varied examples: weaving, modelling in clay,
wood-carving, the incising of ivory, gold, and the hardest stone were
all carried on; the ground was cultivated with hoe and plough; tombs
were built showing us the model of what the houses and palaces must have
been; the country had its army, its administrators, its priests, its
nobles, its writing, and its system of epigraphy differs so little from
that to which we are accustomed in later ages, that we can decipher it
with no great difficulty. Frankly speaking, all that we know at present
of the first of the Pharaohs beyond the mere fact of his existence is
practically _nil_, and the stories related of him by the writers of
classical times are mere legends arranged to suit the fancy of the
compiler. "This Menes, according to the priests, surrounded Memphis with
dykes. For the river formerly followed the sandhills for some distance
on the Libyan side. Menes, having dammed up the reach about a hundred
stadia to the south of Memphis, caused the old bed to dry up, and
conveyed the river through an artificial channel dug midway between the
two mountain ranges. Then Menes, the first who was king, having enclosed
a firm space of ground with dykes, there founded that town which is
still called Memphis; he then made a lake round it, to the north and
west, fed by the river, the city being bounded on the east by the
Nile."[*]

* The dyke supposed to have been made by Menes is evidently
that of Qosheish, which now protects the province of Gizeh,
and regulates the inundation in its neighbourhood.

The history of Memphis, such as it can be gathered from the monuments,
differs considerably from the tradition current in Egypt at the time of
Herodotus. It appears, indeed, that at the outset, the site on which
it subsequently arose was occupied by a small fortress, Anbu-hazu--the
white wall--which was dependent on Heliopolis, and in which Phtah
possessed a sanctuary. After the "white wall" was separated from the
Heliopolitan principality to form a nome by itself, it assumed a certain
importance, and furnished, so it was said, the dynasties which succeeded
the Thinite. Its prosperity dates only, however, from the time when
the sovereigns of the Vth and VIth dynasties fixed on it for their
residence; one of them, Papi L, there founded for himself and for his
"double" after him, a new town, which he called Minnofiru, from his
tomb. Minnofiru, which is the correct pronunciation a