Journal of a voyage up the Nile, made between the months of November, 1848, and April, 1849 (Buffalo, 1851)

PART II.

PROVINCE OF THE THEBAID, IN THE ANCIENT
DIVISION OF UPPER EGYPT.

CHAPTER I.

abydos.

Abydos or This, How, Dendera, Cooft or Coptos, Coos,
Luxor, Karnac, Gournou, Medinah Tabou, Thebes, Biban el
Memlook, Al Asassif, Hermonthis, Esne, Edfou, Eilythyas,
Gebel Luxor, and quarries of Hadjar Silsillis, Koom Ombos,
Assouan, Philse.—Among the ancient Egyptians these were the
principal sites. But commencing with the earliest days of
Egypt's splendor, we find three great sites of empire, Abydos
or the ancient This, situated sixty miles below Thebes, (built
a few centuries from the date of the pyramids and Memphis,)
and which we are now approaching. It had sixteen sovereigns
reigning while Cheops built the first pyramid. Over this pro-
vince of Tanis, which extended from where we are to Dongola,
beyond the second cataract, ruled the predecessors of Rameses
the Great, whose names are written in the tablet of Abydos. Of
their structures, their surmounting capitals built as long before
Rameses as the apostles of Christ were anterior to us, of Aby-