trained to act as _ciceroni_, and knew
the main outlines of the history of the temple in which they lived.
Menes planned it, Moeris added the northern propylae, Ehampsinitus those
on the west, Psammetichus the south, Asychis those on the east, the most
noteworthy of them all. A native of Memphis, born at the foot of the
pyramids, had been familiar with the names of Menes and Cheops from
childhood; he was consequently apt to attribute to them everything of
importance achieved by the Pharaohs of the old days. Menes had built the
temple, Menes had founded the city, Menes had created the soil on
which the city stood, and preserved it from floods by his dykes. The
thoughtful traveller would assent, for had he not himself observed the
action of the mud; a day's journey from the coast one could not let down
a plummet without drawing it up covered with a blackish slime, a clear
proof that the Nile continued to gain upon the sea. Menes, at all
events, had really existed; but as to Asychis, Moris, Proteus, Pheron,
and most of the characters glibly enumerated by Herodotus, it would be
labour lost to search for their names among the inscriptions; they are
mere puppets of popular romance, some of their names, such as Piraui or
Pruti, being nothing more than epithets employed by the story-tellers to
indicate in general terms the heroes of their tales. We can understand
how strangers, placed at the mercy of their dragoman, were misled by
this, and tempted to transform each title into a man, taking Pruti and
Piraui to be Pharaoh Proteus and Pharaoh Pheron, each of them celebrated
for his fabulous exploits. The guides told Herodotus, and Herodotus
retails to us, as sober historical facts, the remedy employed by this
unhistorical Pheron in order to recover his sight; the adventures of
Paris and Helen at the court of Proteus,* and the droll tricks played by
a thief at the expense of the simple Ehampsinitus.

* Some dragomans identified the Helen of the Homeric legend
with the "foreign Aphrodite" who had a temple in the Tyrian
quarter at Memphis, and who was really a Semitic divinity.

[Illustration: 359.jpg THE STEP PYRAMID SEEN FROM THE GROVE OP PALM
TREES TO THE NORTH OF SAQQARAH]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Haussoullier.

The excursions made by the Greek traveller in the environs of Memphis
were very similar to those taken by modern visitors to Cairo: on the
opposite bank of the Nile there was Heliopo