portico, is much encumbered with rubbish. The bases of the columns are completely concealed, until, on reaching the portico, one finds it necessary to descend some steps into the temple, from the interior of which the accumulations of ages have been cleared away. Owing to these collections, the front external view of the portico disappointed me; but when I had descended beneath its roof, I found myself, all at once, in a sanctuary (almost perfect and undisturbed) of the old religion of Egypt.

The portico is itself a spacious hall, with several rows of gigantic columns. This opens into a second, and that into a third, and the third into a fourth hall, each one smaller and darker than that preceding it, the only light being derived from the open portico. The fourth, which was the Sanctuary (corresponding to the Holy of Holies, in the Jewish Temple), and which, probably, none but the fully initiated could enter, is perfectly obscure, without a taper. Around these halls are passages and numerous cellæ, which were either used as chapels for the celebration of the mystic worship, or else as apartments for the priests. Every portion of the interior is sculptured with bas-reliefs and hieroglyphics, even to the narrow and almost inaccessible passages running at the back of the cellæ.

The most striking feature is the portico or entrance hall. The capitals of the gigantic columns are formed of the face of Athor, the daughter of Isis and Osiris, and the divinity of Love, repeated four times on each capital. There is a great sameness about the bas-reliefs, and a want of clear cutting, which became more perceptible to me when I revisited the temple on my return from Aboo-Simbool and Thebes. The outside of the Great

Temple of Athor is wanting in architectural effect, having an uncouth and box-like appearance. On its northern side is a smaller temple, of which the dedication is not clearly known, and at the back of the Great Temple is a beautiful little Fane of Isis. The completeness of the Temple of Athor compensates for much that is wanting in beauty and antiquity of style. It was built in the age of Cleopatra, whose portrait is sculptured on the western wall. In the days of Cleopatra, the spirit of the old religion was gone, and I was reminded in some degree of those attempts made, in England, in Sir Christopher Wren's time to reproduce the architecture of the middle ages, after that the genuine faith of those ages had passed away. As I wandered through the intricate corridors of this sanctuary of Athor, I could not help contrasting with the elaborate symbolism and mystic idolatry which called it into existence, the plain Deïsm of Mohammed, which now rules in the land. Each extreme has had (humanly speaking) its advantages and its evils, but Egypt under the sway of El Islam has never risen to the preeminence she attained under the

old Mythology of Amun-ra and Osiris. The True Faith unites qualities found in each of these extremes, the glorious mysteries of the Church being combined in the simplicity of the Cross, and the Holy Trinity in the stupendous Unity of God.

THEBES.

On Friday, the 4th January, we were to arrive at Thebes, which is only forty-eight miles and a half above Keneh. I was all anxiety to catch the first glimpse of El Karnak, but, owing to the wind falling, we did not reach the Plain of the Great City until after dark. It was halfpast ten at night when we anchored off Luxor,

Thebes, of which the Egyptian name was Amunei, or Amunoph (the abode of Amun, the king of the Gods), is known in Holy Scripture by the names of "Noph" and "No," as in Jeremiah xlvi. 19-25, where it is prophesied that "Noph shall be waste and desolate without an inhabitant," and that the "multitude of No" shall be punished. It is probable that Noph was a portion of "No," one of its quarters, for in Ezekiel xxx. 16, we are told that "No shall be rent asunder," (as indeed was the case with Thebes in the Persian invasion) and that "Noph shall have distresses daily." See also Ezekiel xxx. 13, 14, 15. In Nahum iii. 7, 8, 9, Thebes is contrasted with Nineveh,-" Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her?" "Art thou, Nineveh, better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers," (alluding to the various streams formed by the overflowing of the Nile,) "that had waters round about her, whose rampart was the " Nile; (called "Bahr," or 66 Sea," to this day, by the Egyptians) "and her wall was from the" Nile? Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite." Such are the inspired accounts of that great city, where, two thousand years before London's first stone was laid, millions of men were toiling, and trading, and living, the few in luxury and the many in poverty and want.

66

On the 5th of January we started early to inspect the remains on the western side of the Nile, Luxor being on its eastern bank. We crossed the river in a small boat, leaving our own Dahabiëh off El Uxür (corrupted into Luxor) where there were some ten or twelve travellers' boats congregated on the shore, while their Hawajees (Gentlemen) were inspecting the remains of Thebes.

Landing near the Sycamore tree, we found an abundance of horses,

of which we hired the strongest looking, and set off, without delay, for the Tombs of the Kings. We rode over a fertile and cultivated plain, and passed the Temple-Palace of Old Koornëh and the modern village surrounding its ruins. Its inspection was delayed till later, and we continued to pursue our course over the broad and cultivated plain, which had once been covered with dense streets, until, at length, the fertility ceasing, the corn-fields were succeeded by some arid and rocky ground at the base of the western mountains, a defile of which we presently entered. This defile was a wild rocky valley, far wilder than the valley of rocks at Linton, Devonshire, a most desolate glen of yellow lime-rock. This glen branched into a variety of other valleys, and the road pursued a winding course, which was at once the most picturesque and impressive scene of desolation, I remember to have traversed. Scarce aught but a single vulture was to be seen among these rocks, to break upon the death-like solitude. Poetry has never conceived anything more sublime than this approach from populous Thebes, with its millions of men, its merchandise, its traffic, and its luxury, to the silent tombs of its dead kings. It is a grand entrance to an Inferno (or region of departed spirits. I strove to imagine a procession winding out of the gorgeous city with its gardens of Palm and Mimosa, to these desolate valleys of the dead. The religion of Egypt seems to have contemplated death as the main object of life, in which respect it had preserved more faithfully the Divine traditions than most other Polytheistic systems of ancient times.

I visited six tombs. The entrances to these tombs appear to have been concealed and made to appear like the surrounding rocks,

in order to prevent that sacrilegious opening of them, which (with respect to so many) these precautions have, after all, failed to hinder.

Belzoni's tomb, (or number 17) is by far the most beautiful. The elaborate finish of the plaister-work, and painting of the successive chambers and corridors of these royal excavations, is beyond all conception. The freshness of the painting far exceeds that of Pompeii, although the tombs of Thebes are some 1500 years older than the Campanian sea-town. The extreme neatness of finish of many of the corridors and chambers recalled to me some modern drawing-room, papered according to the newest style introduced by the Great Exhibition, and almost led me to forget that I was in a tomb 3500 years old, among the designs of old Thebans, who had lived and died ere Israel had reached the Promised Land. The doorways are carved with exquisite precision, and the lintels tastefully surrounded with Arabesques.

In

In one of the tombs (I think number 9) I was much struck with seeing a representation of Osiris, with out-stretched arms like HIS of WHOм Osiris may have been a heathen fore-shadowing or type. the Polytheism of Egypt, Osiris, the unnamed one, was the divinity best calculated for mortal sympathy. Whether from a strange coincidence, or from an admixture of the primeval traditions in their theology, together with a strong appreciation of that great necessity engendered by the Fall of Man, the Egyptian story of Osiris, in several points, reminds us of the great truths of the Incarnation. Osiris was the most beneficent of the divinities, and, for the love of men, had assumed a mortal form, and had taught the inhabitants of the Nile valley the arts of life and the cul

| ture of the soil. After a life spent in doing good, he had died in a contest with the powers of evil, and while his body was buried at Philo, (or, as others held, at Abydos or Memphis, &c.,) his divine essence had risen again, and he became the judge of departed spirits. He had married Isis, the divinity of the earth, and their child Horus was the god of the earth's produce and fertility. All this poetical creed is an allegory of the yearly fertilization of Egypt. Each year does Osiris, the fertilizer, in the form of his great river, visit the earth and mystically wed Isis, its fair divinity, The swelling Nile scatters gifts to men, and by wedding the earth, begets Horus, the rich produce of the Egyptian soil. It swells and inundates the valley, until checked by the sandy mountains of the desert, the mystical Typhon (the divinity of Evil,) who thus conquers the Nile, which then recedes and dies,again to rise the following year, and flowing around Philoe's Holy Isle, to pour his rich torrent down the cataracts once more. Such is one of the most sublime of those legends which formed the theology of those past times when God "suffered all nations to walk in their own ways, and yet left not Himself without witness."

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. Received.-R. P-; E. P-; M. G. A—; H. B-, Devon; Christiana; Exeter; H. G-; J. E. W; W. S-; M. F-; R. W-; W. C. O-; Rev. H. G-; George L-; R. J. L-; J. J. B-; H. P. M-; A Clergyman's Wife; Dorchester; H. F. W-.

Replies.-W. C. O-; we are unable to answer your question.-George L—; thank you very much for your letter: a Volume of "The Churchman's Companion" has just been published: the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel began a little Magazine in January, called "The Gospel Missionary," one half-penny per month. You could get them through the Bookseller who supplies you with the Penny Post.

below,

Or diving, melt into the gulf like snow.

"Of the truth of these lines," remarked Miss Sidney, "you would, my dear children, have been fully convinced, had you been with me on a tour to the Land's-end, in Cornwall. There, in the more solitary and craggy parts of the coast, you would have seen gulls and other sea birds in such vast numbers, as to resemble swarms of locusts; and when at rest, covering the rich dark brown of the rocks, and converting it into silvery grey."

"That is a gull," exclaimed Rose, as the beautiful bird gracefully rested its silver breast and rode upon the crested wave, at a little distance from the shore. "I should like to know a little about its habits."

"The common gull," replied Miss Sidney, "belongs to a family of birds which is found in every part of the world, inhabiting shores scorched by a tropical sun, or dwelling amid the frozen icebergs of the north. Gulls have been called the scavengers of the sea, for nothing comes amiss to their voracious appetite. However loathsome may be the putrefying carrion left upon the beach, to the gull it is just as acceptable as a meal of the finest and freshest fish. But whether the food be fresh or stale, they will gorge almost to suffocation; and in that state may be taken up torpid and insensible. The late Bishop of Norwich, an eminent naturalist, relates an amusing instance of this greediness of disposition in these beautiful birds, one of which you may now

see winnowing the air with its large fan-like wings, and eagerly watching that dark spot in the distant sea, which most likely is a shoal of herrings.

"Some years ago,' says Bishop Stanley, 'in riding with a friend on the sea shore, we espied a gull lying motionless on the sand, apparently dead; but as its eyes were open, life was clearly not extinct. Suspecting it to be a wounded bird, we alighted to examine the extent and nature of the injuries it had received, but not a drop of blood was to be seen, nor was a feather ruffled. After having, therefore, handled it for several minutes without its evincing the slightest symptoms of vitality, beyond the opening and shutting of its eyes, we threw it into the air, when, to our inconceivable surprise, the apparently dead bird expanded its wings, and, tucking up its legs, flew off with the utmost composure and steadiness.'"

"Such greediness," said Alfred, "reminds one of the blubber feasts of the Esquimaux."

"The gull," replied Miss Sidney, "is just as fond of the same kind of food. The king of them all, the Burgomaster-a name given him by the Dutch, from his domineering over the whole race of gulls, is a constant attendant on the whale fishers. Whenever they are busy cutting up one of these monsters of the deep, he hovers over the carcass, and having fixed his eye upon a choice piece of blubber, which some other of the gull tribe has secured for his own eating, down he pounces, and forcing him to abandon the prize, carries it off as his own. The gull is found wherever the sailor goes, and is always the same noisy,