RUINS OF SAIS. 297 
Having by this time gained the coniidence chap. 
and good-will of the Arabs, we might have ex- ' 
tended our researches by making an excavation 
within the antient inclosure, if our time had not 
been limited. They told us, that it was their 
frequent practice, when they dug up stones 
with hieroglyphic figures, to bury them again. 
And were this not true, it is very improbable 
that all the colossal works which once adorned 
the city of Sais have been removed or de- 
stroyed. From the account given of them by 
Herodotus, we may conclude that subsequent 
generations were unable to carry oiF such stu- 
pendous masses of stone, for nothing less than 
gunpowder would have been equal to their 
demolition. Amasis constructed at Sais a pro- 
pyl(vum in honour of Minerva, which in magni- 
opinion by the observation of many peculiarities in which they still 
resemble ; tliese resemblances becoming more and more distant, in 
proportion tn (he remoteness of' the period of such writings from the 
original institution 0/ their hierogti/phical archett/pe. In some rolls of 
Papyrus, almost every letter bears a faint resemblance to some visible 
object, as an eye, bird, serftent, knife, &c.; whereas in others it is 
very difficult to trace it : and at tiie date of the Inscription on the 
Rosetta Stone, the copy seems so much to have degenerated from the 
original, as to leave no means whatever of forming a comparison 
between the two : and we know that thrrc are instances of both cha- 
racters being applied to the same use ; some few rolls of Papyrus 
having already been published, written in what is called the Sacred 
Character." Sec Hamilto-ys ^ygt/ptiaca, p.iOJ. Lond.]B09. 
