LAKE CAIliUN THE LABYRINTH. 155 
the greatest breadth about six miles.* The shore 
towards Feium is flat and sandy, and various 
islands are comprehended within the circumfe- 
rence of the lake. Towards Libya, at a small dis^ 
tance from the western extremity of the lake, are 
the ruins of the town and palace of Caroun, from 
which the lake derives its Arabian name. These 
are supposed to mark the site of the Labyrinth, 
that extraordinary and magnificent edifice which 
Pliny regarded as the most amazing monument 
of human genius ; which was the prototype of 
similar structures in Crete, in Lemnos, and in 
Italy, and for the erection of which it is almost 
impossible to assign any satisfactory reason. Ac- 
cording to Herodotus, the subterraneous apart- 
ments of the Labyrinth contained the bodies of 
the ancient Egyptian kings, and of the sacred 
crocodiles ; but Pliny mentions it as an opinion 
generally received, that the edifice was erected ia 
honour of the sun. The canal which descends: 
from the Thebaid to the lake Cairun, is still deno- 
minated the canal of Joseph, Between this arti- 
ficial derivation and the bed of the Nile, a long 
narrow lake, termed Bathen by the Arabs, is in- 
tercepted. Above Feium, the mountains which 
accompany the Nile from the cataracts approach 
jieai'er its banks, and the dimensions of the fertile 
Browne's Travels; p. 169. 
