Turning my eyes to the west, the yellow plain of Libya, with its rocky hills inclosing the verdant valley of the Nile in that direction, rolled away to the edge of the horizon, an arid, undulating, illimitable expanse, which, under the sun, blazed like a lake of fire from the burning reflection of its sands. The contrast of this realm of desolation, and its storm-piled drifts of gray, brown, and dusky sand, lying so near the groves, and green fields, and blooming gardens which surrounded the pyramids and extended to the base of the ridge, was very remarkable. One part looked like the abode of Osiris, full of beauty, and light, and happiness: the other like that of Typhon, or the spirit of evil, who strove, ever battling with his storms of sand, to invade, overwhelm, and desolate these scenes of beauty! And, ere many centuries, his arid hosts threaten to sweep past the pyramids, and to overleap the very gates of Memphis! But at present, all the land within the hills is a region of delight, presenting a pleasing contrast, with its perennial green, to the desolate and savage realm of the desert. Luxuriantly covered with verdure; bright with golden wheat-fields, charming green meadows, foliage of every variety; groups of trees rising from a thousand courts; countless villages everywhere, and myriads of brilliant lakes, it was a scene of unmixed beauty. Jizeh, a little to the east, with its temple-palaces and gardens, filled the view. Farther east lay, first, the glorious city of Apis, its squares, avenues, lakes, groves, fanes, and monuments, all open to the eye like a magnificent picture. Beyond the glittering Nile, the banks of which were rich with fertility and adorned with villas, I beheld Raamses, and still farther Pythom, the treasure-cities, in the fair expanse of the land of Goshen,--alas! beautiful only to the eye, for upon it rests the dark shadow of Hebrew bondage; and south, a few miles, after a thousand scenes of rural beauty fill the vision, towers, like the throne of the kingdom, the city of the Lord of the Sun, its gorgeous temple and forest of obelisks flinging back the sunbeams with a splendor that fills the soul with wonder and delight! "O happy, glorious, mighty Egypt! what a blessed and favored land art thou! With one foot upon the seven mouths of thy mighty river, another upon Ethiopia, and thy head in the clouds, all nations bow down to thy might and greatness! Leader of the kingdoms of the earth! what a future is thine, if thy kings and rulers are true to thee and to themselves!" The hierarch heard me utter these words, for I spake aloud in my wonder at the glory of this kingdom and the magnificence of her power.