Herodotos seems to have been at Sais when the festival of “burning lamps” was celebrated there. On the night of the festival lamps were lighted round about the houses in the open air, the lamps being cups filled with salt and oil, on the surface of which a wick floated. All who could thronged to Sais to take part in the ceremonies; those who could not be there lighted their lamps at home and so observed the rites due to Neit. The festival took place in the summer, probably at the time of the summer solstice, and the illuminations characteristic of it are still perpetuated in some of the numerous festivals of modern Egypt. The annual festival in honour of Isis was observed all over Egypt in the same way. As the Greek traveller approached Memphis the pyramids of Gizeh were shown to him towering over the water on his right. His visit to them was reserved to another day, and he continued to sail on to the ancient capital of the country. Memphis was still in all its glory. Its lofty walls of crude brick, painted white, shone in the sun, and its great temple of Ptah still preserved the monuments and records of the early dynasties of Egypt. Built on an embankment rescued from the Nile, it was said, by Menes, the first monarch of the united kingdom, Memphis, though of no great width, extended along the banks of the river for a distance of half-a-day’s journey. To the west, in the desert, lay its necropolis, the city of the dead, reaching from Abu Roâsh on the north to Dahshûr on the south. On the opposite side of the Nile, a little to the north, was the fortress of Khri-Ahu, which guarded the approach to the river. Where Cairo now stands Herodotos saw only sand and water. Even Khri-Ahu was merely an insignificant village at the foot of a fortress of mud brick; the strong walls and towers of hewn stone in which the Roman legion afterwards kept ward over Egypt were as yet unbuilt. All who could afford it lived in Memphis and its suburbs, and the rock-hewn tombs at the foot of the citadel of modern Cairo are of the Roman age. From Memphis to Heliopolis was rather more than twenty miles, or a morning’s row on the river. Herodotos, therefore, after having been told at Memphis of the experiment made by Psammetikhos to discover the origin of language, speaks of having “turned into” Heliopolis in order to make further inquiries about the matter, “for the Heliopolitans are said to be the best informed of the Egyptians.” We may gather from his words that he made an excursion to Heliopolis while he was staying in Memphis. But he would have passed it again on his homeward voyage.