such, as the inside of this one was covered with the usual hieroglyphics and figures.  It would be a work of little difficulty to open the pyramid to which was attached the little temple I entered, as the figure of a door of stone in the pyramid is to be seen, when inside of the temple, attached to its side.  In view from this place, many other pyramids were in view higher up the river, on the opposite bank, one of them large.  The people of the country called the place I visited, “Meroe” as likewise the whole territory where these ruins are found.  The ruins I have mentioned do not appear ever to have been disturbed.  I doubt not that several remains worth research lie concealed under the rubbish, which here covers a great space of ground.  No other remains of antiquity are visible in this place besides those I have mentioned.  The immediate spot where they stand, and its vicinity backward from the river, is covered by the sand of the Desert, underneath which probably many more lie concealed.

The river Nile has been represented, and I think with justice, as one of the wonders of the world.  I do not consider it as meriting this appellation so much on account of its periodical and regular floods, in which respect it is resembled by several other rivers, as on account of another circumstance, in which, so far as I know, it is without a parallel.

The Nile resembles the path of a good man in a wicked and worthless world.  It runs through a desert—­a dry, barren, hideous desert; on the parts of which adjoining its course it has deposited the richest soil in the world, which it continually waters and nourishes.  This soil has been the source of subsistence to several powerful nations who have established and overthrown mighty kingdoms, and have originated the arts, the religion, the learning and the civilization of the greater part of the ancient world.  These nations, instructors and pupils, have perished; but the remains of their stupendous labors, the pyramids and the temples of Egypt, Nubia, and in the countries now visited for the first time, at least for many ages, by minds capable of appreciating the peoples who erected them, are more than sufficient to excite astonishment and respect for the nations who founded them.  The few in stances that I have mentioned are such as have presented themselves to my notice in sailing up the river, without my having the opportunity to scrutinize them particularly, or time or means to pursue any researches in the vicinity of those I have seen, by which doubtless many more would be discovered.  Some future traveler in these interesting and remote regions, who may have the power and the means to traverse at his leisure the banks and islands I have seen and admired, will, I believe, find his labors rewarded by discoveries which will interest the learned, and gratify the curious.