Syene, (Ezek. xxix. 10,) was a very ancient city, on the southern frontier of Egypt, near the ruins of which is the modern city of Assooar or Aswan. The site of Syene shows some granite columns, and a confused mixture of monuments. "Here," says a celebrated modern geographer, "the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies raised the temples and the palaces which are found hall buried under the drifting sand. Here are the quarries from which the obelisks and colossal statues of the Egyptian temples were dug. And on the polished surface of some of the native rocks are found hieroglyphic sculptured representations of Egyptian deities."
Tahapanes, the same as Tehaphenes, was a large city in the north of Egypt, called by Herodotus the Pelusiac Daphne.—(Jer. ii. 16; Exek. xxx. 18.) Hither many Jews emigrated after the ruin of their country, and took Jeremiah with them.—(Jer. xliii. 7-9.)
The city of the Crocodiles is much dilapidated—many of the stones and building materials having been taken away, to assist in constructing other cities.
Canopus was situated on the western bank of the western branch of the seven-fold Nile. It extended along the bank for five or six miles, and was about the same extent in width, being of a semi-circular form. One of its greatest peculiarities was the magnificence of all its buildings, showing that, like Palmyra, it was inhabited only by persons of great wealth. This city derived its importance, not from trade, like Alexandria, but owed its prosperity to another and more potent cause—a cause which, if existing in this country at the present time, would raise up a magnificent city with even greater rapidity than was ever the case in former times. This charm, which attracted crowds of people from the east and from the west, the north and the south, consisted in its fountains, which possessed, or had the reputation of possessing, the remarkable property of restoring to elderly ladies all the health and beauty with which they had been blessed in the morning of life. They bathed themselves in the waters of the fountains, and the pleasing transformation was supposed to take place. These wonderful baths drew vast numbers to the city of Canopus, and these being almost entirely persons of opulence,
