This letter is quite long enough, dear mother, and I close it, with wishes for your happiness, and assurances of the filial devotion of Your son, SESOSTRIS. LETTER XV. CITY OF MEMPHIS. DEAREST MOTHER: Your last letter, assuring me of your health, and that of the Princess Thamonda, I received by the chief pilot, Onothis, who, in his new and handsome galley, reached the head of the Delta two days ago. Thence he came here in his boat, his ship being too large, in the present depth of water, to come up to Memphis. I will now continue the description of the funeral of "the lord of the royal gardens." When the procession reached the steps leading down to the sacred lake, the hearse was borne upon a gilded and carved baris, the consecrated boat for the dead. This was secured to a decorated galley with sails and oars and a spacious cabin, richly painted with funeral emblems. The friends and relatives of the deceased embarked in other barges in waiting, and to the strains of wailing music, the procession, reverently joined by the boats of several gentlemen, in gay apparel, who were fishing on the lake, crossed to the other side. Reaching the opposite shore, it formed again, as before, and moved down "the Street of the Tombs," crossed a narrow plain, and entered the gate of the great burial-place of Memphis. We slowly followed the procession; and, alighting from the chariot, I saw them take the mummy from the sarcophagus on the car, and place it upright in a chamber of the tomb. An assistant priest then sprinkled all who were present with sacred water, and the chief-priest burnt incense before an altar of the tomb, and poured libations upon it, with other ceremonies. To close the scene, the mummy was embraced by weeping friends, and a funeral dirge played by the musicians without, which was wildly answered by the mourning wail of woe from within. Driving around the Acherusis Lake, under the shade of its solemn groves, the priest directed his charioteer to take me in again at the gate of the tombs. Reseating myself by his side--for the chariots of the priests, as well as those of ladies, are provided with a movable curved chair which holds two persons--we proceeded in a direct line towards the greatest of the three pyramids that stand near Memphis. We were upon what is called "The Sacred Way." It commenced at the gate of a temple to the god of the winds, beneath the pylon of which we passed, and extended nearly a league in length over a vast plain crowded with funeral temples, monuments, mausolean porticos, statues, and fountains. All the architectural magnificence which is found in other avenues, seemed to be combined here to form a royal road which has no parallel on earth; not even the long column-lined approach to the Temple of the Sun, at the end of the straight street in Damascus, can be compared with it.