long, with many hieroglyphics fculptured on its back. In the fpace between them, the ground is covered with fragments of columns, and broken ftatues, denoting the arrangement of the veftibules. Beyond are two other coloffal ftatues, totally disfigured, and a hundred fathom ftill further, the traveller is ftruck with aftonishment at the fight of two gigantic figures, which feem like rocks, and are feated befide each other. Their pedestals are nearly equal, and formed from blocks of granite, thirty feet long, and eighteen wide. The finalleft of these ftatues is, alfo, one fole ftone; the other, the largest in Egypt, is formed of five different pieces of granite, and broken in the middle. This fhould feem to be the ftatue of Ofymandyas (g), for we find two figures, fculptured in baffo-relievo, the length of his legs, and rifing one third as high as himself.

(8) The only objection to this opinion is that, according to Diodorus Siculus, the statue of Olymandyas, with those of his mother and daughter, were all formed from one fole block; and this coloffus is compofed of feveral pieces but the first of these picces, reaching from the fole of the foot to the elbows, comprehends the two other figures, which, perhaps, is what the hiftorian means to fay. The remainder is conformable to his defcription.

Thefe

These were the mother and daughter of this prince. The other coloffus, of one fingle ftone, correfponding to the dimenfions Diodorus Siculus gives, alfo reprefented the mother of the king. You will form fome idea of the gigantic fize of the grand colossus, when you are told that its foot, alone, is near eleven feet long, which answers to the feven cubits of Diodorus. This ftatue, the half of which remains on its bafe, and which Strabo calls the ftatue of Memnon, uttered a found at fun-rifing. Its fame formerly was very great. Several writers have spoken of it with enthufiafm, regarding it as one of the feven wonders of the world. A crowd of Greek and Latin infcriptions, which are still legible on the bafe and legs of the coloffus, atteft that princes, gencrals, governors, and men of all conditions, have heard. this miraculous found. You know, Sir, what the judicious Strabo thought, and, I hope, you will be of his opinion. Such, Sir, are the remains of Thebes, and her hundred gates, the antiquity of which is loft in the obfcurity of ages, and which still contains proofs of the perfection of the arts in those most distant times. All here is fub

lime, all majestic. Its kings feem to have acquired the glory of never dying, while their obelisks and coloffal ftatues exist, and to have only laboured for immortality. They could preferve their memory against the cfforts of time, but not against the barbaritm of conquerors; thofe moft dreadful fcourges of fcience and nations, which, in their pride, they have too often erafed from the face of the earth.

I have the honour to be, &c.

LETTER

LETTER V.

THE ROUTE BETWEEN

ESNA.

THEBES AND

A defeription of Armant, formerly Hermunthis, where are two antique temples, built in honour of Jupiter and Apollo, the latter in good prefervation. Remarks on Okfor and its pottery; on the ancient temple near the town of Efna, in which the Turks houfe their cattle; and on another temple, west of that, where the Egyptians worshipped Neith, the Minerva of the Greeks: on the convent founded by St. Helena, and the cemetery of the martyrs; alfo on the fine baram, and its ufe in making kitchen utensils.

To M. L. M.

Grand Cairo.

WITH pain, Sir, one tears one's felf from Thebes and her hundred gates (b).

Her

monuments

(b) I delight in this epithet, by which Homer, at 'a ftroke, paints the grandeur of that city. It is fublime becaufe not exaggerated. A little attention to the por

monuments fix the traveller's eyes, and fill his mind with vaft ideas. Beholding colof

fal figures and ftately obelifks, which feem to surpass human powers, he fays, man has done this, and feels himfelf and his fpecies ennobled. True it is, when he looks down on the wretched huts, standing befide these magnificent labours, and when he perceives an ignorant people, inftead of a fcientific nation, he grieves for the generations. that are paft, and the arts that perished with them; yet this very grief has a kind of charm for the heart of fenfibility.

The wind impells us toward the fartheft limits of Egypt, and rocks, hewn into coloffal ftatues, already difappear. New objects fix the attention, and the riches of the. banks of the Nile are contemplated with pleasure, as we approach Armant.

This

village is built at the foot of an eminence,

ticos, veftibules, periftyles, and courts, appertaining to the grand temples of Egypt, will convince us those built at Thebes had, at least, a hundred gates. I, therefore, believe, like Diodorus Siculus, that this appellation, worthy the pen of Homer, was rather fuggefted by the gates of the temples than the walls; for it does not even appear that this famous city ever had any walls. No hiftorian mentions any, nor are traces of any to be found.