“Thy form stupendous here the gods have placed, Sparing each spot of harvest-bearing land; And with this mighty work of art have graced A rocky isle encumbered once with sand; And near the pyramids have bid thee stand: Not that fierce Sphynx that Thebes erewhile laid waste, But great Latona’s servant, mild and bland; Watching that prince beloved who fills the throne Of Egypt’s plains, and calls the Nile his own: That heavenly monarch (who his foes defies), Like Vulcan powerful, and like Pallas wise.”—_Arrian._ “Even now,” writes Dean Stanley, “after all that we have seen of colossal statues, there was something stupendous in the sight of that enormous head, * * * its vast projecting wig, its great ears, its open eyes, the red colour still visible on its cheek, the immense projection of the lower part of its face. Yet what must it have been when on its head there was the royal helmet of Egypt; on its chin the royal beard; when the stone pavement, by which men approached the pyramids, ran up between its paws; when, immediately under its breast an altar stood, from which the smoke went up into the gigantic nostrils of that nose now vanished from the face, never to be conceived again.”[18] [18] “Sinai and Palestine in connection with their History.” By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., F.R.S. On our left hand, as we still stand gazing forward into the south, in the direction of the coming wavelets of the tawny Nile, is a desert plain, afore-time called the “Land of Goshen,” lying between Cairo and the Suez Canal. It was here that Abraham found an abiding-place 1,920 years before the birth of Christ, when, driven out of Syria by the floods, he sought in Egypt herbage for his flocks and herds, and sustenance for his retainers. Here, in various stages of decay, are the ancient cities of the Hebrews, where Hebrew, until very recently, was the prevailing language of the people. Here we find On, or Onion, still bearing its Hebrew appellation, and Rameses and Pithom, and Succoth and Hieropolis. Nearer the Mediterranean Sea is “the field of Zoan” (Psalms, chap. lxxviii. ver. 12, 43), with the ruins of the ancient city of San, or Tanis, remarkable for the vast extent of the foundation of a once magnificent temple, teeming with monuments and obelisks. Here, says Mr. Macgregor, “you see about a dozen obelisks, all fallen, all broken; twenty or thirty great statues, all monoliths of porphyry and granite, red and grey.” Isaiah had afore-time levelled his reproaches against San:—“The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Nopth (Memphis) are deceived; they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof.” (Chap. xix. ver. 13.) And here was the gap through which the nations of Arabia, Syria, and Persia maintained intercourse with Egypt, one while as peaceful traders, another while as fugitives and outlaws, and again as enemies in arms.