this flows through an artificial aqueduct round an island within, in which they say the body of Cheops is laid.

Having laid the first course of variegated Ethiopian stones, less in height than the other by forty feet, he built it near the large Pyramid. They both stand on the same hill,* which is about a hundred feet high. Chephren, they said, reigned fifty-six years.

Thus one hundred and six years are reckoned, during which the Egyptians suffered all kinds of calamities,† and for this length of time the temples were closed and never opened. From the hatred they bear them, the Egyptians are not very willing to mention their names; but call the Pyramids after Philition, a shepherd, who at that time kept his cattle in those parts.

*The Mokattam Hill.

† The memorable famine recorded in the Holy Bible, and its dire consequences.

Corrupted from Psothom Phaneeh (the revealer of secrets), the name given to Joseph the son of Israel the Hebrew, by Pharaoh the King of Egypt. He was a shepherd by profession, as all his ancestors were. It was, therefore, Joseph who built all the Pyramids to store corn in, against the famine that he declared would take place in Egypt.-J. V. G.

APPENDIX IV.

On the Hebrew and Grecian Feast of First-Fruits. THESE extracts are given as showing the real nationality of the first colonists of ancient Greece; their mysterious intercourse with the Hyperboreans, who were the followers of Moses in the Far East; their observance of the law given by Moses to the Hebrews, and commemorative representation of the marvellous escape from Egypt into Arabia; and include a description of the Islands of Delos and Rhenea.

"Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously : the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the

sea.

name.

"The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is his Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them: they sank into the bottom as a stone.

"The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied

upon them; I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.

"Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them they sank as lead in the mighty waters."*

"Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread : (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out of Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty :)

"And the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field."+

The following narrative describes the manner in which the Greeks practised the above law, and represented the crossing of the Red Sea.

This charming season (spring) brought with it festivals still more charming : I mean those which are celebrated every four years in Delos, in honour of Diana and Apollo. The worship of these two divinities has subsisted in that island for a long succession of ages. But as it latterly began to decline, the Athenians instituted, during the Peloponnesian war, games which drew thither a great concourse of people from various nations.

"The youth of Athens were eager to distinguish themselves in these, and the whole city was in motion. Preparations were likewise made for the + Exodus xxiii. 15, 16. Abbé Barthelemi, Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece, ch. 76, pp. 309, &c.

* Exodus xv.

solemn deputation which is annually sent to the temple of Delos, to present a tribute of gratitude for the victory which Theseus gained over the Minotaur. The voyage is made in the same ship which carried that hero to Crete; and already the priest of Apollo had crowned its stern with his sacred hands. The sea was covered with small vessels which were getting under sail for Delos.

We

"On the next day we coasted Scyros, and, leaving Tenos on the left, entered into the channel which separates Delos from the island of Rhenea. immediately came in sight of the temple of Apollo, which we saluted with new transports of joy; and the city of Delos was almost entirely displayed to our view.

"With an eager eye we ran over the superb edifices, elegant porticoes, and forests of columns by which it is embellished; and this prospect, momentarily varying, suspended in us the desire to arrive at the land.

"When we had reached the shore, we ran to the temple, which is distant from it only about a hundred paces. It is more than a thousand years since Erisichthon, son of Cecrops,* laid the first foundation of this edifice, to which the different states of Greece continually add new embellishments. It was covered with festoons and garlands, which, by the contrast of their colours, gave a new lustre to the Parian marble of which it is built.

"Within we saw the statue of Apollo, less celebrated for the delicacy of the workmanship than its

*Cecrops left Egypt the same year that Moses fled from the Court of Pharaoh.-J. V. G.

antiquity. The god is represented holding his bow in one hand; and to signify that music owes to him its origin and charms, with his left he supports the three Graces, who are represented, the first with a lyre, the second with flutes, and the third with a pipe.

"Near the statue is that altar which is esteemed one of the wonders of the world. It is not gold or marble which is admired in it; horns of animals, forcibly bent, and artfully interwoven, form a whole equally solid and regular. Some priests, whose employment it is to adorn it with flowers and boughs, made us observe the ingenious contexture of its parts.

เ

"It was the god himself,' exclaimed a young priest, who in his childhood interwove them as you see. Those menacing horns, which you behold suspended on the wall, and those of which the altar is composed, are the spoils of the wild goats which fed on Mount Cynthus, and which fell beneath the shafts of Diana. Here the eye meets nothing but prodigies. This palm-tree, which displays its branches over our heads, is the sacred tree that supported Latona when she brought forth the divinities we adore.

"The form of this altar has become celebrated by a problem in geometry, of which an exact solution will perhaps never be given. The plague laid waste our island, and Greece was ravaged by war. The oracle, being consulted by our ancestors, declared that these calamities would cease if they could make this altar double the size it is of at present. They imagined it would be sufficient to make it twice as large every way; but they found, with surprise,