that the Labyrinth of the Twelve Kings was situated, and Pococke, perhaps erroneously, imagined himself to have examined its ruins, from which he proceeded to the shores of Lake Mœris. This lake, the Egyptian priests informed Herodotus, was the creation of art; but observing its extraordinary dimensions, it being no less than fifty miles in length by about ten in breadth, our traveller supposes that the art consisted in the inventing of the tale, and causing it to be believed, which in boldness and ingenuity fell very little short of the actually scooping out of that prodigious basin. But credulity often goes by the side of skepticism. Having rejected as a fable the artificial origin of the lake, Pococke supposes himself to have discovered in an extravagant tradition now current among the Arabs, the basis of the ancient mythus of the Elysian Fields, and the Infernal Ferryman. The common people, he observes, make frequent mention of Charon, and describe him as a king who might have loaded two hundred camels with the keys of his treasury! From this he infers that the fable of Charon took its rise on this spot, and that the person known under this name was the officer intrusted with the keys of the Labyrinth and its three thousand apartments, who, when the corpse of any prince or chief came thither to be interred, made inquiries concerning the actions of his life, and, according as they were good or bad, granted or refused the honours of the tomb. But as the Lake Acherusia, or Acheron, was in the neighbourhood of Memphis, according to Diodorus, he supposes that the same ceremonies were practised at both places, though originating here. Guigniant, a contemporary French writer, supposes that the ruins discovered by Pococke were not those of the Labyrinth, which, in fact, have only recently been found and described by his countrymen Bertre and Jomard.
The original destination of the Labyrinth has not
