f stone, the well-carven statues, and the lions terrific in
their aspect."[7] At the present day scarcely a trace remains. One
broken colossus of the Great Ramesses, till very recently prostrate, and
a few nondescript fragments, alone continue on the spot, to attest to
moderns the position of that antique fane, which the Egyptians
themselves regarded as the oldest in their land.

The new city received from its founder the name of Men-nefer--"the Good
Abode." It was also known as Ei-Ptah--"the House of Phthah." From the
former name came the prevailing appellations--the "Memphis" of the
Greeks and Romans, the "Moph" of the Hebrews, the "Mimpi" of the
Assyrians, and the name still given to the ruins, "Tel-Monf." It was
indeed a "good abode"--watered by an unfailing stream, navigable from
the sea, which at once brought it supplies and afforded it a strong
protection, surrounded on three sides by the richest and most productive
alluvium, close to quarries of excellent stone, warm in winter, fanned
by the cool northern breezes in the summer-time, within easy reach of
the sea, yet not so near as to attract the cupidity of pirates. Few
capitals have been more favourably placed. It was inevitable that when
the old town went to ruins, a new one should spring up in its stead.
Memphis still exists, in a certain sense, in the glories of the modern
Cairo, which occupies an adjacent site, and is composed largely of the
same materials.

The Egyptians knew no more of their first king than that he turned the
course of the Nile, founded Memphis, built the nucleus of the great
temple of Phthah, and "was devoured by a hippopotamus." This last fact
is related with all due gravity by Manetho, notwithstanding that the
hippopotamus is a graminivorous animal, one that "eats grass like an ox"
(Job xi. 15). Probably the old Egyptian writer whom he followed meant
that M'na at last fell a victim to Taourt, the Goddess of Evil, to whom
the hippopotamus was sacred, and who was herself figured as a
hippopotamus erect. This would be merely equivalent to relating that he
succumbed to death. Manetho gave him a reign of sixty-two years.

The question is asked by the modern critics, who will take nothing on
trust, "Have we in Menes a real Egyptian, a being of flesh and blood,
one who truly lived, breathed, fought, built, ruled, and at last died?
Or are we still dealing with a phantom, as much as when we spoke of Seb,
and Thoth, and Osiris, and Set, and Ho