the natural formation of the country did not restrain them, immense dikes were built, which must have been in some places thirty feet high, and which, to judge from the traces that exist on the north and west sides, must have been about thirty miles long, with an average breadth of one hundred and fifty feet-a work on a scale which would have appalled engineers not accustomed to build pyramids. Linant Bey calculates that this reservoir must have irrigated a superficies of 600,000 acres, as, besides feeding the Fayoum, he believes that its waters were carried down into the province of Gizeh, and so ultimately into the old Canopic branch of the Nile at Mariout. Nor can one wonder that an artificial lake of such great extent should have seemed a prodigy of engineering skill to the ancients. In addition to its great utility as a fertilizing agent, it was invested with a character of sanctity which gave it a wide celebrity. The sacred crocodile, which was carefully tended and petted in its waters, was an object of the deepest veneration to the inhabitants of the Arsinoite Nome, who treated it with the most marked respect, and kept it at considerable expense, while a most elaborate cuisine provided it with dainties.

Altogether the vestiges of these ruins conveyed as much the idea of a necropolis as of an assemblage of councilchambers, and it is not unlikely that its primitive design was simply to serve as a vast sepulchre like that of Sakkara. There can be little doubt that pyramids invariably form the centres of such burial-places-indeed Herodotus tells us he was informed by his guides that the lower chambers

were used for funeral purposes, and Amenemhat may have selected this spot on the shores of the lake he had created as his own resting-place and that of the chief men of his reign. From the records upon the inscriptions where his name has been found, it is almost beyond a doubt that he is buried here, although not within the Pyramid; and the mode of sepulture among the ancient Egyptians renders it in the opinion of some Egyptologists extremely likely that this vast congeries of apartments, which at a later period were converted into council-halls, were originally mortuary chambers, but upon a scale of such magnificence and vastness that the subsequent dynasties considered them available for other purposes. Indeed we have no record of the Labyrinth being used for great imperial assemblies until the period immediately preceding the Psamtikides of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, or about nineteen hundred years after the time of Amenemhat, its constructor. At the same time, it is not impossible that the Labyrinth was used for other purposes as well as those of sepulture, even from the earliest period; for the assemblage of twelve palaces or aula, as described by Herodotus, must have had some reference to the twelve nomes into which Egypt was divided before the number was increased by Rameses II. to thirty-six. And we may be safe in saying that if we carry our imaginations back 3,500 years, or even more, the spot on which we were now standing presented an aspect of scenic beauty, or architectural magnificence, and was invested with a character of political and religious importance, unrivalled in the world,

which it retained for nearly two thousand years. It was evidently selected, from its central position on the boundary-line that divided Upper from Lower Egypt, for the great regal, political and sacercotal rites which were celebrated here. Standing on the shores of a beautiful lake, the waters of which reflected the magnificent city of Crocodilopolis Arsinoë immediately opposite, and which was navigated by numberless craft, and surrounded by palm-groves and those gardens of fruits and flowers, for which the province was celebrated, the Labyrinth occupied a position of great scenic beauty and political significance. It was the council-hall of Egypt. Hither flocked the representatives of the different Nomes to the great assembly of the nation; here congregated the high priests to celebrate those great religious ceremonies which demanded the united homage of the people. Here probably kings were crowned, laws were made, great public works decided upon, questions of war or peace settled,-in a word, in this congeries of palaces, under the shadow of the Pyramid, on the banks of this vast artificial lake, that had been adorned and beautified by the taste and resources of successive centuries, all the highest interests of the nation were discussed in assemblies composed of the great powers of the State—the king, the priesthood and the army. It is difficult to associate in one's mind the crude brick rooms which are still standing, or even the discoveries of Lepsius, now covered with sand, with all this splendour and magnificence, of which more important vestiges must still remain to reward the labours of the explorer.

LABYRINTH AT LAKE MORIS

HERODOTUS

HEY [the Egyptians] built a labyrinth a little above the Lake of Moris, situated near that called the City of Crocodiles; this I have myself seen and found it greater than can be described. For if any one should reckon up the buildings and public works of the Grecians, they would be found to have cost less labour and expense than this labyrinth; though the temple in Ephesus is deserving of mention, and also that in Samos. The pyramids likewise were beyond description, and each of them comparable to many of the great Grecian structures. 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 underground 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. 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 there were the sepulchres of the kings who originally built this labyrinth, and of the

sacred crocodiles. I can therefore only relate what I have learned by hearsay concerning the lower rooms; but the upper ones, which surpass all human works, I myself saw; for the passages 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 halls, and to 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 in height, on which large figures are carved, and a way to it has been made underground.

Although the labyrinth is such as I have described, yet the lake named from Maris, near which this labyrinth is built, occasions greater wonder: its circumference measures three thousand, six hundred stades, or sixty schoenes, equal to the seacoast of Egypt. The lake stretches lengthways, north and south, being in depth in the deepest part fifty orgyæ. That it is made by hand and dry, this circumstance proves, for about the middle of the lake stand two pyramids, each rising fifty orgyæ above the surface of the water, and the part built under water extends to an equal depth on each of these is placed a stone statue, seated on a throne. Thus these pyramids are one hundred orgyæ in height; and a hundred orgyæ are equal to a stade of six