Two objects of great curiosity are, The Palace of Memnon, and The Temple of Osiris, at Abidos. - Abidos, an inland town of Egypt, between Ptolemais and Diospolis Parva, towards Cyrene, is famous for the Palace of Memnon, and the Temple of Osiris, and inhabited by a colony of Milesians. It was the only one in the country into which the singers and dancers were forbid to enter. This city, reduced to a village under the empire of Augustus, now presents to our view only an heap of ruins, without inhabitants; but to the west of these ruins is still found the celebrated Tomb of Ismandes. The entrance is under a portico sixty feet high, and supported by two rows of massy columns. The immoveable solidity of the edifice, the huge masses which compose it, the hieroglyphics it is loaded with, stamp it as a work of the ancient Egyptians.

Beyond it, is a temple three hundred feet long, and one hundred and fifty-five wide. Upon entering the monument, we meet with an immense hall, the roof of which is supported by twenty-eight columns, sixty feet high, and nineteen in circumference at the base. They are twelve feet distant from each other. The enormous stones that form the ceiling, perfectly joined and incrusted as it were one into the other, offer to the eye nothing but one solid platform of marble, one hundred and twenty-six feet long, and twenty-six wide. The walls are covered with hieroglyphics. Here are seen a multitude of animals, birds, and human figures with pointed caps on their heads, and a piece of stuff hanging down behind, dressed in loose robes, that come down only to the waist. The sculpture, however, is clumsy; and the forms of the body, with the attitudes and proportions of the members, are ill observed. Amongst these we may distinguish some women Buckling their children, and men presenting offerings to them. Here also we meet with the divinities of India.

Monsieur Chevalier, formerly governor of Chanderna-gore, who resided twenty years in that country, carefully visited this monument on his return from Bengal. He remarked here the gods Juggernaut, Gonez, and Vechnon, or Wistnou, such as they are represented in the temples of Indostan.

A great gate opens at the bottom of the first hall, which leads to an apartment, forty-six feet long by twenty-two wide. Six square pillars support the roof of it, and at the angles are the doors of four other chambers, but so choked up with rubbish that they cannot now be entered. The last hall, sixty-four feet long by twenty-four wide, has stairs which form a descent into the subterraneous apartments of this grand edifice.

The Arabs, in searching after treasure, have piled up heaps of earth and rubbish. In the part we are able to penetrate, sculpture and hieroglyphics are discoverable, as in the upper story. The natives say that they correspond exactly with those above ground, and that the columns are as deep in the earth, as they are lofty above ground. It would be dangerous to go far into those vaults; for the air of them is so loaded with a mephitic vapour, that a candle Can scarcely be kept burning in them.

Six lions' heads, placed on the two sides of the temple, serve as spouts to carry off the water. One mounts to the top by a staircase of a very singular structure. It is built with stones incrusted in the wall, and projecting six feet out; so that, being supported only at one end, they appear to be suspended in the air. The walls, the roof, and the columns of this edifice, have suffered nothing from the injuries of time; and did not the hieroglyphics, by being corroded in some places, mark its antiquity, it would appear to have been newly built. The solidity is such, that unless people make a point of destroying it, the building must last a great number of ages. Except the colossal figures, whose heads serve as an ornament to the capitals of the columns, and which are sculptured in re-lievo, the rest of the hieroglyphics which cover the inside are carved in stone.

To the left of this great building we meet with another much smaller, at the bottom of which is a sort of altar. This was probably the sanctuary of the temple of Osiris.