6 4 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 moil magnifi*. 

 cent city in Egypt. 



It was called the Capitalf of Egypt, and j there was entire 

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

 worshipped there. There was likewife an apartment for 

 the mother of that ox ftill Handing, ; a temple of Vulcan of 

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

 bulls ; and a great coloiTus 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 them 

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

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

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

 iladia 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; 

 the wonders, of the world. 



This 



* Strabo. lib. vii. . 914. fid. ibid. | Id., ibid, § Strabo, ibid.. || Id, ibid. 



