possible, that persons susceptible of any feeling of sublimity could behold them unmoved. With what amazement did we survey the vast surface that was presented to us, when we arrived at this stupendous monument, which seemed to reach the clouds! Here and there appeared some Arab guides upon the immense masses above us, like so many pigmies, waiting to shew the way up to the summit.'-pp. 123,

124.

Within the pyramid Dr. Clarke and his companions explored some long and narrow avenues, of little interest in themselves, but which are remarkable as having escaped the notice of all former tourists. They found reason to believe that the celebrated well was much deeper than the twenty feet at which Greaves's plummet rested, and Dr. Clarke expresses his wonder that the Freuch never let a person down by a rope. We know not whether this experiment was ever made; but it is certain that Maillet, Descript. de l'Egypte, p. 249, whose account has been closely followed by Jauna Savary, and of which the engineer Grobert professes to have confirmed the accuracy, speaks of this singular pit in terms which could only be justified by a personal and careful investigation. It consists, if we understand him rightly, of two successive shafts, the one about 60 the other about 123 French feet in depth, connected by a low and narrow gallery, so that the whole resembles in form the Hebrew letter. The upper shaft is not perpendicular but considerably inclined to the horizon, which will naturally account for the result which Greaves experienced, while the depth of the second, which only is properly the well, very exactly answers to the statement of Pliny. Maillet describes the bottom as dry. Dr. Clarke heard the dash of water. We do not know the time of year at which the former made his trial, but if its emptiness or fullness coincides with the inundation of the Nile, the fact of the secret communication with the river, which Pliny also ascribes to it, would be satisfactorily established, and we may be even led to suspect that it was originally intended to serve as a Mikeas.

The Pyramids of Sakara are well known to be only inferior in interest to those of Gizeh; and in an excursion which our travellers made to them soon after their return to Cairo, Dr. Clarke conceived himself able to trace in the various forms of the sepulchral monuments which abound in that vicinity, the gradual progress of improvement, from the primeval mound common to all ancient nations, to the perfect form of the Pyramid. During this excursion they witnessed at the village of Sheik Atmann some Arab dances, which, though the females who performed in them were of the same profession with the Almehs of Cairo, appear, from the superior beauty of the dancers, to have been far more interesting.

In this neighbourhood were some dwarf varieties of the palm tree, of which the fruit hung so low as to be within reach of the hand; and, near Etterfile, a large quantity of the indigo plant was growing which, by the Arabs, (from whom the Portugueze and Spanish planters bore the name to the West Indies,) is called Nile or Anilè. They saw two Arabs crossing the Nile, where it was at least half a mile wide, by means of empty gourds, which they used instead of bladders. Their clothes were fastened on their heads. In his observations on the mummy-pits Dr. Clarke is led to animadvert on the falsehood of the common opinion, that the mummies were placed upright in these cemeteries, and supposes that the words of Herodotus, which have been generally quoted to this effect, relate only to those particular mummies which were kept in the houses of their descendants. The truth is, that there appears to have been a difference in the mode of burial; and we can see no reason to doubt the statement of Maillet, that many of the bodies were in a recumbent posture, while others, probably the masters of families, were set up in niches, after the manner described by Herodotus. We know, indeed, that though the Arabs are (as Colonel Squire and Mr. Hamilton found) very jealous of shewing a mummy in its original tomb,-other travellers have found means to conquer this jealousy; and Mr. Legh describes a mummy pit, well stocked with these remains,' some of which were lying on the ground, but many still standing in the niches where they had been originally placed.'-Journey in Egypt, &c. p. 106.

An elaborate description follows of a hieroglyphical tablet obtained by Mr. Hammer, and destined by him for the oriental cabinet at Vienna. On this we shall only observe that Dr. Clarke is mistaken in supposing that a bald head was a distinctive mark of the sacerdotal order in ancient Egypt. Herodotus, indeed, iforms us that the priests observed the ceremony of shaving with much exactness; but he informs us also that this custom was common to all the inhabitants of the country, and it is to this exposure of their heads to the sun that he ascribes that superior hardness of scull which, for many generations after the celebrated battle of Pelusium, distinguished the remains of the Egyptian warriors from those of their Persian invaders.-Thalia, § 12.

The horses of our author's Arab guides were the finest he had seen in the whole course of his travels; and the Arab grooms were regarded by the English officers as superior to those even of their own country. These horses do not lie down at night, but sleep standing, with one foot fastened to the piquet. The same peculiarity is mentioned by the ingenious author of the Field Sports of India, as observable in some of the best Arab steeds which are

carried

carried to that country. They continue the whole night in ceaseless and uniform motion, rocking their bodies from side to side, and, apparently, as much refreshed by the sleep obtained in this posture as if they had been extended in a well-littered stall. But the horses who have this habit are generally remarkable for their capricious and ungovernable temper.

Few travellers, we believe, have ever returned from a visit to the Pyramids without some new hypothesis respecting their use or origin; and, though we do not ourselves think that Dr. Clarke has been in this attempt more successful than his predecessors, yet whatever he says is so well said,—and even impossibilities become in his hands so interesting, and even plausible, that we should do neither him nor our readers justice did we pass over without notice what he has advanced respecting these stupendous and singular structures. His hypothesis coincides so far with the accounts of the ancient Greeks, (on whom, nevertheless, he throws several imputations which we shall not stay to combat,) as to suppose that the Pyramids are tombs, and that the granite chest which is found in the largest was originally intended for a coffin. He rejects, however, entirely all that the Greeks have told us respecting the names of their founders, and the circumstances under which they were erected; and has recourse, as he tells us, to Arabic or Jewish tradition, to prove that some of these vast piles were raised by the Israelites during their abode in Egypt, and that the particular Pyramid which is now open was the tomb of the patriarch Joseph. Its being now open is, of course, accounted for by the fact that his bones were removed by his countrymen on their departure for Canaan: and the improbability that the Israelites alone could have raised so enormous a pile is met by the assertion (in which Dr. Clarke is countenanced by many learned men,) that the Egyptians also venerated Joseph as a god,-that he was their Apis or Serapis, and perhaps their Osiris also, that, consequently, the united strength of both nations would be joined in paying honour to his memory, while many circumstances in the Egyptian mythology, such as the loss of Osiris's body, the exhibition of his empty coffin, were derived from the departure of the Hebrews, and the abstraction of the Patriarch's relics.

It cannot be denied that a very plausible solution is thus offered of several perplexing particulars in the present state and ancient history of the principal pyramid; and we bear a willing testimony to the learning and ingenuity which our author has displayed in the defence and illustration of this novel theory. But the severity of criticism compels us to examine the foundation on which this fairy fabric reposes, and having done so, to conclude, with real concern,

that

that not one of all the suppositions on which Dr. Clarke relies, can bear a close investigation. He apprehends, in the first place, that it may be proved from history that, about the time when the principal Pyramids were erected, the posterity of Joseph inhabited that part of Egypt where alone Pyramids are found. Now the only two authorities whom he cites to fix the date of these structures are Herodotus and Manetho. The first of these, indeed, he professes not to believe: yet, if he did not believe him, it is not very clear why he adduced him as evidence. Be that as it may, Herodotus ascribes the three principal Pyramids to Cheops, and his two successors. But Cheops was fourth in descent from Sesostris; and we have met with no system of chronology which does not make Sesostris later than the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. If, indeed, we follow the authority of Marsham and Sir Isaac Newton, Sesostris was contemporary with Jeroboam, so that the erection of the three principal Pyramids is thrown at a vast distance indeed from the time to which Dr. Clarke refers it. Nor, if we give credit to those imperfect and extremely corrupt fragments of Manetho which have descended to our time, will the matter be at all improved, since he refers the great Pyramid to a certain King Suphis, who, on the most moderate computation, must have preceded Joseph by 500 years, a difference as fatal to Dr. Clarke's hypothesis as the other. Let the Israelites, then, have lived in whatever part of Egypt Dr. Clarke may think fit to place them, it is plain that neither Herodotus nor Manetho lead us to believe that they lived there at the time when this Pyramid was erected. But, further, we have no reason to suppose that the posterity of Joseph possessed a single acre, or pitched a single tent in that part of Egypt where only the Pyramids are found. Goshen, which was allotted for the residence of their nation, and where (Exod. viii. 22.) the great body of that nation dwelt, was not the Memphitic but the Heliopolitan nome, which is, as Dr. Clarke has proved, on the Arabian or opposite side of the river. No distinction of abode is any where implied between the descendants of Joseph and the remaining tribes, and, even if we did not know the situation of Goshen, we should look for Joseph's children and his own residence in that district, Heliopolis, with whose princes he was connected by marriage. The land' which the children of Israel are said to have filled with their numbers was, therefore, not Egypt in general, but Goshen only; and, even if the passage were well translated which tells us that Joseph was blessed even unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills,'-(Gen. xlix. 26.) it evidently relates, and has been always understood to relate, to the mountainous territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, in the Promised Land, and not to imply, what is quite inconsistent with the rest of Scripture, that they

occupied

occupied the whole valley of Egypt. So far from satisfactory is the answer of Dr. Clarke to the first query.

6

He, secondly, inquires, whether there is any thing in the Pyramids which corresponds with the known customs of the Israelites?' Here we thought ourselves completely at a stand.-All the known sepulchres of the Hebrews are catacombs, not pyramids; and never, even in the times of their greatest prosperity, did they raise such stupendous structures as these over their dead. But Joseph, according to the Scriptures, was laid in a coffin in Egypt to wait the time when his countrymen should carry his bones with them into Canaan; and that word which we render coffin, is by the LXX translated ΣOPOΣ, which Dr. Clarke defines to be a vast stone coffin such as the Romans and Greeks called 'sarcophagus.'--But such a ΣOPOΣ is found in the principal pyramid; which, therefore, contains something that corresponds with the peculiar circumstances of Joseph's own interment, which may be taken as a sample of the mode of interment practised by his countrymen. Therefore, as the copos is conformable to the custom of the Israelites, the pyramid which contains it must be so too,-and consequently it becomes probable, that both were constructed by that nation!—It unfortu nately happens, first,-that we have no reason to take Joseph's funeral as a sample of the usual customs of his race. His case was a remarkable one, and the ceremonies observed in consequence might be adapted both to his situation as Vizier of Egypt, and the necessity of preserving his body for the convenience of transportation at a future time. Secondly, if we allowed that the stone soros was consistent with the known customs of the Israelites-yet as Copo and pyramids do not always go together, it would be a very σοροι wild proceeding to infer the last from the former; or to maintain that no other soros could have contained the patriarch's body than that which is found in the pyramid. But, further, Dr. Clarke is mistaken in supposing that Joseph's coffin must necessarily have been of stone. The word Zopos is notoriously used for coffins of any material whatever; and, in particular, for that shell, or bier, in which the later Jews, and, to this day, all the nations of the East are carried to interment.-(See Luke vii. 11.) And that Joseph's coffin was not of stone, we gather, first, from the improbability that such a receptacle would be provided for a corpse which was eventually to be transported elsewhere. Secondly, from the known custom of the Egyptians, to keep the dead bodies of their relations a considerable time in their houses, preserved not in stone but in chests of sycomore. Thirdly, because the Hebrew word which the LXX render copos, is, wherever it occurs in Scripture, exclusively applied to wooden chests or vessels, and is derived from an ash tree.' It is plain then, that we

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