all begin that very night to do
something for the Egyptian children. Hugh and Lucy said so, and we all
felt it.

CHAPTER VII.

HELIOPOLIS, AND OTHER SIGHTS AND SCENES.

The next morning we set off for Heliopolis.

Heliopolis, or the "City of the Sun," is the same which is called "On"
in the Bible. Joseph's wife came from On, where her father was a man of
wealth and importance.

The ride from Cairo to Heliopolis is delightful. We went across the edge
of the desert, and on our way were struck by a solitary dome marking a
tomb. This is the tomb of Saladin's brother, Malek Adhel, to whom
Richard Coeur de Lion wished to marry his sister Matilda.

[Illustration: ARAB SITTING IN FRONT OF HIS TENT.]

Beyond this our road lay through green fields and shady avenues of
acacias. The air was filled with a delicious perfume and with the
humming of the wild bees. We saw Arabs, with bare legs and turbaned
heads, tilling the ground, oxen treading out the corn, long strings of
camels and asses bringing home provender.

It was, indeed, a living Bible picture.

The land of Goshen was opening before us. We were looking at the same
scenes among which Joseph and his brethren had moved. The strings of
asses laden with corn were like the strings of asses which Joseph's
brethren had taken back laden to their dear father in Canaan.

It was a solemn feeling to be treading the very ground, and looking at
the very fields over which the patriarchs once trod.

A village called Matarieh stands near where the city of Heliopolis once
stood. Here a sycamore was shown to us under which Joseph and the Virgin
Mary and Infant Saviour are said to have rested when they fled into
Egypt from King Herod. The gardens of Matarieh were in former times
famed for their balsams. They were first brought from Judea, and were of
the same species as trees from which was made the "Balm of Gilead" that
we read of in the Bible.

Heliopolis, the "City of the Sun," was so called because in ancient
times there was a magnificent temple in it which was dedicated to the
sun. Besides the temple of the sun, there was in Heliopolis another
temple, dedicated to the bull Mnevis.

Cambyses, a king of Persia, took the city about five hundred years
before the birth of our Lord. He burnt the temples and destroyed the
palaces. Some of the obelisks escaped, and were afterwards taken to Rome
and Alexandria. One is still left. It is about sixty-five feet high.

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