the result. For the pastor had continued during the space of two years to act according to these orders, when one day opening the door, and entering, both the children fell upon him, crying becos,' and stretching out their hands. The first time that the shepherd heard this, he accordingly kept quiet; but the same word occurred repeatedly, every time he came to attend to them: he therefore let his master know, and was ordered to bring the children into his presence. Psammitichus heard himself the word; and inquired what people it was that called, in their language, any thing 'becos:' he was informed that the Phoenicians give that name to bread.' In consequence, the Egyptians, having deliberately weighed the matter, gave place to the Phoenicians, and granted they were more ancient than themselves. 3 It was by the priests of Vulcan, at Memphis, that I was informed things occurred as I have thus described. The Hellenes, however, add many other nonsensical things; for instance, that Psammitichus cut out the tongues of some women, and, by their assistance, succeeded in bringing up the children:-so far for the account of the education of these children. In my conversations with the priests of Vulcan, I heard many other traditions at Memphis; and even proceeded to Thebes and Heliopolis, on their account, being desirous to know whether the traditions there would coincide with those at Memphis; for the Heliopolitans are represented as the most skilful antiquaries among the Egyptians. Of those traditions that relate to divine things, and which I may have heard, it is not my intention to mention any thing more than the mere names; for I think all men equally wise upon these matters. If I should casually mention such things, it will be only when necessitated, by the course of the narrative. 4 So far, then, as concerns human matters, they agree among themselves in the statements I am going to present. That the Egyptians were the first people in the world to discover the year, and distribute over it the twelve parts of the four seasons; a discovery, they said, deduced from the stars: (so far, in my opinion, they act more wisely than the Hellenes; for the Hellenes intercalate every other year one month, on account of the seasons': the Egyptians, on the 3 Matt. 374, first parag. 4 This experiment was renewed in the fifteenth century, by James IV. king of Scotland, who shut up two children in the isle of Inchkeith, with a dumb attendant to wait upon them. Comp. Herod. I. note.-If their year had been exactly three hundred and sixty-five days; far from the seasous always coming at the same time, the winter months would at the end of some centuries come in the spring, and so on with the others. Diodorus Siculus asserts, that the inhabitants other hand, reckon twelve months of thirty days, and add to every year five days above that number, so that the circle of the seasons comes round to the same point.) They assert, likewise, that the Egyptians were the first to adopt and bring into use the names of the twelve gods; a practice which the Hellenes borrowed from them: they were likewise the first to erect altars, as well as images and temples, and to invent the carving of figures on stone: of the authenticity of these statements, they, in most cases, brought proofs from facts. The priests stated, also, that Meues was the first of mortals' that ever ruled over Egypt: to this they added, that in the days of that king, all Egypt, with the exception of the Thebaïc nome, was but a morass; and that none of the lands now seen below Lake Maris then existed: from the sea up to this place is a voyage, by the river, of seven days. 1 myself am perfectly convinced the account of the priests 5 in this particular is correct: for the thing is evident to every one who sees and has common sense, although he may not have heard the fact, that the Egypt to which the Hellenes navigate is a land annexed to the Egyptians, and a gift from the river; and that even in the parts above the lake just mentioned, for three days' sail, concerning which the priests relate nothing, the country is just of the same description. The nature of the Egyptian soil is, therefore, such as I will now relate. In the first place, as you make for that country, and when you are yet one day's sail from land, if you cast the sounding-lead, you will bring up mud, and find yourself in eleven fathoms' water: a proof this, that so far the alluvion extends. The breadth of this part of Egypt, washed by the 6 of Thebes, in Egypt, intercalated, at the end of each year, five days and a quarter. Larcher supposes there were in Egypt two sorts of years; the civil one, of three hundred and sixtyfive days; and the astronomical one, known only to the priests, by which they regulated their festivals, and conciliated to themselves the respect of the people. This last year was not known to Herodotus; and indeed it was with great difficulty that Plato and Eudoxus, who lived thirteen years with the Egyptian priests, could draw from them this discovery, of which they made a great mystery. The mode in which the additional months were intercalated in the cycle of nineteen years, represented by asterisks, is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, *9, etc. which accounts for the intervals being The Greeks did not borrow the very names from the Egyptians; but took from them the practice of giving each of their many gods some particular name. The Pelasgians, who had borrowed this usage from the Egyptians, and transmitted it to the Greeks, worshipped many gods in earliest times, but knew of no nominal distinction between them. Herod. II. 52. 7 In contradistinction of the gods his predecessors: II. 99. 8 All, who visit Egypt, confess that they feel convinced of this fact. sea, is sixty schoeni; for I reckon the coast from the gulf of Plinthinetes to Lake Serbonis, near which Mount Casius rises, to belong to Egypt. From that place, therefore, the sixty schoeni are taken:-for the people, whose land is scanty, measure it by the fathom: those less confined in that respect measure by stades; such as have an extensive territory, by parasang lastly, in the case of a very vast country, the measure is estimated in schoni. Now, the parasang is equivalent to thirty stades; each schoenus, the Egyptian measure, contains sixty stades: consequently, the coast of Egypt 7 is of three thousand six hundred stades. From the coast, up to Heliopolis in the interior Egypt, is wide, all on a gradual slope, without fresh water, and swampy. The way from the sea up the river to Heliopolis 10 is pretty nearly equal in length to the road from Athens; that is to say, from the altar of the twelve gods, and leading to Jove's temple at Pisa: not but a person actually measuring these two ways might detect some little difference equality between them"; not more than fifteen stades, however; for the road from Athens to Pisa wants but fifteen stades to be fifteen hundred: on the other hand, the distance 8 from the sea to Heliopolis is full that number. As you continue going up above Heliopolis, Egypt becomes narrow: on one side extends the range of the Arabian mountain, running from the north to the south, and continuously stretching up to the Erythræan sea, as it is called. In this 9 The modern maps exhibit the coast of Egypt pretty nearly equal to the number of common stades mentioned by Herodotus; measuring from headland to headland, as was customary with the mariners from whom our Historian obtained his information. See the Eton Atlas. 10 In ascending the river, the mariners, no doubt, took into account the windings and reaches of the river; as the number of days' navigation was the only information which their experience enabled them to supply. There are many reasons to doubt whether Herodotus uses in this Book the Pythic stade, instead of the common or Olympic stade, which is of about ten to a British mile: such, however, is the general opinion of the commentators in general: of this, the following quotation from the work of Major Rennel exhibits a palpable proof: "In the report of Herodotus respecting the extent of Egypt, he has or in made use of a stade which is totally different from that which he uses when he refers to Greece or Persia. This appears in a remarkable instance, where he assigns an equal number of stades, within 15, to the space between Athens and Pisa, as between Heliopolis and the sea-coast of Egypt; although the former be about 105, the latter 86 G. miles only; the one giving a proportion of 775, the other of 1012 to a degree. So that he appears to have used stades of different scales, without a consciousness of it." Rennel, p. 427. Upon this opinion of the illustrious geographer, I may be permitted to remark, that the difference (19 miles) between the two distances mentioned by Herodotus may perhaps have proceeded from the Historian not taking, like Major Rennel, the measures in a linear direction; but computed them from days' journeys, and days' navigation along the coast. chain are seen the quarries where the stones were cut for the pyramids at Memphis 2; and where the mountain, ceasing its former course, bends away east to the sea above mentioned". Here also, in its extreme length, the road from east to west, I am told, takes up two months: the eastern part of this mountain constitutes the boundary of the incense country: such, therefore, is the Arabian range. Between Libya and Egypt extends another mountain-chain, composed of rock, on which the pyramids stand, and covered with sand: it follows a direction parallel to that part of the Arabian chain which runs to the south. From Heliopolis, therefore, the territory belonging to Egypt is not considerable, as the country remains very narrow during four days' navigation up the stream: the land however, between the two above-mentioned mountains, is level; and in the narrowest part, the distance from the Arabian chain to the ridge, called the Libyan, did not appear, at most, but two hundred stades: above this spot, Egypt again expands. Such, accordingly, is an outline of this country. From Heliopolis to 9 Thebes, is a voyage of nine days; the length of which, in stades, is four thousand eight hundred and sixty, or eightyone schoni. If we collect these measures in stades, the breadth along the shore is, as I have already explained, four thousand six hundred: next, the distance from the sea, inland, as far as Thebes, is, namely, six thousand one hundred and twenty stades"; and from Thebes to the city of Elephantine, one thousand eight hundred. Most part of the country, thus described, appeared to me, 10 in accordance with the statement of the priests, to be an adjunction to Egypt. For the space between the abovementioned mountains, situate beyond the town of Memphis, was evidently to me, at some time or other, a gulf of the sea; after the same manner, in fact, as the country about Troy and Teuthrania, and Ephesus and the plain of the the north to the south), bends to the above-mentioned quarter (that is to say, the Erythræan sea); and gradu" ally rises (along that sea, towards the summer east, and continues its progress to the incense-bearing countries). 14 The Historian is at variance with himself: he now puts 6120 stades for the distance from the sea-side to Thebes; while he has before stated the distance from the sea to Heliopolis at 1500 stades, and that from Heliopolis to Thebes at 4860. Mæander; to compare little things with great 15: for not one of the rivers, whose deposits have formed those countries, can be put into comparison, as to size, with even one mouth of the Nile, divided into five as the stream of that river is. But there are other rivers, not equal in size to the Nile, which have wrought great works: I might mention their names; and among others, not the least, those of the Achelous, which, flowing through Acarnania, falls into the sea, and has already converted one half of the Echinades islands 11 into continent. There belongs also to the territory of Arabia, not far from Egypt, a gulf of the sea that stretches inland from the Erythræan sea, the length and breadth of which I will here describe: the length of the voyage, beginning 16 from the innermost recess, and proceeding to the open sea, takes up forty days with oars; and in the broadest part of this gulf presents a passage of half a day. In this arm of the sea, an ebb and flow of the waters takes place daily. Now, in my mind, Egypt was, at one time, another similar bosom of the sea; this latter penetrating from the northern" sea, towards Ethiopia; and the former flowing from the southern ocean, towards Syria; working, by their respective bays, almost into one another, and leaving but very little land between them. Now, then, were the Nile to turn his stream into the aforesaid Arabian gulf, and continue such deposits, what could hinder him from filling it up, within, say even twenty thousand years? I am myself certain that it would take less than ten thousand. How, then, I ask, in the time that elapsed before I came into the world, might not a gulf, at all events much larger than this of Egypt, have been absorbed by the deposits of so great a river, and one so capable of working changes? 12 Therefore, I do not discredit what the priests relate concerning Egypt; but am completely of their way of thinking, when I see Egypt project beyond the neighbouring coasts into the sea, shells appearing on the mountains, and a salt efflorescence, that even eats into the pyramids; and that mountain also above Memphis, the only one that is covered with sand in Egypt's: add to which, that Egypt, in its soil, resem 15 Matt. 543. 16 Matt. 390, b. 17 That is to say, the Mediterranean sea: the southern sea is the Erythræan. also are found upon mountains much higher than those of Egypt, in Europe, Asia, and America. This only proves, that all those regions have in part been covered by the waters of the 18 It is very certain, that shells are sea, some at one time and some at found upon the mountains of Egypt; another. I say, in part; because it is but this by no means proves the exist certain, from the observation of the ence of the Egyptian gulf. Shells most skilful naturalists, that the |