Arab brought us another light. Each room had large windows, which were entirely open. The roof was of bushes, and had several apertures, some of them large. Such was the house offered us in Thebes; and probably it would not have been easy to procure a better."Memoirs of the REV. PLINY FISK, p. 229.

SYENE, (ESSOUAN.)

SCRIPTURE NOTICE.

BEHOLD, therefore, I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia."-Ezek. xxix. 10; (xxx. 6.)

"A pleasant sail, with a fine north breeze, brings us to Essouan, or Syene, on the fourth day from leaving Thebes, from which it may be distant about one hundred miles. Syene is the southern boundary of Egypt, ancient and modern, and was moreover the limit of the Roman empire. The prophet Ezekiel denounces desolation upon Egypt, 'from Migdol to Syene, even unto the border of Ethiopia." The character of the Nile scenery now changes; the river is hemmed in by bold rugged masses of granite, and pours its flood in eddying rapids through an intricate channel of precipitous cliffs, broken islands, and splintered pinnacles of dark slippery rock, from whose quarries have been dug the monstrous blocks that still astonish the world in the shape of Egyptian shafts, statues, and obelisks. The kings rivalled each other in the making of these obelisks, which were dedicated to the sun, and supposed to represent his beams, according to the signification of their name.

"These prodigious masses of stone, one of which we know to have been 125 feet in length, were floated down the Nile by rafts at the season of inundation, and the

1 Marginal reading.

Roman emperors vied with each other in outdoing the Egyptians themselves, by transporting these obelisks from Thebes, Memphis, and Alexandria, to adorn the banks of the Tiber, where several of them now stand.

"How they contrived to get such a length and breadth of granite out of the quarry, without breaking, is not yet explained. There now remains a half-cut mass more than a hundred feet long, which would apparently require

all the resources of modern engineering to extricate, smoothly and beautifully cut ready for the sculptured hieroglyphics, which it was never to receive. One huge rock, which might almost be called a mountain of granite, was evidently about to be detached from its parent, when the work was interrupted."-NOZRANI in Egypt.

349

ETHIOPIA.

SCRIPTURE NOTICES.

"I WILL make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia."-Ezek. xxix. 10.

"The sword shall come upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt; and they shall take away her multitude, and her foundations shall be broken down."-Ezek. xxx. 4. (Read from ver. 1-9.)

[2 Kings xix. 9. 2 Chron. xiv. 9, 12; xxi. 16. Ps. lxviii. 31; lxxxvii. 4. Isa. xviii. 1; xx. 3-5; xliii. 3; xlv. 14. Jer. xlvi. 9. Ezek. xxx. 5; xxxviii. 5. Nah. iii. 9. Zeph. iii. 10. Acts viii. 27.]

There are two great tracts of country to which the name Ethiopia seems to be given in Scripture. The one is in Africa, and comprehends all Africa south of Egypt, including the modern countries of Nubia, Senaar, Abyssinia, &c.

Anciently the Ludim, or Lydians, inhabited Abyssinia; the Pathrusim, the country between that and Mizraim, or Egypt; the Lubim dwelt in Libya, west of Egypt, and Phut extended to the Barbary States on the coast of the Mediterranean.

The other, sometimes called Cushite Ethiopia, from its having been peopled by the descendants of Cush, son of Ham, consists of part of the Arabian peninsula. Here we find the names of Dedan, Sheba, Seba, and perhaps Midian. It is not always easy to determine to which of these vast territories reference is made in the Bible.

Note. It is foretold, in Isa. xx. 4, that the Ethiopians, young and old, should be led away captives. The curse of slavery seems to hang over Ethiopia, for Captain Baines mentions that he has seen 700 Nubian girls exposed for sale at one time in the slave-market of Makallab in Arabia. Ethiopia, according to prophecy, has fallen.

"THERE is no spot in the whole course of the Nile which we have traversed, that can be compared in beauty with the island of Philæ. This Sacred Isle' of the Egyptians, so called as containing the earthly part of their king and favourite divinity, Osiris, is situated just above the confines of the first cataract, and beyond its rocks and rapids; it appears as if calmly floating on the water, in which its graceful palm trees and ruins are reflected. Thus lovely it is as seen from the water; but on landing, the charm is in a great measure broken; for then the accomplishment of the prophecy, that 'the pomp of Egypt should be destroyed, and the land made desolate unto the border of Ethiopia,' becomes visible. Ruin, effected by the hand of man, more terrible and unsightly than that brought about by the operations of time, stares one in the face all around: and yet suffi

cient remains to show how gloriously beautiful this place of pilgrimage must have appeared ere its temples were thrown down. The temple of the goddess Isis, wife of Osiris, is beautifully painted in blue, green, yellow, black, &c.; and on its walls is sculptured a portrait of the wicked but beautiful Cleopatra. An Arab village has at some time or other been built around the temple, but is now crumbling to dust. 'Ruin upon ruin!-such a wilderness of stones' does the place exhibit, that it is difficult and dangerous to scramble amongst them. 'The idols of Egypt shall be moved.' Isaiah xix. 1."-See MRS. ROMER'S Pilgrimage.