naturalists, has probably not been equalled in any other department of natural science. Only a few quests, such as that for the eggs of the birds of paradise, have baffled the perseverance of collectors. The high prices paid for some treasures-e.g. the eggs of the great auk (£225 was paid for one in 1888) are only surpassed by those of some mollusc shells. This so-called sub-science of 'oölogy' has not, of course, been prosecuted without results of interest both in regard to the classification and general life of birds, but inquiry has largely passed from the collection and contemplation of egg-shells to the investigation of the embryo, and the deeper penetration has been richly rewarded. For some further particulars as to the egg-trade, imports of eggs into Britain, &c., see POULTRY.

Brewer, North American Oölogy (Washington, 1859); Cassell's Book of Birds; Hewitson, Coloured Illustrations of the Eggs of British Birds (3d. ed. Lond. 1856); Lucas, Trans. Roy. Soc. Victoria, xxiv. (1888); M'Aldowie, Jour. Anat. Phys. xx. (1886); Newton, article 'Birds,' Encyclo. Brit.; Sorby, Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond. 1875); Carus Sterne (Ernst Krause), Werden und Vergehen (3d. ed. Berlin, 1886); Thienemann, Fortpflanzungsgeschichte der gesammten Vögel (Leip. 1845-56); Wolley, Ootheca Wolleyana (Lond. 1864). See articles AUK, EIDER,

OSTRICH, &c.

Egg. See EIGG.

Egga, a trading town of Upper Guinea, in the kingdom of Gando, on the Niger, with a pop. of 10,000 to 15,000. Pottery, iron, gold, and wooden wares, thick cloth, generally dyed blue, and leather are manufactured, and an active river trade is carried on, especially in ivory.

Eggar Moth, the name of certain species of moth, of the genus Lasiocampa or Gastropacha, allied to the silkworm moths. The Oak Eggar (L. or G. quercus) is common in England, of a chestnut to yellow colour, with a black caterpillar. The males are said to be readily decoyed by a captive female. The Lappet Moth (G. quercifolia) is another well-known species, less frequent in Britain. The Lackey Moth (G. or Clisiocampa neustria) is a smaller form, with gorgeous blue, red, and yellow striped, gregarious caterpillars.

Egg-plant (Solanum melongena), a species of Solanaceae, a native of Northern Africa, whose plant grows to a height of two feet; in Britain it is a greenhouse annual. The egg-like fruit known as Egg-apple, Aubergine, &c., is a favourite article of food in the East Indies, and has thence been introduced to most warm countries. It varies in size from that of a hen's egg to that of a swan's egg, or larger, in colour from white or yellow to violet. Egg-plants are much grown in the United States, where Jew's-apple' is one of the names for the fruit.

.

Eginhard, or EINHARD, the biographer of Charlemagne, was born in Mainyau, in East Franconia, about 770, and on account of his ability was sent at an early age to the court of Charlemagne, where he became a pupil of Alcuin, and ere long a favourite of the emperor, who appointed him superintendent of public buildings. His artistic skill earned him the scriptural name of Bezaleel (Exod. xxxi. 2), and to him have been ascribed the building of the bridge at Mainz, the royal palaces at Ingelheim and Aixla-Chapelle, and the basilica in the latter city. Eginhard accompanied the emperor in all his marches and journeys, never separating from him except on one occasion, when he was despatched on a mission to Pope Leo. Louis, the successor of Charlemagne, continued his father's favour to Eginhard, and appointed him preceptor of his own son Lothair. For years afterwards he was lay abbot of various monasteries, but ultimately becoming tired of court life, he retired with his wife Emma to the secluded town of Mühlheim, the name of which he changed into Seligenstadt, having built a church there to contain the bones of St Marcellinus and St Peter. Here he died, 14th March 840, and was buried beside his wife, who had died four years before. The two coffins now shown in the chapel of the castle at Erbach, the counts of which trace their descent from Eginhard.

are

His Vita Caroli Magni, completed about the year 820, with respect to plan and execution, as well as language, and style, is incontestably the most important historical work of a biographical character that has come down to us from the middle ages. It was frequently used as a schoolbook, and was therefore copied ad infinitum. The best editions are those of Jaffé (1876) and Holder (1882). An English translation by W. Glaister appeared in 1877. Of Eginhard's valuable Epistola, sixty-two in number, the French edition of his works by Teulet, with a translation and life (1848), is the best and most complete. Eginhard's Annales Francorum embraces the period from 741 to 829. A fine legend, unhappily without foundation, makes Eginhard's wife Emma a daughter of Charlemagne. A mutual affection had arisen between them, and once when the lovers had met secretly by night, a sudden fall of snow covered the spacious court, thus rendering retreat impossible without leading to a discovery. A woman's footprints could not excite suspicion, so Emma carried her lover across the court on her back. This scene was observed from a window by Charlemagne, who united the affectionate pair in marriage. On this legend Fouqué founded his play of Eginhard and Emma, and Longfellow has made it the subject of one of the Tales of a Wayside Inn. See Varn

EGLANTINE

hagen's monograph on the sources of those tales (Berlin, 1884), and Bacha's Étude (Paris, 1888).

Eglantine, the old and poetic name of the Sweet Briar (Rosa rubiginosa), is also sometimes applied to other of the smaller-flowered species of roseeg. Rosa lutea. The earlier English poets seem to have given the name to any wild rose: Shakespeare means by it sweet briar; Milton seems to confound several quite distinct plants (honeysuckle, &c.) under this name; which has of late been bestowed on the Australian hardy evergreen Rubus eglanteria.

Eglinton and Winton, ARCHIBALD WILLIAM MONTGOMERIE, EARL OF, K.T., twice Lord. lieutenant of Ireland, was born at Palermo in 1812. By male descent a Seton, he was also the representative of the Anglo-Norman family of Montgomerie, one of whose members settled at Eaglesham, in Renfrewshire, about 1157. Alexander de Montgomerie, lord of that ilk, was created baron of parliament about 1455, and the family was further ennobled by the creation of Hugh, Lord Montgomerie, as Earl of Eglinton in 1506. The direct male line of the Earls of Eglinton terminated in Hugh, the fifth earl, who died in 1612, when his titles and estates passed to Sir Alexander Seton, third son of the daughter of Hugh, third Earl of Eglinton,

a

In

who married Robert, first Earl of Winton. 1840 Lord Eglinton was served heir-male of George, fourth Earl of Winton, a title which had been forfeited on account of the participation of the fifth earl in the rebellion of 1715. This forfeiture, according to law, affected all heirs entitled to succeed under the same substitution with the

forfeited earl, but these being extinct, it could not affect the right of a collateral heir, which Lord Eglinton was. He therefore assumed the title of Earl of Winton, which was confirmed to him by patent in 1859, giving him that dignity in the peerage of the United Kingdom. He was a wellknown patron of the turf and field-sports, and his name is associated with a splendid reproduction of a medieval Tournament (q.v.), which he gave at Eglinton Castle in 1839. Amongst the knights there was Prince Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon III. Lord Eglinton, who was at various times Lord-lieutenant of Ayrshire, Lord Rector, and Dean of the Faculty of Glasgow University, &c., died 4th October 1861. See Sir William Fraser's Memorials of the Montgomeries (2 vols. 1859).

Egmont, LAMORAL, COUNT OF, PRINCE OF GAVRE, was born in the castle of La Hamaide, in Hainault, in 1522, and inherited his property and titles on the death of his elder brother Charles. He accompanied Charles V. on his expedition against Algiers in 1541 and in all his later campaigns, married with great splendour the sister of the Elector Palatine at Spires in 1545, was invested with the Golden Fleece, and in 1554 was sent to England in an embassy to ask for Philip the hand of Mary. He led the cavalry with brilliant courage at St Quentin (1557), and next year at Gravelines, for which he was nominated by Philip governor of Flanders and Artois. He now entered into alliance with the party in the Netherlands that were dissatisfied with the Catholic

policy of Philip, and from a courtier became all at once a hero of the people. His proud, imperious character, however, and his subsequent conduct, have led some historians to suppose that in this he was less actuated by high motives than by selfinterest, or at least by disappointed ambition. Yet the more common opinion is, that he was a humane and virtuous patriot, who, although indifferent to Protestantism as a religion, was anxious to do justice to all the members of that oppressed

faith. When Margaret, Duchess of Parma, against the will of the Protestant party, was made regent of the Netherlands, Egmont and the Prince of Orange entered the council of state, and held the command of the few Spanish troops. At first he sided with the party who were discontented with the infringement of the liberties of the provinces and the introduction of the Inquisition; but when insurrections took place, he at last broke with the patriotic Prince of Orange and the 'Beggars' League,' as it was called. He seemed to have restored order, and to be maintaining it, when, in April 1567, the Duke of Alva was sent as lieuOrange and other chiefs of the insurrection left the tenant-general to the Netherlands. The Prince of country; Egmont, wishing to save his private proof the court had secured his safety. When Alva perty, remained, thinking his return to the policy entered Brussels, 22d August, Egmont went to meet him, and sought to secure his favour by presents. suddenly, after a sitting of the council, he and He appeared to have gained his confidence, when Count Horn were treacherously seized, and carried to the citadel of Ghent. The states of Brabant sought to withdraw Egmont from the Bloody Tribunal, as it was called, instituted by Alva, and Egmont himself, as a knight of the Golden Fleece, denied its competency. But neither this nor the pleading of his wife-the mother of eleven children -could move the stony heart of Alva. Egmont was charged with over eighty counts of accusaincompetency of the court, and thus left many tion; and as he persisted in protesting against the points unanswered, he was held guilty of contumacy, and along with Count Horn, condemned to death. although Egmont hoped for pardon to the last, On the following day, June 5, 1568, and intercession was made for him from the highest quarters, they were both beheaded in the market

place of Brussels. He met his death with the most

heroic courage. All his faults were forgotten in the cruel injustice of his fate, and his memory has the patriot and the martyr. A monument to him gone down into history glorified with the aureole of memorial is Goethe's noble tragedy. was erected at Brussels in 1865; a more enduring

See Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, Duchesse de Parma (1842), and Correspondance de Philippe II. sur les Affaires des Pays-Bas (1848-52); Juste, Le Comte d'Egmont et le Comte de Hornes (1862); and Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic.

Egoism (Fr. égoisme; Lat. ego, 'I'), an ethical term used in the sense of selfishness; it is specially opposed to Altruism (q.v., and see ETHICS). The word is sometimes used to denote a metaphysical system of subjective idealism, in which the Ego is the sole reality (see FICHTE).-Egotism, also derived from Lat. ego, is used rather in the sense of self-conceit, a tendency to refer constantly to one's self, and quote one's own authority.

the river Eden, 6 miles SE. of Whitehaven, whither Egremont, a market-town of Cumberland, on it sends by rail the iron ore mined in the neighbourhood. On an eminence to the west stand the ruins of Egremont Castle, the legend of whose horn forms the subject of a poem by Wordsworth. From 1749 till 1845 Egremont gave the title of Earl to the Wyndham family. Pop. (1881) 5976; (1891) 6273. Egret. See HERON.

Egypt, a country in North-east Africa, extending from the Mediterranean to the first cataract of the Nile at Assouân, from 24° 6' to 31° 36′ N. lat. The name is derived from the Greek Aigyptos, perhaps a transliteration of Hakeptah, the city of Ptah-i.e. Memphis, or formed from the Sanskrit root gup, to guard,' as agupta, guarded about.' In Hieroglyphics and Coptic, it was called Kemi

(Black Land), from the colour of the soil; and by the Hebrews Mazor, guarded' or 'fortified' (in the singular-i.e. Lower Egypt), or Mizraim (in the dual-i.e. Upper and Lower Egypt, but also used as a singular), modified by the Assyrians into Musr, and by the Persians into Mudraya. The name is still preserved in the Arabic Misr (vulgarly Masr), a word applied alike to the country and its capital, Cairo. Egypt is literally, what Herodotus termed it, the gift of the Nile,' doron tou potamon; for it extends only so far as the annual inundation of the river spreads its layer of alluvial sediment, brought down from the washing of the Abyssinian mountains, turning the barren rock into cultivable soil, and then retreating to its normal limits, leaving the rich deposit to the influences of sun and air and human labour. Geologically and ethnologically, Egypt is confined to the bed of the flooded Nile, a groove worn by water in the desert; and the bordering deserts and the southern provinces of Nubia, Khartoum and the rest, towards the equator form no part of the Egypt of nature or of history, though from time to time they have been politically joined to it.

a

Thus limited, Egypt occupies little more than 11,000 sq. m., or about a third of the area of Ireland. The Nile after breaking through the rocky barrier at Assouân, pursues a northerly course, varied by only one considerable bend near Thebes, until, a few miles north of Cairo (30° 15' N. lat.), it divides into two main streams, terminating in the Rosetta and Damietta mouths, through which, after course of 3300 miles, it pours during 'high Nile' some seven hundred thousand million cubit metres daily into the Mediterranean Sea. The other five mouths which existed in antiquity have silted up; and the triangular or A-shaped district inclosed by them, and supposed by the ancients to have been recovered from the sea, formed the Delta, now called Lower Egypt. The basin of the Nile is bounded by the smooth rounded ranges of the Arabian hills (which, like the so-called Arabian desert, are not in the Arabian peninsula, but in Egypt, between the Nile and the Red Sea) on the east, and the Libyan on the west, neither rising as a rule higher than 300 feet above the sea-level, though in rare cases, as near Thebes, the eastern hills attain an altitude of 1200. The general appearance of the valley is thus described: In the centre the brown-toned river, turning reddish when swollen by the rains of the inundation; higher up on either side, but chiefly on the western, the bright green fields of waving corn, or beans, or lupin; then a border, still higher, of dusky barren rock; and then the slopes of the deserts the long red and yellow and gray ridges of sand and limestone rock, generally low and tame in outline, and lying at some distance back from the river, but sometimes closing even to the very bank in bold headlands, scored by torrentbeds where water rarely flows, and then shearing away to the distance of several miles, and leaving a wide level plain of cultivable land' (Lane-Poole, Egypt). One great physical peculiarity of Egypt is the general absence of rain; occasional showers have indeed become more frequent of late years, but the land still depends for irrigation upon the annual overflow of the Nile. The climate is remarkably mild, especially south of the Delta and in the desert; from Cairo to Alexandria the air contains more moisture and is less salubrious, while the Mediterranean coast is subject to rain, and infected by the belt of salt-marshes. thing in the Egyptian climate proceeds with regularity, even the winds. From June till February cool northerly winds prevail, the Etesian breezes that waft the traveller's dahabîya up the Nile; then till June comes a period of easterly, or, still worse, hot southerly sand-winds called the Khamasin, or Fifties' (as blowing fifty days).

་

Every

The simoom is a violent sand-wind, commoner in the desert than in the valley, but rare anywhere. Earthquakes are occasionally felt; and the temperature in winter in the shade averages 50° to 60° F., and in the heat of summer 90° to 100° in Lower Egypt, 10° higher in the upper valley. The most remarkable phenomenon is the regular increase of the Nile, fed by the fall of the tropical rains, which commence in 11° N. lat. in the spring, and falling first into the White, and then into the Blue Nile, reach Egypt in the middle, and the Delta at the end, of June. In the middle of July the red water appears, and the rise may be dated from that time; it attains its maximum (an average rise of 36 feet at Thebes, of 25 at Cairo) at the end of September, and begins to decline visibly in the middle of October, loses half its height by January, and subsides to its minimum in April. By the end of November, the irrigated land, over which the water has been carefully equalised by drains and embankments, has dried and is sown; soon it is covered with green crops, which are reaped in March. The state of the Nile, in fact, marks the season more accurately than the variation of temperature. Except in the dry air of the valley and desert, Egypt is by no means remarkably healthy; in addition to occasional visitations of plague and cholera, ophthalmia, diarrhoea, dysentery, and boils prevail, and European and even Nigritic races are with difficulty acclimatised. With prudent modifications of our modes of life, however, English people, even young children, thrive well in most parts, and for certain classes of invalids, for instance consumptives, the desert air is wonderfully recuperative.

Geology.-Egypt is separated from Nubia by a low hilly region about 50 miles broad from north to south, composed of granitic rocks. The same crystalline rocks extend up the shore of the Red Sea to near the opening of the Gulf of Suez, stretching inland for fully 30 miles. The scenery in this district is wild and rude, and the course of the Nile is frequently interrupted by cliffs and broken masses of granite, which form striking cataracts. The granitic region terminates at Assouân, the ancient Syene, whence most of the materials for the colossal monuments of Egypt were procured. The Arabian and Libyan ranges, on the right and left of the river, are alike composed of cretaceous strata, the predominant rock being sandstone, which is durable and easily worked, and was therefore extensively used in the erection of ancient temples, pyramids, and tombs. The cretaceous sandstone extends from the granitic rocks forming the first cataract at Assouân for about 85 miles to Esné, where it is covered by a limestone belonging to the upper chalk series. This continues on both sides of the valley for about 130 miles, when it is covered by a tertiary nummulite limestone, which forms the further prolongation northward of both ranges of hills. The easy disintegration of these beds renders the scenery in the limestone districts tame and monotonous; frequent tablelands occur, on one of which are built the three pyramids of Gizeh (q.v.), the material employed being the predominant limestone.

Over a large extent of Egypt these rocks are covered with moving desert sands, and in the flat lands bordering the Nile they are coated to a depth of about 30 feet (at the river's bank, thinning away towards the desert) with the alluvium brought down by its waters, which has formed the Delta at its mouth. This alluvium consists of an argillaceous earth or loam, more or less mixed with sand, and a quartzose sand probably derived from the adjacent deserts by violent winds. It is remarkable that this sedimentary deposit has no traces of stratification, and also that within short

233

distances great variety is observed in what are apparently synchronous deposits. The increase of the deposit is estimated at about 4 inches in a century. The rocks of Egypt afforded the stones used in its edifices and sculptures; granite, syenite, basalt (from Assouân), breccia diorite, verde antique, and fine red porphyry (from the mountains in the Arabian desert), sandstone and limestone (from the hills bordering the Nile), and alabaster (from Tell-el-Amârina). Emeralds, gold, silver, and copper, were formerly found near the Red Sea; and salt, natron, and-since 1850-sulphur are still among the mineral products of Egypt.

Natural History.-The signal peculiarity of the vegetation of the Nile Valley is the absence of woods and forests. Even clumps of trees (except palms) are rare, though some have been recently planted. The Pharaohs got their timber chiefly from the Lebanon, and modern Egypt is supplied from the forests of Asia Minor. The date and the doom palm, the sycamore, acacia, tamarisk, and willow are the commonest trees; the myrtle, elm, and cypress are rarer; the mulberry belongs to Lower Egypt. Among fruit-trees, the vine, fig, pomegranate, orange, and lemon abound; apricots, peaches, and plums are of poor flavour; Indian figs (prickly pears) and bananas have been naturalised; and water-melons are at once the meat and drink of the people in the hot days. Of flowers, the celebrated lotus, or water-lily, has supplied many ideas to Egyptian architects."

The lack of jungle or cover of any sort accounts for the poverty of the Egyptian fauna. The hyæna, jackal, wolf, fox, hare, rabbit, jerboa, lynx, ichneumon, and weasel are common enough; the antelope is the chief quarry; the wild ass and wild cat are almost extinct; and the crocodile, like the hippopotamus, scared by European rifles, is beating a retreat to the tropics. The ordinary beasts of burden are the ass and camel; the latter is always one-humped, and, like the draught buffalo and the horse, is an importation unknown to the ancient Egyptians prior to the 18th dynasty. The shorthorned cattle, famous from the time of the Pharaohs, are seldom killed by the natives, and mutton is the staple butcher-meat in Egypt; goats also are common. The dog is considered unclean by Mohammedans, and is used merely as a scavenger and watch-dog. Of domestic birds, water-fowl were anciently the most numerous, and still abound; the small gallinaceous poultry we now see are probably not of older date than the Persian invasion. Pigeons have always been abundant. There are three or four varieties of vulture; eagles, falcons, hawks, and kites are common, as is also the Ibis (q.v.), conjecturally identified with the sacred ibis of which many fables have been related. The ostrich is sometimes seen in the desert. Of reptiles, besides the vanishing crocodile, lesser saurians-chameleons and lizardsabound. The trionyx, or soft tortoise, is plentiful in the Nile. Serpents are numerous, and among these the dreaded cobra and the Cerastes (q.v.). The Nile is full of fish, generally of rather poor flavour the best are the binny (see BARBEL), the bulty, the latus (one of the perch family), and the bayad or silurus. The Sacred Beetle (Scarabæus sacer) is one of the most remarkable insects. The scorpion's sting is sometimes fatal, and dangerous spiders (solpuga, erroneously called tarantulas by Europeans), to say nothing of minor insect pests, and locusts, remind us that the Plagues of Egypt are not merely ancient history.

Egypt is essentially an agricultural country, and in some parts, by the aid of regulated artificial irrigation, the rich alluvial deposit will bear three crops in the year. Wheat is the chief cereal; but

barley, maize, durra, beans, lentils, clover, &c. are also largely grown, with very little trouble beyond the management of the water. The extensive culture of papyrus, which anciently supplied material for paper, has in modern times been superseded by that of the sugar-cane, cotton, indigo, and tobacco. Divisions. In ancient as in modern times Egypt was always divided into the Upper and the Lower, or the Southern and the Northern, country; and at a very early period it was further subdivided into a number of nomes, or departments, varying in different ages; forty-two was probably the usual number. A third great division, the Heptanomis, or seven nomes, preserved in the modern Middle Egypt' (Wustani), was introduced at the time of the geographer Ptolemy. Each nome or department had a separate local municipal government of а nomarch or lieutenant-governor, besides governors of the cities and of the temples, scribes, judges, and other functionaries. Its limits were measured and defined by landmarks. In the 5th century A.D. Egypt was divided into Augusta Prima and Secunda on the east, and Egyptiaca on the west, Arcadia (the Heptanomis), Thebais Proxima as far as Panopolis, and Thebais Supra to Philæ. Under the Mohammedans, the triple division into Misr el-Bahri (Lower Egypt), el-Wustâni (Middle), and es-Sa'id (Upper) has prevailed, but the number of subdivisions has varied; at present there are altogether thirteen provinces, of which half are in the Delta. For the divisions of the territory outside Egypt proper, annexed in 1876, and abandoned in 1885, extending as far south as the Victoria Nyanza, see SOUDAN.

The population of the country must have been large at the earliest period, as 100,000 men were employed in the construction of the Great Pyramid alone during the 4th dynasty, nearly 3600 years B.C. It has been placed at 7,000,000 under the Pharaohs, distributed in 1800 towns, which had increased to 2000 under Amasis (525 B.C.), and upwards of 3000 under the Ptolemies. In the reign of Nero it amounted to 7,800,000. The population in 1844 was 2,500,000; in 1859, 5,125,000; and in 1882, 6,817,265 in Egypt proper, or including Nubia, Dar-Fûr, and other dependencies, nearly 17,000,000. Seven-eighths of the inhabitants consist of native Mohammedans; the Copts (q.v.) are estimated at 300,000, and the rest are composed of Bedawis (Bedouins), Negroes, Abyssinians, Turks, Syrians, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Europeans. The dominant population appears, from the language, and from the physical conformation of the mummies, to have been of mixed origin, part Asiatic and part Nigritic; and there seems to have been an aboriginal race of copper colour, with rather thin legs, large feet, high cheek-bones, and large lips; both types are represented on the monuments. The statements of Greek writers that a system of castes prevailed in Egypt are erroneous. What they took for castes were really conditions of society, and the different classes not only intermarried, but even, as in the case of priests and soldiers, held both employments. As in all bureaucracies, the sons often obtained the same employments as their fathers.

Religion. The Egyptian religion was a philosophical pantheism, the various attributes of the Deity being divided amongst the different gods of the Pantheon. Unlike the Greek, where a god was honoured in a separate temple, each Egyptian divinity was accompanied by a put or company of companion-gods. The principal nomes and cities had each a family group of gods, consisting of a parent deity, a wife and sister, and a son. Thus Ptah or Hephaestus, the eponymous and principal god of Memphis, formed a triad with the goddess Sekhet (fig. 1) or Bast, and Imhotep; at Thebes

the triad was Amen-ra, Mut, and Khons; and at Apollinopolis Magna, Har-bahud (Horus), Hathor, and Har-pakhrut (Harpocrates). These triads were usually, if not always, accompanied by inferior deities completing the put; and personifications of the elements, passions, and senses were introduced. The worship of some triads, however, became universal-that of Osiris, Isis, and Horus being found all over Egypt at the earliest period. The gods, indeed, are stated by the Greeks to have been divided into three or more orders or systems. The gods of the Memphite order were Ptah, Ra, Shu, Seb, Osiris, Set or Typhon, and Horus; and Amen, Mentu, Atmu, Shu, Seb, Osiris, Set, Horus, and Sebak, according to the Theban system. Difficul

ties arise from the tendency to fuse different gods into one, particularly at a later period: Amen

ra,

Fig. 1.-Sekhet.

for example, being identified with Horus ; and Horus, Ra, Khnum, Mentu, and Tum being merely considered the sun at different periods of his diurnal course. Very little light is thrown on the esoteric nature of the deities by the monuments, and the classical sources are untrustworthy; but the antagonism of good and evil is shown by the opposition of the solar gods and the great serpent Apap, a type of darkness, and the hostility of Osiris and Set or Typhon. Some of the gods were self-existent, others emanated from a father, and some were born of a mother only, while others were the children of greater gods. Their energies and powers differed, and their types, generally with human bodies, have often the heads of the animals which were their living emblems, instead of the human.

A few foreign deities became at the close of the 18th dynasty engrafted into the religious system -as Bar, Baal; Ashtarata, Ashtaroth; Anta, Anaitis; Ken, Kiun; Reshpu, Reseph; Set, or Sutekh, sometimes identified with Baal. All the gods had human passions and affections, and their mode of action was material; they walked on earth, or sailed through ethereal space on boats. First amongst the deities comes Ptah, the opener, represented as a bow-legged dwarf or embryo, the Phoenician Pataikos, the creator of the world, the sun and moon, out of chaos (ha) or matter, to whom belong Sekhet, the lioness,' and Bast, Bubastis, lion-headed goddesses presiding over fire, and Nefer-Tum, his son, a god wearing a lotus on his head. Next in the cosmic order is Khnum-worshipped at Elephantine-the ramheaded god of the liquid element, who also created the matter of which the gods were made; and connected with him are the goddesses Heka the Frog, or primeval formation, Sati, or sunbeam,' and Anuka, alluding to the genesis of the cosmos. The Theban triad comprised Amen-ra (fig. 2), 'the hidden power of the sun,' the Jupiter; Mut, the 'Mother' goddess or Matter,' the Juno; Nit, the Shuttle,' the Minerva; and Khons, 'Force' or Hercules, a lunar type. A subordinate type of Ammon is Khem or Amsu, the enshrined,' who, as Harnekht, or Powerful Horus, unites beginning and end, or cause and effect.

·

The solar system comprises Ra, the Sun, who, traversing the empyreal space of Gates, passes each hour a separate region, and, as he descends behind the west hills of the horizon, becomes Atmu, also a demiurge; while as Mentu he is the rising sun, and as Khepra, a scarab-headed god, the male creative or existent principle; and he is identified with