I marvel, my dear father, at such splendor having no other object than a black bull; such glory leading to an enshrined brute, before whom all this magnificence, power, and rank fall prostrate, as to God! Happy am I, O my wise and good father, to have been early instructed in the knowledge of the true God. I pity while I admire what I see in Egypt. This king is an intelligent man, and I often feel like saying to him, "O king, dost thou believe in thy heart that this bull is God?" The shores of this vast artificial sea are lined with groves, palaces, and waving fields. The sides of the Libyan hills are terraced and adorned with marble palaces and gardens. At one point, where the cliffs stretch into the lake, are four temples, facing four ways, respectively dedicated to Athor, Pthah, Apis, and Bubastis, the four deities of Memphis; and their sides are covered with golden bronze, so that, in the sunlight, nothing can be more gorgeous. Upon a small island, opposite this gilded promontory, and left for the purpose, Thothmeses II. erected, during his brief reign, a temple of Syenite stone to the goddess Isis, before which is a recumbent figure of Osiris, seventy feet in length. Its vestibule is enriched with sculpture, and is the most splendid portico in Egypt. In the interior it is surrounded by a peristyle of statues representing the twelve constellations, each eighteen feet in height. Besides all these, I have visited, my dear father, during the six weeks I have been in Egypt, the "Plain of the Mummies," the Catacombs, the Labyrinth--a marvel of mystery and perplexity to one not initiated into the intricacies of its mazes--the chief pyramids, and that also of Queen Amense, at the entrance of which I placed fresh flowers for your sake. Pharaoh-Mœris greatly extended the bounds of Memphis. It is not less than twelve miles in circuit. He covered with it a large portion of the plain westward of the pyramids; and where once was a barren waste, are now streets, avenues, colonnades, temples, public edifices, aqueducts, causeways, and all the splendor of metropolitan magnificence. Avenues of sphinxes are almost innumerable; colossal statues, obelisks, and pyramids meet the eye everywhere. Near the foot of the hills he formed a chariot-course, that extends three miles along the lake. In the rock of the cliff he caused to be hewn fourteen sarcophagi of black marble, and of gigantic dimensions. In these he entombed the bodies of as many tributary kings, when, in succession, they died; commanding their mummies to be brought into Egypt for the purpose. He has everywhere multiplied, with singular variety, his statues; and in front of this tomb of kings stands one of them upon a pedestal, the feet of which are fourteen sculptured crowns, representatives of their own.