The Wile.—Three terms are applied to the Nile in Scripture. It is called ?Y-I'yu nm, or, ' the river of Egypt' (Gen. xv. 18, etc.) The word or -list+, is applied to it Ex. ii. 3, etc. This is probably the Coptic In Jer. ii. 18, the Nile is called which is derived from -Irv, to be black, and means turbid or black. The words E+1= have been thought also to mean the Nile, in which case any will be a proper name, and the phrase will be ' the Nile of Egypt.' It seems unlikely, however, that the Nile should be so specified, and if is not a proper name, the words will read, the ' brook or torrent of Egypt,' supposed to be a mountain stream, usually dry, on the borders of Egypt and Palestine, near the modern El-Areesh (Numb. xxxiv. 5 ; Josh. xiii. 3, etc.) Some have thought that 1-1) is the origin of the word Nile ; others have been anxious to find it in the Sanskrit Nila, which means dark blue. The Indus is called Nil 6.13, or ' the blue river ;' the Sutlej also is known as ' the blue river.' It is to be observed that the Low Nile was painted blue by the ancient Egyptians. The river is turbid and reddish throughout the year, and turns green about the time when the signs of rising commence, but not long after becomes red and very turbid. The Coptic word is iwut, ' sea,' which corresponds to the Arab name for it, Bahr, properly, sea ; thus Nahum iii. 3, Populous No (Thebes), whose rampart was the sea.' The hiero glyphic name is Hapi, abyss, or Hapi-mou, abyss y waters. At Khartoom, 16o miles north of Sennar, the Nile becomes divided into two rivers, called Bahr el-Abiad, and Bahr el-Azrak, or the white and blue river, the former flowing from the west, the latter from the east. The blue river is the smaller of these, but it possesses the same fertiliz ing qualities as the Nile, and is of the same colour. The sources of this river were discovered by Bruce; those of the white river are still undiscovered. There is good reason to suppose that it flows from mountains south of the Equator. Most ancient writers mention seven mouths of the Nile ; begin ning from the east—I, Pelusiac or Bubastite ; 2, Saitic or Tanitic ; 3, Mendesian ; 4, Bucolic or Phatmetic (now of Damietta) ; 5, Sebennytic ; 6, Bolbitine (now of Rosctta); 7, Canopic or Ile racleotic, cf. He shall smite it in the seven streams' (Is. xi. 15), if the Nile be meant : two streams only are now navigable throughout their extent, and these Herodotus says were originally canals. Some speak of even more than seven.
Chronology.—It is quite impossible to give any thing more than a very summary account of Egyptian chronology and history here, and yet it is equally difficult to pass it by without notice of any kind. It appears that from very early times the Egyptians were in the habit of dividing the year into three seasons, each containing four months. It has been supposed that they had a tropical year from this division, which evidently follows natural pheno mena. The Egyptians had what is called the vague year, which consisted of 12 months of 30 days, or 360 days, to which they added after the twelfth month five epagomenm or intercalary days. This year was in use as early as about i5oo B. C., and was not abandoned till it was made a Julian year by Augustus, B.C. 24. Another year used by the ancient Egyptians for astronomical and re ligious purposes, was called the Canicular or Sothic year. It began on the loth July, or the day of the heliacal rising of Sothis or Sirius, i.e., when Sothis rose about one hour before the sun, and consisted of 365+ days. Various cycles of time were in use among the Egyptians. It is supposed that they had a tropical cycle of isoo years, or thereabouts, but as to its commencement great difference of opinion obtains. The Sothic cycle was a period of 1460 Sothic or Julian, and 1461 Vague years, and its commencement was marked by an heliacal rising of Sothis on the first day of the Vague year. A cycle of this kind was known to have commenced July 20, 1322 B.C., when it is probable the period was instituted.
History. —All that we knew of Egyptian history prior to the Persian invasion was (until the hiero glyphics were deciphered) contained in the frag ments of Manctho, which have survived the ravages of time. Manetho was an Egyptian priest of the Age of Ptolemy Laps, who wrote a work on the history of Egypt, and is said to have pointed out and corrected many errors in the narrative of Hero dotus. Fragments of this work have been pre served by Julius Africanus and Eusebius, but little more is contained in them than the names of vari ous kings who are arranged in thirty or thirty-one dynasties, extending from the first mortal sovereign of Egypt till the subjugation of the country by Darius Ochus or the conquest by Alexander.* It may readily be imagined that so many dynasties of kings must have required a very prolonged series of years in which to flourish, and it was this fact that so long caused the fragments of Manetho to be re ceived with discredit by scholars. Late years, however, have put us in possession of so many re sults obtained from the monuments that we are able to form a better judgment of the trustworthi ness of Manetho. And in proportion as we have become acquainted with these results, has our respect for the native historian increased. It is certain that very many of the names preserved by him have been found on the monuments of Egypt, and far more corroboration has thus been afforded than could have been anticipated. Still there remained the chronological difficulty of the thirty dynasties to be explained : owing, however, to the ingenuity of Mr. Lane and his nephew, Mr. Stuart Poole, much has been done to remove it. A suggestion, first made some thirty years ago by Mr. Lane and adopted and worked out by his nephew, has shewn us that many of these dynasties were not successive but contemporaneous. In numerous instances the kings of Manetho did not succeed one another, but ruled together over different parts of Egypt. Thus, while one dynasty was ruling at Memphis, another would be flourish at Thebes. This contemporaneousness applies mainly to the first seventeen dynasties. Under the eighteenth dynasty, Egypt was an undivided king dom, and nearly all of the subsequent dynasties were consecutive. It may be well to mention here another theory of arrangement which has been adopted by Bunsen and his followers, who formed their system of chronology upon a date preserved by Syncellus, and attributed by him to Manetho, but, in all probability, the invention of some per son bearing his name, and called the Pseudo-Mane tho. This date ascribes a duration of 3555 years to the thirty dynasties, and Bunsen lends himselt entirely to the scheme of chronology which he bases on this number, and which necessarily claims for the Egyptian monarchy a very high antiquity. The date of Menes, the first king therefore, accord ing to Bunsen, is earlier by several centuries than that which we are disposed to prefer as more con sistent with the Bible narrative, and less opposed to abstract probability. Dr. Lepsius, indeed, de mands a considerably higher epoch than ever Bunsen himself. This extravagant chronology, however, seems to be contradicted by positive monumental evidence. The scheme of dynasties, according to the arrangement of Mr. Poole, is as follows :— Menes, the first mortal king of Egypt, according to Manetho, Herodotus, Eratosthenes, and Diodorus, and preceded, according to the first, by gods, he roes, and Manes (?), PeKVES, is accepted on all hands as an historical personage. His hieroglyphic name reads Menee, and is the first on the list of the Rameseum of El-Kurneh. It is also met with in the hieratic of the Turin Papyrus of Kings. Strong reasons are given by Mr. Stuart Poole for fixing the date of his accession at B.C. 2717 (Hem ./Egyptiaea, 94-9S). As one step in his argument involves a very ingenious elucidation of a well known statement of Herodotus, we cannot forbear to mention it. Hcrodotus says, that, in the inter val from the first king to Sethon, the priest of Hephxstus, the priests told him that the sun had four times moved from his wonted course, twice ris ing where he now sets, and twice setting where he now rises.' Upon this Mr. Poole remarks : ' It is evident that the priests told Herodotus that great periods had elapsed since the time of Menes, the first king, and that, in the interval from his reign to that of Sethon, the solar risings of stars—that is to say, their manifestations had twice fallen on those days of the vague year on which their settings fell in their time, and vice versa ; and that the his torian, by a natural mistake, supposed they spoke of the sun itself.' Menes appears to have been a Thinite king, of the city of This, near Abydus, in Upper Egypt. Herodotus ascribes the building of the city of Memphis to him, while Manetho says that he made a foreign expedition and acquired renown, and that eventually he was killed by a hip popotamus. Menes, after a long reign, was suc ceeded by his son Athothis, who was the second king of the first dynasty. Manetho says that he built the palace at Memphis, that he was a physician, and left anatomical books ; all of these statements implying that even at this early period the Egyp tians were in a high state of civilization. About the time of Athothis, the 3d dynasty is supposed, according to the scheme we think most reasonable, to have commenced, and Memphis to have be come independent, giving its name to five dynasties of kings, 3d, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 8th. The first Thinite dynasty probably lasted about two cen turies and a half. Of the 2d very little has reached us ; under one of the kings it was determined that women could hold the sovereign*power ; in the time of another it was fabled, says Manetho, that the Nile flowed mixed with honey for the space of eleven days. The duration of this dynasty was probably between 30o and 40o years, and it seems to have come to a close at the time of the shepherd invasion. The 3d (Memphite) dynasty, after hav ing lasted about zoo years, was succeeded by the 4th.,. one of the most famous of the lines which ruled in Egypt ; while the 5th dynasty of Elephan tinite kings arose at the same time. This was em phatically the period of the pyramids, the earliest of which was probably the northern pyramid of Aboo-Seer, supposed to have been the tomb of Sods or Shura, the head of the 4th dynasty. He was succeeded by two kings of the name of Suphis, the first of whom, the Cheops of Herodotus, the Khufu of the monuments, was probably the builder of the great pyramid. On these wondrous monu ments we find traces at that remote period of the advanced state of civilization of later ages. The cursive character scrawled on the stones by the masons proves that writing had been long in com mon use. Many of the blocks brought from Syene are built together in the pyramids of Geezeh in a manner unrivalled at any period. The same manners and customs are portrayed on them as on the later monuments. The same boats are used, the same costume of the priests, the same trades, such as glass-blowing and cabinet-making. At the beginning of the 4th dynasty, moreover, the peninsula of Sinai was in the possession of the Egyptians, and its copper mines were worked by them. The duration of this dynasty probably exceeded two centuries, and it was followed by the 6th. The 5th dynasty of Elephantinites, as aforesaid, began the same time as the 4th. The names of several of its kings occur in the necro polis of Memphis. The most important of them is Sephres, the Shafra or Khafra of the monu ments, the Chephren of Herodotus and Kheph ren of Diodorus. This dynasty lasted nearly Goo years. Its last sovereign, Unas, is shewn by an inscription to have been contemporary with Assa, the fifth king of the 15th dynasty of shepherds rul ing at Memphis. Of the 6th dynasty, which lasted about 150 years, the two most famous sovereigns are Phiops or Papa and Queen Nitocris. The for mer is said to have ruled for a hundred years. With the latter the dynasty closed ; for at this period Lower Egypt was invaded by the Shepherds, who entered the country from the north-east, about 70o years after Menus, and eventually drove the Memphites from the throne. Of the 7th and 8th dynasties nothing is known with certainty ; they probably followed the 15th. To the former of them, one version of Manetho assigns a duration of seventy days, and rso years to the latter. The 9th dynasty of Heracleopolites, or more properly of Hermonthites, as Sir G. Wilkinson has suggested (Rawlinson's Herod ii. 14S), arose while the 6th was in power. Little is known of either the 9th or loth dynasties, which together may have lasted nearly 60o years, ending at the time of the great Shepherd war of expulsion, which resulted in the overthrow of all the royal lines except the Diospolite or Theban. With the 1 ith dynasty commenced the Diospolite kingdom, which subse quently attained to greater power than any other. Amenemha I. was the last and most famous king of this dynasty, and during part of his reign he was co-regent of Osirtasen or Sesertesen I., head of the An epoch is marked in Egyptian history by the commencement of this dynasty since the Shepherd rule, which lasted for 50o years, is coeval with it. The three Sesertesens flourished in this dynasty, the last of whom is probably the Sesostris of Manetho. It began about Abraham's time, or somewhat earlier. In ancient sculptures in Nubia we find kings of the 18th dynasty wor shipping Sesertesen III. as a god, and this is the only case of the kind. There is reason for dating his reign about B.C. 1986. The third Sesertesen was succeeded by Amenemha III., sup posed to be the Mceris of Herodotus, who built the labyrinth. After the reigns of two other sovereigns, this dynasty came to a close, having lasted about 16o years. It was followed by the 13th, which lasted some 400 years from B.C. 1920. The kings of this dynasty were of little power, and probably tributary to the Shepherds. The Diospolites, indeed, did not recover their prosperity till the beginning of the 18th dynasty. The 14th, or Xoite dynasty, seems to have risen with, or during the izth. It was named from Xois, a town of Lower Egypt, in the northern part of the Delta. It may have lasted for nearly soo years, and probably terminated during the great Shepherd war. The 15th, 16th, and 17th dynasties, are those of the Shepherds. Who these foreigners were who are said to have sub dued Egypt without a battle, is a question of great uncertainty. Their name is called Hycses by Manetho, which is variously interpreted to mean shepherd kings, * or foreign shepherds. They have been pronounced to have been Assyrians, Scythians, iEthiopians, Phoenicians, and Arabs. The kings of the 15th dynasty were the greatest of the foreign rulers. Salatis was the first king of it, and Assa the last but one has already been mentioned as contemporary with Unas of the 5th dynasty. The kings of the i6th and 17th dynasties are very obscure. Mr. Poole says there are strong reasons for supposing that the kings of the loth were of a different race from those of the and that they may have been Assyrians. Having held possession of Egypt 511, or according to the longest date, 625 years, the Shepherds were driven out by Ames, or Arnosis, the first king of the 18th dynasty ; and the whole country was then united under one king, who rightly claimed the title of lord of the two regions, or of Upper and Lower Egypt. With the ISth dynasty, about B.c.
1525, a new period of Egyptian history commences, both as regards the numerous materials for recon structing it, and also its great importance. No great monuments remain of Ames the first king, but from various inscriptions we are warranted in supposing that he was a powerful king. During his reign we first find mention.of the horse, and as it is often called by the Semitic name sus, it seems probable that it was introduced from Asia, and possibly by the Shepherd kings. If so, they may have been indebted to the strength of their cavalry for their easy conquest of Egypt. It is certain, that while other animals are frequently depicted on the monuments, neither in the tombs near the pyramids, nor at Benee-Hasan, is there any ap pearance of the horse, and yet, subsequently, Egypt became the great depot for these animals ; insomuch that, in the time of Solomon, they were regularly imported for him, and for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of :Syria ;' and when Israel was invaded by Sennacherib, it was on Egypt that they were said to put their trust for chariots and for horsemen. Amenoph I., the next king, was sufficiently powerful to make conquests in Ethiopia and in Asia. In his time we find that the Egyptians had adopted the five intercalary days, as well as the twelve hours of day and night. True arches, not arches of approaching stones,' also are found at Thebes, bearing his name on the bricks, and were in common use in his time. Some of the more ancient chambers in the temple of Amen-ra, or El-Karnak, at Thebes, were built by him. In the reign of his successor, Thoth mes I., the arms of Egypt were carried into Meso potamia, or the land of Naharayn ;' by some, Naharayn is identified with the Nairi, a people south-west of Armenia. Libya also was subject to his sway, while a monument of his reign is still remaining in one of the two obelisks of red granite which he set up at El Karnak, or Thebes. The name of Thothmes II. is found as far south as Napata, or Gebel Berkel, in Ethiopia. With him and Thothmes III. was associated a queen, Amen-numt, who seems to have received more honour than either. She is thought to have been a Semiramis, that name, like Sesostris, probably designating more than one individual. Thoth mes III. was one of the most remarkable of the Pharaohs. He carried his arms as far as Nineveh, and received a large tribute from Asiatic nations over whom he had triumphed. This was a com mon mode of acknowledging the supremacy of a conqueror, and by no means implied that the terri tory was surrendered to him ; on the contrary, be may only have defeated the army of the nation, and that beyond its own frontier. The Punt, a people of Arabia, the Kufa, supposed to be of Cyprus, and the Ruten, a people of the Euphrates or Tigris, thus confessed the power of Thothmes ; and the monuments at Thebes are rich in delinea tions of the elephants and bears, camelopards and asses, the ebony, ivory, gold, and silver, which they brought for tribute. Very beautiful speci mens of ancient Egyptian painting belong to the time of this king ; indeed, his reign, with that of Thothmes II. preceding it, and those of Amenoph II., Thothmes IV. (whose name is borne by the sphinx at the Pyramids), and Amenoph III. fol lowing it, may be considered as comprising the best period of Egyptian art ; all the earlier time sheaving a gradual improvement, and all the later a gradual declension. In the reign of Thothmes IV., accord ing to Manetho, the Shepherds took their final de parture. The conquests of Amenoph III. were also very extensive ; traces of his power are found in various parts of Ethiopia. From his features, he seems to have been partly of Ethiopian origin. His long reign of nearly forty years was marked by the construction of magnificent temples. Of these, the greatest were two at Thebes ; one on the west bank, of which little remains but the two great colossi that stood on each side of the approach to it, and one of which is known as the vocal Mem non. He likewise built, on the opposite bank, the great temple, now called that of El-Uksor, which Rameses II. afterwards much enlarged The tomb of this king yet remains at Thebes. For a period of about thirty years after the reign of Amenoph III., Egypt was disturbed by the rule of stranger kings, who abandoned the national reli gion, and introduced a pure sun-worship. It is not known from whence they came, but they were regarded by the Egyptians as usurpers, and the monuments of them are defaced or ruined by those who overthrew them. Sir G. Wilkinson supposes that Amenoph III. may have belonged to their race ; but if so, we must date the commencement of their rule from the end of his reign, as then began that change of the state religion which was the great peculiarity of the foreign domination. How or when the sun-worsbippers were destroyed or expel led from Egypt, does not appear. Horns, or Har em-heb, who succeeded them, was probably the prince by whom they were overthrown. He was a son of Amenoph III., and continued the line of Diospolite sovereigns. The records of his reign are not important ; but the sculptures at Silsilis com memorate a successful expedition against the ne groes. Horns was succeeded by Rameses I., with whom commences the 19th dynasty, about B. C. i324. His tomb at Thebes marks the new dyn asty, by being in a different locality from that of Amenoph III., and being the first in the valley thenceforward set apart as the cemetery of the Theban kings. After a short and unimportant reign, be was succeeded by his son Sethee I. He is known by the magnificent hypostyle hall in the great temple of El-Karnak, which he built, and on the outside of the north wall of which are sculp tured the achievements of his arms. His tomb, cruelly defaced by travellers, is the most beautiful in the Valley of the Kings, and spews that his reign must have been a long one, as the sepulchre of an Egyptian king was commenced about the time of his accession, and thus indicated the length of his reign. He conquered the Kheta, or Hittites, and took their stronghold Ketesh, now held to be Emesa, on or near the Orontes. His son Rameses II., who was probably for some time associated with him in the throne, became the most illustrious of the ancient kings of Egypt. It is he who is gene rally intended by the Sesostris of classic writers. He built the temple which is erroneously called the Memnonium, but properly the Rameseum of El-Kurneh, on the western bank of the Nile, one of the most beautiful of Egyptian monuments, and a great part of that of El-Uksor, on the opposite hank, as well as additions to that of El-Karnak. Throughout Egypt and Nubia, are similar memo rials of the power of Rameses IL, one of the most remarkable of which is the great rock-temple of Alarm Simbel, not far north of the second cataract. The temple of Ptah, at Memphis, was also adorned by this Pharaoh, and its site is chiefly marked by a very beautiful colossal statue of him, fallen on its face, and partly mutilated, belonging to this country, but left there to be burnt for lime by the Turks. Numerous monuments celebrate his wars with the Kheta, whom he reduced to tribute, and with many other nations. He was succeeded by Meneptah. The head of the loth dynasty, per haps, was Sethee II., who was probably the son of Meneptah. The monuments tell us little of him or of his successor Merer-ra, who was followed by his son Rameses III., who may have been head of the 20th dynasty. With that sovereign the glories of the Theban line revived, and a series of great victories by land and sea raised Egypt to the place which it had held under Rameses II. He built the temple of Medeenet-Haboo, on the western bank at Thebes, the walls of which are covered with scenes representing his exploits. Among his vanquished enemies were a nation whom Mr. Poole connects with the Cherethim of Scripture, and identifies with the Cretans ; and the Pelesatu, or the Philistines. Several kings, bear ing the name of Rameses, succeeded this monarch, but their tombs alone remain. At the close of the reign of the last Rameses the supreme power fell into the hands of a ruler of the 21st dynasty, and of military Pontiffs, of whom, however, but few re cords remain. It was during the reign of a king of this age that Hadad, being yet a little child,' fled from the slaughter of the Edomites by David, and took refuge, together with `certain Edomites of his father's servants,' at the court of Pharaoh, who 'gave him to wife the sister of his own wife, the sister of Tahpenes the Queen,' r Kings xi. 17 i9. The 22d dynasty was of Bubastite kings ; the name of one of them has been found among the sculptured remains of the temples of Bubastis, they were probably not of unmixed Egyptian origin, and may have been partly of Assyrian or Babylonian race. The first king was Sheshonk I., the con temporary of Solomon, and in his reign it was that ' Jeroboam arose and fled into Egypt unto Shishak King of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon,' t Kings xi. 40. In the 5th year of Rehoboam, Sheshonk invaded Juda with an army of which it is said the people were without num ber that came with him out of Egypt, the Lubims, the Sukkiims, and the Ethiopians'—and that having taken the fenced cities' of Judah, he `came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house,' and ' the shields of gold which Solomon had made.' The record of this campaign,' says Sir G. Wilkinson, ' which still remains on the outside of the great temple of Karnak, bears an additional in terest from the name of Ylida-Illelehi (kingdom of Judah), first discovered by Champollion in the long list of captured districts and towns put up by Shes honk to commemorate his success.' The next king, Osorkon I., is supposed by some to have been the Zerah whom Asa defeated (2 Chron. xiv. 9) ; but, according to others, Zerah was a king of Asiatic Ethiopia ; of the other kings of this dynasty we know scarcely more than the names. It was followed by the 23d dynasty of Tanite kings, so called from Tanis, the Zoan of Scripture. They appear to have been of the same race as their predecessors. Bocchoris the Wise, a Saite, cele brated as a lawgiver, was the only king of the 24th dynasty. He is said to have been burnt alive by Sabaco the Ethiopian, the first king of the 25th or Ethiopian dynasty. It is not certain which of the Sabacos—Shebek, or his successor She betok—corresponded to the So or Seva of the Bible, who made a treaty with Hoshea, which, as it involved a refusal of his tribute to Shalmaneser, caused the taking of Samaria, arid the captivity of the ten tribes. The last king of this dynasty was Tirhakah, or Tehrak, who advanced against Sen nacherib to support Hezekiah, King of Judah. It does not appear whether he met the Assyrian army, but it seems certain that its miraculous destruction occurred before any engagement had been fought between the rival forces. Perhaps Tirhalcah availed himself of this opportunity to restore the supremacy of Egypt west of the Euphrates. With him the 25th dynasty closed. It was succeeded by the 26th, of Saite kings. The first sovereign of im portance was Psammetichus, or Psametik I., who, according to Herodotus, had previously been one of a dodecarchy which had ruled Egypt. Rawlin son finds in Assyrian history traces of a dodecarchy before Psammetichus. This portion of the history is obscure. Psammetichus carried on a war in Palestine, and is said to have taken Ashdod or Azotus, i.e., according to Wilkinson, Shedeed `the strong,' after a siege of 29 years. It was probably held by an Assyrian garrison, for a Tartan, or gene ral of the Assyrian king, had captured it apparently when garrisoned by Egyptians and Ethiopians in the preceding century, Is. xx. Psammetichus was succeeded by his son Neku, the Pharaoh-Necho of Scripture, in the year s.c. 610. In his first year he advanced to Palestine, marching along the sea coast on his way to Carchemish on the Euphrates, and was met by Josiah, king of Judah, whom he slew at Megiddo. Neku was probably successful in his enterprise, and on his return deposed Jeho ahaz, the son of Josiah, and set up Jehoiskim in his stead. He apparently wished by this expedi tion to strike a blow at the failing power of the Assyrians, whose capital was shortly after taken by the combined forces of the Babylonians and Medes. The army, however, which was stationed on the Euphrates by Neku met with a signal disaster three years afterwards, being routed by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish (Jer. xlvi. 2). The king of Baby lon seems to have followed up his success, as we are told, 2 Kings xxiv. 7, that the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land, for the king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt.' Neku either commenced a canal to connect the Nile and the Red Sea, or else at tempted to clear one previously cut by Rameses II. ; in either case the work was not completed. The next sovereign of note was Ualiphrall, called Pharaoh-Hophra in the Bible, and, by Herodotus, Apries. He took Gaza and Sidon, and defeated the king of Tyre in a sea-fight, He also worsted the Cyprians. Having thus restored the power of Egypt, he succoured Zedekiah, king of Judah, and when Jerusalem was besieged, obliged the Chal dmans to retire ( Jer. xxxvii. 5, 7, II). He was so elated by these successes, that he thought not even a God could overthrow him.' In Ezek. xxix. 3, he is called 'the great dragon (i.e., crocodile ?) that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which bath said my river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.' At last, however, Amasis, who had been crowned in a military revolt, took him prisoner and strangled him, so that the words of Jeremiah were fulfilled, I will give Pharaoh-Hophra, king of Egypt, into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of them that seek his life,' Jer. xliv. 30. There seems little doubt that at the time of this rebellion, and proba bly in conjunction with the advance of Amasis, Egypt was invaded and desolated by Nebuchad nezzar. The remarkable prophecies, however, in Ezekiel xxix.–xxxi. may refer for the most part to the invasion of Cambyses, and also to the revolt of Inarus under Artaxerxes. Amasis or Aah-mes reigned nearly so years ; he was succeeded by his son Psammenitus, held to be the Psametik III. of the monuments B.C. 525. Shortly after his acces sion this king was attacked by Cambyses, who took Pelusium, or ` Sin, the strength of Egypt,' and Memphis, and subsequently put Psammenitus to death. With Cambyses began the 27th dynasty of Persians, and Egypt became a Persian province, governed by a satrap. The conduct of Darius Hystaspis to the Egyptians was favourable, and be caused the temples to be adorned with additional sculptures. The large temple in the Great Oasis was principally built by him, and in it is found his name, with the same honorary titles as the ancient kings.