nd scarcely less than Memphis.
It was built wholly by the Greeks, and, like Alexandria, it was under
Greek laws, while the other cities in Egypt were under Egyptian laws and
magistrates. It was situated between Panopolis and Abydos; but, while
the temples of Thebes, which were built so many centuries earlier, are
still standing in awful grandeur, scarcely a trace of this Greek city
can be found in the villages of El Menshieh and Girgeh (Cerkasoros),
which now stand on the spot. Strabo and the Roman generals did not
forget to visit the broken colossal statue of Amenhothes, near Thebes,
which sent forth its musical sounds every morning, as the sun, rising
over the Arabian hills, first shone upon its face; but this inquiring
traveller could not make up his mind whether the music came from the
statue, or the base, or the people around it. He ended his tour with
watching the sunshine at the bottom of the astronomical well at Syene,
which, on the longest day, is exactly under the sun's northern edge, and
with admiring the skill of the boatmen who shot down the cataracts in
their wicker boats, for the amusement of the Roman generals.

In the earlier periods of Egyptian history Ethiopia was peopled, or, at
least, governed, by a race of men, whom, as they spoke the same language
and worshipped the same gods as their neighbours of Upper Egypt, we must
call the Kopts. But the Arabs, under the name of Troglodyte, and other
tribes, had made an early settlement on the African side of the Red Sea.
So numerous were they in Upper Egypt that in the time of Strabo half the
population of the city of Koptos were Arabs; they were the camel-drivers
and carriers for the Theban merchants in the trade across the desert.
Some of the conquests of Ramses had been over that nation in southern
Ethiopia, and the Arab power must have further risen after the defeat of
the Ethiopians by Euergetes I. Ethiopia in the time of Augustus was held
by Arabs; a race who thought peace a state of disgraceful idleness,
and war the only employment worthy of men; and who made frequent hasty
inroads into Nubia, and sometimes into Egypt. They fought for plunder,
not for conquest, and usually retreated as quickly as they came,
with such booty as they laid their hands on. To use words which were
proverbial while the Nile swarmed with crocodiles, "They did as the dogs
do, they drank and ran away;" and the Romans found it necessary to place
a body of troops near the cataract