DESCRIPTIONS OF EGYPT. 153 
covered.* The ancient history of Memphis is not 
less obscure than its modern situation. Though 
inferior to Thebes in the fame of antiquity, its ori- 
gin ascends to a very remote period beyond the li- 
mits of authentic history. Whether it was founded 
by Menes, as Herodotus relates, or by Uchoreus, 
according to Diodorus, it seems to have been the 
most ancient city of Lower Egypt. The Nile, 
emerging a little above Memphis, from the nar- 
rowest part of the valley, seems originally to have 
poured its stream into the vast morass of salt water, 
which occupied the place of Lower Egypt. Be- 
fore its waters had formed to themselves a channel 
in this waste and unsteady plain, many ages pro- 
bably elapsed ; but soon after the ground began to 
assume a durable solidity, Memphis appears to have 
been founded. Situated at the head of the Delta, 
it was nearly surrounded by the Nile, which, divid- 
ing its stream above the city, passed to the east and 
to the, west of its walls. At this period, the most 
considerable branch of the Nile seems to have 
flowed on the west of Memphis, towards that ste- 
rile district which lies on the west of Alexandria, 
where it was partly lost in brackish lakes, and part- 
ly dissipated in the deserts of sand, without contri- 
buting much to the fertilization of the country. 
* Maiilet's Description of Egypt, p. 274. 
