less imposing, and not less beautiful, than other celebrated remains of an earlier and 
more glorious period of Egyptian history. 
The portico is supported by twenty-four columns, and is open at the front above 
the screens or walls of intercolumniation. Much of it is still buried, perhaps not more 
than half the height of the columns is seen. The soil has not been cleared to half 
the depth of the lintels between the central columns, and the accumulations of sand 
on either side show what has been done by the French to display this, one of the 
most beautiful temples in Egypt. 
SIOUT. 
Formerly Lycopolis— a name derived from the worshi of the jackal, one of the 
mythological menagerie of the ancient Egyptians. There is a tradition, however, which 
gives great interest to this place in Christian history, as the resting-place of Joseph 
and Mary when they fled into Egypt, with the infant Saviour, from the persecution 
of Herod. 
Siout is situated on the western side of the Nile, about a mile and a half from the 
river, and about midway between it and the Libyan hills, in which are numerous 
caves and tombs of the ancient inhabitants. The town itself, surrounded by luxuriant 
fields and gardens, lies above the level of high Nile. During the inundation the 
country around is flooded, and the approach to the town is by a dyke, or embankment, 
connected with a bridge of many arches: the approach by the picturesque ruins of 
a mosque is striking. The present town, one of the largest above Cairo, is compara¬ 
tively modern, and contains above 20,000 inhabitants; the streets are wider and the 
houses better built than in most of the towns of Egypt: it has numerous minarets 
and a palace of the Pacha. 
Siout contains about one thousand Christians, and is the see of a Coptic bishop. It 
is a place of some commercial importance as a point of communication on the Nile 
with the caravan of Sennaar, the emporium of slaves and the merchandise of Abyssinia. 
The caves of ancient Lycopolis furnish a great supply of mummies; and fragments 
of bodies and pieces of cere-cloth attest the unfeeling rapacity for violating the tombs, 
which the ready market offered by mummy-hunters has engendered. 
Roberts’s Journal. 
