Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1884 — “The City of the Sun.” [ARTICLE]

“The City of the Sun.”

The ruins of Heliopolis, “The City of the Sun,” which adjoin the present village of Metarijeh, is about five miles distant from Cairo. This famous place is identified as the On of the Bible, where Joseph took the daughter of the priest Potipherah to wife. The site of the once important city is appropriately marked now by the oldest obelisk that has yet been discovered, with the exception of a small one in the necropolis of Memphis. The companion to this existing obelisk (for obelisks are always erected in pairs) passed away over twelve huudred years ago. The two were erected four or five thousand years ago. The remaining one is a shaft sixty-six feet high, of red granite, covered with hyeroglyphics. The metal on the pvramidium on the top has passed away, and the successive inundations of the Nile have piled a good many feet of mud about the monument. At Heliopolis was also the finest Egyptian temple, with one exception, in those Old Testament days—a temple dedicated to the sun. and employing a stall' of priests, menials, custodians, and other attaches, which is said to have numbered no less than 12,913. The Pharaohs were especially proud of their title as “Lords of Heliopolis.” Nearer the modern village are the tree and well of the Virgin. The Virgin’s tree is a decayed sycamore, planted in 1672, allegedly on the site of a previous tree, in the hollow trunk of which Mary had concealed herself and the Divine Child. Not satisfied with well enough, tho people in the vicinity spoil the whole tradition by also avering that a spider spun his web across the opening so as to effectually screen the fugitives. I did not learn whether the spider and his web are still preserved here or not.

The present tree was presented to the Empress Eugenie by the Khedive at the inauguration of the Suez Canal. It is also stated, on pretty good authority, that the balsam shrub, the balm of which the Queen of Sheba presented to King Solomon, once' throve in the vicinity of Heliopolis. The plant has long since ceased to grow hereabout. Cleopatra attempted to reintroduce it, but without success.— Cor. New Orleans Times-Denwcrat.