336 On Egypt and the Ni l e 



The firft inhabitants of Egypt found, on their arrival, that the whole conn- 

 try about the mouths of the Nile was an immenfe foreft j part impervious, 

 which they called Atavt 3 part uninhabited, but pra&icable^ which had the 

 name of Aranya* 



TapoVana feems to have been always adapted to religious aufterities * 

 and the firft Chrijiian anchorets ufed to feclude themfelves in the wilds of 

 Thebes for the purpofe of contemplation and abftra&ed piety : thus we read, 

 that the Abbot Pachomius retired, with his difciples, to the wildernefs of 

 Tabenna, and there built a Monaftery, the remains of which are ftill vifibley 

 a day's journey below Dendera, near an ifland now called Tabenna s and, ac- 

 cording toSiCARD,a little below the fite of Thebes. The country around 

 Dendera is at this day covered with foreils of Daum ; a tree, which fome 

 defcribe as a dwarf palm, and others as a Rhatnnus : thence Dendera was 

 called byJuvENAL ihtpady Tentyra* 



There can be no doubt, that TapSvana was Upper Egypt* or the Thebais; 

 for feveral places, the fituation of which will be clearly afcertained in the 

 courfe of this efTay, are placed by the authors of the Purdns in the forefts of 

 Tapas : the words Thebaius and Thebinites are both faid to be derivatives of 

 Thebaic but the fecond of them feems rather derived from Tapdvan or Tabenna. 

 So fond are nations of accommodating foreign words to their own language, 

 that the Arabs, who have changed Tapofiris into Abu fair, or Father of Tra- 

 vel, have, in the fame fpirit, converted Tabenna into Medinatabind, or the 

 Town of our Father ; though fome of them call it Medinat Tabu from Tapb, 

 which an Arab could not pronounce » The principal place in this diviiion 

 was Cardama-J? hah which is mentioned in the Purdns as a temple of confi- 

 derable note; the legend is, that Gupte'swara and his confort jhad long 



