My next visit was to Heliopolis on donkey-back. I was told that it would be a nice ride, but nothing to see except an obelisk when I got there. Notwithstanding this, I felt very desirous of visiting this ancient seat of learning, where Moses had lived and “become learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” Accordingly Ibrahim and I started off. Leaving the citadel and tombs of the Caliphs on my right, I had a pleasant ride of about two hours or so from Cairo through avenues of acacias and tamarisk trees, a large plain covered with a luxuriant growth of sugar-cane, citrons, lemons, oranges, ricinus, cactuses, olive trees and palms. Before reaching the mounds of Heliopolis is a well of fine water on the border of a grove of citrons and palms, and in the midst of these is a venerable old sycamore enclosed by palisades and regarded with veneration by the Copts, as the place where Joseph, Mary and the infant Saviour rested on their flight into Egypt. Although a very aged tree, it cannot be, of course, as old as the legend affirms. It is, however, a very pretty spot, sheltered from the busy hum of life, embowered in citron thickets, which resound with the music of birds, and with tall, waving palm trees, on the trembling branches of which large vultures rock to and fro. I approach the site of Heliopolis on a dead level, and find that it stood formerly on an artificial elevation, overlooking lakes which were fed by canals communicating with the Nile. With what history does this place teem! Here, or in the vicinity, Jeremiah wrote his Lamentations. Thales, Solon, Pythagoras and Plato studied here. From the learned priests of Heliopolis, Plato—who studied here for several years—is believed to have derived the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and of a future state of rewards and punishments. This neighbourhood was probably the scene of the Exodus of the Israelites, and here was the most celebrated university in the world for philosophy and science. It was here that Potipherah, the priest or Prince of On, resided. Here Joseph married his daughter Asenath, who became the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh. Now what do I see? This once famous city of the sun, the Heliopolis of Herodotus and Strabo, the On of Joseph, the Bethshemesh of Jeremiah, the university of the world at that time, with its collection of colleges and temples, avenues of sphinxes and extensive dwellings of the learned priests, dazzling palaces, obelisks and splendid edifices has been almost blotted out, and as I stood there absorbed in thought, and feebly endeavouring to picture to myself this place as it once stood, teeming with life, wealth and power, those beautiful words of Shakespeare, our immortal bard, came floating through my mind as very descriptive of what I now saw—
The cloud-capt towers,
The gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples,
The great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit,
Shall dissolve,
And like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wreck behind.
All was now desolation, if I except the massive foundations of the Temple of the Sun, which are still visible in a few places. The one solitary object that serves to mark this once celebrated city is an obelisk of solid granite, 62 feet high, the last monument of a temple that once vied in magnificence with those of Karnak or Baalbeck, and which has been pointing to the sky from the time of the old monarchy for more than 4,000 years. It bears the name of Osirtesen I. (Joseph’s contemporary), the first great name in Theban history, builder of the older and smaller part of the great temple of Karnak and King of Upper and Lower Egypt, and probably where I then stood looking at, but unable to decipher the hieroglyphics on this obelisk, Joseph and Moses (who had both been admitted to the priest cast) had stood before me. Sic transit gloria mundi.