The figure of the temples in Thebes do not seem to be far removed from the idea given us of the Ark. The third conjecture is, that being the first city built and supported on pillars, and, on different and separate pieces of stone, it got its name from the architects first expression of approbation or surprise, Tabu, that it stood insulated and alone, and this seems to me to be the most conformable both to the Hebrew and Ethiopic. The shepherds, for the most part, friends and allies of the Egyptians, or Cushite, at times were enemies to them. We need not, at this time of day, seek the cause; there are many very apparent, from opposite manners, and, above all, the difference in the dietetique regimen. The Egyptians worshipped the cow, the Shepherds killed and ate her. The Shepherds were Sabeans, worshipping the host of heaven--the sun, moon, and stars. Immediately upon the building of Thebes and the perfection of sculpture, idolatry and the grossest materialism greatly corrupted the more pure and speculative religion of the Sabeans. Soon after the building of Thebes, we see that Rachel, Abraham’s wife, had idols[232]; we need seek no other probable cause of the devastation that followed, than difference of religion. Thebes was destroyed by Salatis, who overturned the first Dynasty of Cushite, or Egyptian kings, begun by Menes, in what is called the second age of the world, and founded the first Dynasty of the Shepherds, who behaved very cruelly, and wrested the lands from their first owners; and it was this Dynasty that Sesostris destroyed, after calling Thebes by his father’s name, Ammon No, making those decorations that we have seen of the harp in the sepulchres on the west, and building Diospolis on the opposite side of the river. The second conquest of Egypt by the Shepherds was that under Sabaco, by whom it has been imagined Thebes was destroyed, in the reign of Hezekiah king of Judah, who is said to have made peace with So[233] king of Egypt, as the translator has called him, mistaking So for the name of the king, whereas it only denoted his quality of shepherd. From this it is plain, all that the scripture mentions about Ammon No, applies to Diospolis on the other side of the river. Ammon No and Diospolis, though they were on different sides of the river, were considered as one city, thro’ which the Nile flowed, dividing it into two parts. This is plain from profane history, as well as from the prophet Nahum[234], who describes it very exactly, if in place of the word _sea_ was substituted _river_, as it ought to be.