Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 2).djvu/255

 Serapium, the Temple of Vulcan, the Circus, and the Temple of Venus, the ruins of which should be found on the site of Memphis, are nowhere discoverable either at Metraheny or Gizeh, and are not improbably supposed by Bruce to be buried for ever beneath the loose sands of the desert. A man's heart fails him, he says, in looking to the south and south-west of Metraheny. He is lost in the immense expanse of desert which he sees full of pyramids before him. Struck with terror from the unusual scene of vastness opened all at once upon leaving the palm-trees, he becomes dispirited from the effect of sultry climates, shrinks from attempting any discovery in the moving sands of the Saccara, and embraces in safety and in quiet the reports of others, who, he thinks, may have been more inquisitive and more adventurous than himself.

Continuing to stem the current of the Nile, admiring as they moved along the extraordinary scenery which its banks presented, they arrived at the village of Nizelet ul Arab, where the first plantations of sugar-cane which Bruce had met with in Egypt occurred. A narrow strip of green wheat bordered the stream during the greater part of its course, while immediately behind a range of white mountains appeared, square and flat like tables on the summit, and seeming rather to be laid upon the earth than to spring out of and form a part of it. The villages on the shore were poor, but intermingled with large verdant groves of palm-trees, contrasting singularly with the arid and barren aspect of the rocky ridges behind them; and presenting many features of novelty, they were not without their interest.

On arriving at Achmim he landed his quadrant and instruments for the purpose of observing an eclipse of the moon; but the heavens soon after her rising became so obscured by clouds and mist, that not a star of any size was to be seen. Malaria here pro