Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/798

774 EGYPT [FEIYOOM. we reach the town of Benee-Suweyf, about seventy miles by the course of the river from Cairo. Benee-Suweyf is a busy town, being the port of the Feiyoom. A. road leads hence to that province, in a north- westeily direction. After crossing the great canal called the Bahr-Yoosuf, we pass through the opening in the Libyan range which leads to the Feiyoom, leaving on our right the ruined brick Pyramid of El-Ldhoon, so called from an adjacent village. The Feiyoom, including its lake, is a pear-shaped tract (its narrowest part being to the west), extending into the desert, and measuring in its greatest length about thirty miles, and in its greatest breadth about twenty. The part now cultivated is more than two-thirds of this extent from the east. At the north-western extremity is the great lake of El-Karn, which is long and narrow, and fills the northern portion of the valley. A branch of the Bahr- Yoosuf flows through the opening leading to the Feiyoom. This canal soon spreads into many streams, two of which, after joining into a single course, carry off the superabund ant waters of the inundation into the lake of El-Karn, while they contribute with the others to irrigate the cultivable tracts. The site of the famous Labyrinth first claims our notice after entering the Feiyoom. Its position may be known by a ruined crude brick pyramid, that of Hawarah, which is spoken of by both Herodotus and Strabo, and may be called the Pyramid of the Labyrinth. The remains of the Labyrinth itself, which had been previously known, were first carefully examined by the Prussian expedition headed by Professor Lepsius, in 1843. The structure was so ruined, however, that the results were not as decisive as might have been hoped. Yet the plan was to some extent made out, and the building shown to have contained a great number of very small chambers, as ancient writers had said ; and the discovery of royal names of Dynasty XII., particularly of Amenemhat III, to whom Manetho ascribes the founding of the Labyrinth, leaves little doubt that this king was the Mosris who built the Labyrinth, according to the classic writers. The use of this building has nut been distinctly ascertained. Manetho indeed makes it to have been the founder s tomb, but it is most probable that he was buried in the pyramid, which, however, the Egyptian historian may have regarded as part of the Labyrinth, as it is evidently connected with that structure. Not far beyond the site of the Labyrinth is the capital of the province, usually called " El-Medeeneh," or "the City," and " Medeeuet-el-Feiyoom," " the City " or " Capital of the Feiyoom," close to the mounds of the ancient Arsinoe, or Crocodilopolis. It is a small but flourishing town. The only monuments of antiquity in its neighbourhood are the remains at Beyahmoo somewhat to the north, and the great broken tablet at Begeeg, at a smaller distance to the south. The former are two struc tures supposed by some to be pyramids, and the latter, which is a record of the time of Usurtesen L, is usually called an obelisk, but it must rather be regarded as a very tall and narrow stele or tablet, upwards of 40 feet in height. In this part of the Feiyoom, to the north of El- Medeeneh, may be traced the remains of that remarkable hydraulic work the Lake Moeris. M. Linant, a French engineer, was the first to determine the position and character of this famous work of antiquity ; and the results of his investigations are in accordance with the opinions of some who had previously noticed the subject in published works (Memoire sur le Lac Moeris" Soc. Eg., 1843). The object of the Lake Moeris was to regulate the irrigation of the Feiyoom, anciently the Crocodilopolite Nome, and afterwards the Arsinoite ; and it was valuable on account of its fisheries. It seems rather to have deserved the name of a very large reservoir than that of a lake. Notwith standing the drying up of the Lake Moeris, the Feiyoom is still an important and fertile province. It produces very large quantities of grapes ; and the fields of roses, cultivated for the sake of rose-water, present a remarkable appear ance. The great Lake of El-Karn is perhaps the most interest ing object in this part of Egypt. Its name, Birket-el-Karn, signifies " The Lake of tlie Horn," or " Projection," by which an island is intended, and not its general form, as has been supposed, It is, according to Sir Gardner Wilkinson, about 35 miles long and about 7 broad at its widest part and is not deep, as far as has been ascertained. The water is brackish and unwholesome, though derived from the Nile, which has at all seasons a much higher level. It is bounded on the south by tracts in a state of cultivation, or deserted for want of labourers, though anciently cultivated, and on the north by the Libyan desert, above which rises a bold range of mountains ; and it has a strange and picturesque wildness : Its northern shore was anciently cultivated, at least in part, but is now entirely waste. Near the lake are several sites of ancient towns, and the temple called Kasr-Karoon distinguishes the most important of these, That temple, however, being devoid of sculpture, and doubtless of the Roman period, could not attract attention except in a region barren of monuments. After this cursory view of the Feiyoom we may return to the Nile and continue our southward course. Not far south of Benee-Suweyf the eastern chain is washed by the river at the picturesque promontory of the Sheykh Aboo-Noor, whose tomb stands on its summit. From this point as far as the town of Manfaloot the moun tains on the east are close to the Nile, leaving a narrow space of cultivable land, or none at all, while the western bank is far broader than before. For forty miles nothing remarkable attracts the eye except the lofty mounds of ancient towns, until one sees the well-proportioned minaret of a mosque in the large village of Semeloot, said to have been erected by the architect of the mosque of Sultan Hasan at Cairo. Not far beyond, the river washes the picturesque cliffs of Gebel-et-Teyr, or the Mountain of Birds, part of the eastern range. Upon it j summit stands a Coptic convent, called the Convent of the Virgin, Deyr-el- Adra. One of the monks of this convent usually climbs down the steep face of the mountain by a dizzy path, and swims to the traveller s boat to solicit alms as a fellow Christian. In this part of Egypt we first begin to notice the entrances of grottoes in the face of the eastern moun tains, but none of these for some distance are known to be of any interest. Not far beyond Gebel-et-Teyr is the town of El-Minyeh, on the western bank, a place wearing a cheerful aspect. Opposite El-Minyeh are quarries and sepulchral grottoes, the most remarkable of the latter being at a site called El-K6m-el-Ahmar, or " the lied Mound." These are of the age of Dynasties IV. and VI., but they have sustained so much damage in modern times that they do not repay a visit, except from one who is a student of hieroglyphics. A governor of El-Minyeh, an ignorant Turk, used these ancient tombs as quarries ; and had it not been for the interference of Mr Harris of Alexandria, the more important grottoes of Benee-Hasan would have shared the same fate at his hands. The first noteworthy objects above El-Minyeh are the sepulchral grottoes of Benee-Hasan, which are inferior to none in Egypt for beauty and interest. They are excavated in the face of the eastern mountains, which are here very low and sloping, and separated from the river by a small

extent of debris and desert, and a very uarrov; strip of