“Of Memphis there is at present hardly a trace left; and other great cities known to ancient travellers have disappeared with their monuments. Mummy cases and coffins with most interesting inscriptions have for centuries been used as fuel. And innumerable manuscripts have suffered the same fate.... The tombs are convenient abodes for Arab families, who destroy the paintings and inscriptions either by the dense smoke of their fires or by actually pulling down walls. I was taken to see the ‘Lay of the Harper,’ one of the most interesting remains of Egyptian poetry, which was published a few years ago by Dr Dumichen, but we found the walls on which the poem was written a mere heap of ruins. But the vandalism of European and American travellers is most fatal to the monuments. There is, or rather was, a famous picture at Beni-hassan, which was formerly thought to represent Joseph presenting his brethren to Pharaoh. An English lady has been heard to request her guide to cut out for her the face of Joseph!”--_P. Le Page Renouf._ TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. FOOTNOTES: [1] From “Records of the Past.” New Series, vol. ii. [2] See Bishop Butler’s “Sermon on the Character of Balaam.” [3] Rev. H. G. Tomkins argues that he was a Semite, though in close contact with the Hittites.--“Journal of the Anthropological Institute,” November 1889. [4] Major Conder, in the “Journal of the Anthropological Institute,” August 1889. [5] See the authorities given in “Rawlinson’s Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament.” [6] Dyer’s “Pompeii.” [7] Exod. xxix. 22; Levit. vii. 32, viii. 25, ix. 21; Num. xviii. 18. [8] See Sayce’s “Fresh Light from the Monuments,” p. 139. [9] “Records of the Past,” New Series, vol. ii. [10] Brugsch, “History of Egypt,” vol. ii. [11] May it not perhaps have been a new name given to Bubastis, after rebuilding? [12] M. Naville, whose excavations at Tell Basta have shown that Bubastis was a very large city, and a favourite resort of the king and his family, thinks it quite possible that, at the time we are speaking of, the king was at Bubastis and not at Zoan. [13] Gesenius gives the meaning, “rush, reed, seaweed;” and in Exod. ii. 3, Moses is said to have been laid in an ark of _souph_ or reeds. [14] In this paraphrase I render one of the _vavs_ by “then” instead of “and.” This will be allowed me. What will be objected to is the assumption that Lasha is Laish, especially as Lasha contains a different radical, the _ayin_ (לָשַׁע). But the passage in Genesis may give an archaic spelling; and as Lasha signifies “the breaking through of waters,” it is eminently descriptive of the source of the Jordan at Dan. To place Lasha in the south-east of Palestine, as is done in Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” is to charge the description in Genesis with being defective, for how are the limits of a people defined by tracing two sides of an irregular quadrangle? [15] Josephus: “Wars,” iii. 10. § 8.