In the beginning of 1866, he undertook his second journey to Egypt, and was again accompanied by his faithful hierogrammatist, E. Weidenbach. On the second of April he left for Cairo, and this time with the design of visiting the Eastern Delta and the localities of the ruins there. These were of special importance for Biblical geography. He first inspected the Persian-Egyptian monuments which had just been excavated by the workmen on the Suez Canal. According to his views these had been dug up from the canal constructed by Darius, and were memorials intended to adorn that great undertaking. After also examining the other monuments found in the neighborhood of the excavations of De Lesseps, together with their surroundings, he proceeded in quest of the site of ancient Pelusium.[81] The shingle bed which covers the whole Gesiret-el-Farama is bounded towards the east by a continuous bank, which can be traced till beyond the western Tell-el-Her, and whose fortress-like curves separate the shingle field upon its declivity from the sand dunes of the desert. Lepsius believed that he had found there the locality of the ancient Hauaris (auaris), so often sought for, and thus proved that this was not to be looked for in Tanis, but on the site or in the neighborhood of the later Pelusium. In the Herin Tell-el-Her he thought might perhaps be recognized a remnant of the old name Ha-uar, the ancient Egyptian form of Auaris. These conjectures have not been shaken by any later investigations, but on the other hand Lepsius’ opinion, previously expressed, that Tell el-Maschuta, which he visited before Pelusium, was the Ramses of the Bible, seems to be disproved by the latest excavations of Naville, and this place must now be regarded as the Biblical Pithom and Succoth, in spite of the opposition which that view afterwards encountered from the Master.[82] His greatest prize was to fall into his hands at San, the Tanis of the Greeks, the Zo’an of the Bible, whither he was accompanied by the Viennese Egyptologist Reinisch. This acquisition was of such great and epoch-making importance as to throw into the shade all the other gains of the journey. The discovery of the decree of Tanis, or the Tablet of Canopus, amongst the ruins of San, is one of the most important discoveries made in Egypt since the finding of the Rosetta stone. It furnishes proof of the correctness of the results which had been obtained up to 1866, by the Egyptologists with the aid of the Rosetta key and Champollion’s method of deciphering hieroglyphics.