome, had over 4,000 palaces and 

 innumerable schools, colleges and art collections. It was the commercial center 

 of the world, standing midway between the east and the west. In ancient as in 

 modern times, it commanded the Suez Canal. This is no new enterprise of our 

 own times. It is recorded that a canal was cut between the Red Sea and the 

 Nile by Rameses II., B. C. 1344, though some historical records place the date 

 a century earlier in the time of Joseph. Herodotus tells of the enlargement of 

 this canal 8ofe years later; the Emperor Trajan, still later, again restored it, and 

 it was kept open till destroyed by the Arab caliphs. A few miles south of Alex- 

 andria is Cairo, and a little south of Cairo are to be found the ruins of Heliopo- 

 lis, a city known in Scripture as On. Here was once the great Temple of the 

 Sun, where the Phoenix was consumed; here Moses was educated and many 

 centuries later Plato and other distinguished Greeks. Of this vast city, but one 

 stone, an obelisk seventy feet high and six feet square at the base, remains stand- 

 ing. The rest is beneath the alluvium brought down by the Nile. Near the old 

 obeHsk is the " Fountain of the Sun," the only living spring in Egypt, which 

 furnished the temple with water 4,000 years ago. Not far from Helipolis are the 

 Pyramids, of which seventy are still standing in the Nile Valley. The base of 

 largest of these covers considerably more ground than four St. Louis squares, 

 and the pyramid is more than three times as high as the court house dome. The 

 latest theory in regard the great Pyramid is that it was built by order of Joseph 

 during the seven years' famine to find employment for the people ; that he was 

 buried in it, and that the huge empty sarcophagus found in its innermost cham- 

 ber once contained his body, which was removed by the Hebrews when they left 

 the country. 



A little south of the pyramids is Memphis, the Noph of Scripture, founded 

 by the first king who ever ruled over Egypt, and for a thousand years the capital. 

 Here Joseph ruled and Pharaoh dwelt, and here all the magnificence of the old 

 monarchy was displayed. The embankments which once protected the city 

 against the river have long since been swept away, and the alluvial deposits of 

 twenty centuries have covered from sight almost every relic of past grandeur. 

 When the English army takes its course up the Nile next month the soldiers will 

 see a few blocks of granite, one or two mounds of sun-dried brick and the frag- 

 ments of a colossal statue of Rameses II., lying with the face in a pool of water, 

 as if ashamed of the present condition of the country. This statue was almost 

 entitled to be considered one of the wonders of the world. It was over fifty feet 



