SAKKARA AND MEMPHIS. 65 They are buried deep in the sand, which has so drifted toward the plain, that from the broad hollow lying between them and the group of Sakkara, more than a mile distant, every sign of vegetation is shut out. Vast, sloping causeways of masonry lead up to two of them, and a large mound, occupying the space between, suggests the idea that a temple formerly stood there. The whole of the desert promontory, which seemed to have been gradually blown out on the plain, from the hills in the rear, exhibits traces here and there of ruins beneath the surface. My friend and I, as we walked over the hot sand, before our panting donkeys, came instinctively to the same conclusion — that a large city must have once occupied the space between, and to the southward of, the two groups of pyramids. It is not often that amateur antiquarians find such sudden and triumphant confirmation of their conjectures, as we did.

On the way, Achmet had told us of a Frenchman who had been all summer digging in the sand, near Sakkara. After we had crawled into the subterranean depot of mummied ibises, and nearly choked ourselves with dust in trying to find a pot not broken open ; and after one of our donkeymen went into a human mummy pit and brought out the feet and legs of some withered old Egyptian, we saw before us the residence of this Frenchman ; a mud hut on a high sand-bank. It was an unfortunate building, for nearly all the front wall had tumbled down, revealing the contents of his kitchen. One or two Arabs loitered about, but a large number were employed at the end of a long trench which extended to the hills.

Before reaching the house a number of deep pits barred our path, and the loose sand, stirred by our feet, slid back into