Coptic 10,* "the water." The Fayûm district has an area of about 850 square miles, and is watered by a branch of the Nile called the Baḥr-Yûsuf, which flows into it through the Libyan mountains. On the west of it lies the Birket elĶurûn. This now fertile land is thought to have been reclaimed from the desert by Amenemḥāt III., a king of the XIIth dynasty. The Birket el-Kurûn was formerly thought to have been a part of Lake Moeris,† but more modern travellers place both it and the Labyrinth to the east of the Fayûm district. The Bahr-Yûsuf is said by some to have been excavated under the direction of the patriarch Joseph, but there is no satisfactory evidence for this theory; strictly speaking it is an arm of the Nile, which has always needed cleaning out from time to time, and the Yûsuf, or Joseph, after whom it is named, was probably one of the Muhammedan rulers of Egypt. Herodotus says‡ of Lake Moeris, "The water in this lake does not spring from the soil, for these parts are excessively dry, but it is conveyed through a channel from the Nile, and for six months it flows into the lake, and six months out again into the Nile. And during the six months that it flows out it yields a talent of silver (£240) every day to the king's treasury from the fish; but when the water is flowing into it, twenty minæ (£80).” The Labyrinth§ stood on the bank of Lake Moeris, and a number of its ruined chambers are still visible.

‡ Bk. II., 149.

"Yet the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids. For it has twelve courts enclosed with walls, with doors opposite each other, six facing the north, and six the south, contiguous to one another; and the same exterior wall encloses them. It contains two kinds of rooms, some under ground and some above ground over them, to the number of three thousand, fifteen hundred of each. The rooms above ground I myself went through, and saw, and relate from personal inspection.

Beni Suêf, 73 miles from Cairo, is the capital of the province bearing the same name, and is governed by a Mudîr. In ancient days it was famous for its textile fabrics, and supplied Aḥmîm and other weaving cities of Upper Egypt with flax. A main road led from this town to the Fayûm.

UPPER EGYPT.

Maghaghah, 106 miles from Cairo, is now celebrated for its large sugar manufactory, which is lighted by gas, and is well worth a visit; the manufacturing of sugar begins here early in January.

About twenty-four miles farther south, lying inland, on the western side of the Nile, between the river and the Baḥr Yûsuf, is the site of the town of Oxyrhyncus, so called by the Greeks on account of the fish which they believed was worshipped there. The Egyptian name of the town , Pa-māt'et, from which came the Coptic

was

Рemge, пЄЛxe, and the corrupt Arabic form Behnesa. A little above Abu Girgeh, on the west bank of the Nile, But the underground rooms I only know from report; for the Egyptians who have charge of the building would on no account show me them, saying, that they were the sepulchres of the kings who originally built this labyrinth, and of the sacred crocodiles. I can therefore only relate what I have learnt by hearsay concerning the lower rooms; but the upper ones, which surpass all human works, I myself saw; for the passage through the corridors, and the windings through the courts, from their great variety, presented a thousand occasions of wonder as I passed from a court to the rooms, and from the rooms to the hall, and to the other corridors from the halls, and to other courts from the rooms. The roofs of all these are of stone, as also are the walls; but the walls are full of sculptured figures. Each court is surrounded with a colonnade of white stone, closely fitted. And adjoining the extremity of the labyrinth is a pyramid, forty orgyæ (about 240 feet) in height, on which large figures are carved, and a way to it has been made under ground." Herodotus, Bk. II., 148 (Cary's translation).

is the town of El-Kais, which marks the site of the ancient Cynopolis or "Dog-city;" it was the seat of a Coptic bishop, and is called Kais, R&IC, in Coptic.

Thirteen miles from Abu Girgeh, also on the west bank of the Nile, is the town of Ķlûṣanah, 134 miles from Cairo, and a few miles south, lying inland, is Samallût.

Farther south, on the east bank of the Nile, is Gebel etTêr, or the "Bird mountain," so called because tradition says that all the birds of Egypt assemble here once a year, and that they leave behind them when departing one solitary bird, that remains there until they return the following year to relieve him of his watch, and to set another in his place. As there are mountains called Gebel et-Têr in all parts of Arabic-speaking countries, because of the number of birds. which frequent them, the story is only one which springs from the fertile Arabic imagination. Gebel et-Têr rises above the river to a height of six or seven hundred feet, and upon its summit stands a Coptic convent dedicated to Mary the Virgin, but called sometimes the "Convent of the Pulley," because the ascent to the convent is generally made by a rope and pulley. Leaving the river and entering a fissure in the rocks, the traveller finds himself at the bottom of a natural shaft about 120 feet long. When Robert Curzon visited this convent, he had to climb up much in the same way as boys used to climb up inside chimneys. The convent stands about 400 feet from the top of the shaft, and is built of small square stones of Roman workmanship; the necessary repairs have, however, been made with mud or sundried brick. The outer walls of the enclosure form a square which measures about 200 feet each way; they are 20 feet high, and are perfectly unadorned. Tradition says that it was founded by the Empress Helena,* and there is in this case no reason to doubt it. The church "is partly subterranean, being built in the recesses of an ancient stone

* Died about A.D. 328, aged 80. (Sozomen, Eccles. Hist., II., 2.)

quarry; the other parts of it are of stone plastered over. The roof is flat and is formed of horizontal beams of palm trees, upon which a terrace of reeds and earth is laid. The height of the interior is about 25 feet. On entering the door we had to descend a flight of narrow steps, which led into a side aisle about ten feet wide, which is divided from the nave by octagon columns of great thickness supporting the walls of a sort of clerestory. The columns were surmounted by heavy square plinths almost in the Egyptian style. I consider this church to be interesting from its being half a catacomb, or cave, and one of the earliest Christian buildings which has preserved its originality . . . . . it will be seen that it is constructed on the principle of a Latin basilica, as the buildings of the Empress Helena usually were." (Curzon, Monasteries of the Levant, p. 109.) In Curzon's time the convent possessed fifteen Coptic books with Arabic translations, and eight Arabic MSS. As the monks were, and are, dreadfully poor, they used to descend the rock and swim out to any passing boat to beg for charity; the Patriarch has forbidden this practice, but it is not entirely discontinued. Two or three miles from the convent are some ancient quarries having rock bas-reliefs representing Rameses III. making an offering to the crocodile god Sebek before Amen-Ra.

MINYEH.

Minyeh, 156 miles from Cairo, on the west bank of the Nile, is the capital of the province of the same name; its Arabic name is derived from the Coptic Mone, more, which in turn represents the Egyptian

Ment in its old

name Chufu-menāt. There is a large sugar factory here in which about 2,000 men are employed. A few miles south, on the eastern side of the river, are some tombs, which appear to have been hewn during the IIIrd or IVth dynasty.

BENI HASAN.

Beni Hasan, 171 miles from Cairo, on the east bank of the Nile, is remarkable for the valuable historical tombs which are situated at a short distance from the site of the villages grouped under that name. The villages of the "Children of Hasân" were destroyed by order of Muhammad 'Ali on account of the thievish propensities of their inhabitants. The Speos Artemidos is the first rock excavation visited here. The king who first caused this cavern to be hewn out was Thothmes III.; about 250 years later Seti I. made additions to it, but it seems never to have been finished. The cavern was dedicated to the lion-goddess Sechet, who was called Artemis by the Greeks; hence the name cavern of Artemis." The portico had originally two rows of columns, four in each; the cavern is about 21 feet square, and the niche in the wall at the end was probably intended to hold a statue of Sechet.

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There are about fifteen rock-tombs at Beni Hasân, but only two of them, those of Ameni and Chnemu-ḥetep, are of interest generally speaking. They were all hewn during the XIIth dynasty, but have preserved the chief characteristics of the maṣṭabas of Sakkârah, that is to say, they consist of a chamber and a shaft leading down to a corridor, which ends in the chamber containing the sarcophagus and the mummy. As in the tombs at Aswân, a suitable layer of stone was sought for in the hill, and when found the tombs were hewn out. The walls were partly smoothed, and then covered with a thin layer of plaster upon which the scenes in the lives of the people buried there might be painted. The columns and the lower parts of some of the tombs are coloured red to resemble granite. The northern tomb is remarkable for columns somewhat resembling those subsequently termed Doric. Each of the four columns in the tomb is about 17 feet high, and has sixteen sides; the