ed themselves, and
whence they issued in order to re-enter them immediately,
that these forms _ate_ them, or that they _ate_ their own
forms.

[Illustration: 110.jpg SOME FABULOUS BEASTS OF THE EGYPTIAN DESERT. 2]

2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from Champollion's copies, made
from the tombs of Beni-Hassan. To the right is the _sha_,
one of the animals of Sit, and an exact image of the god
with his stiff and arrow-like tail. Next comes the _safir_,
the griffin; and, lastly, we have the serpent-headed _saza_.

Scarcely visible even by glimpses, they were not easily depicted; their
real forms being often unknown, these were approximately conjectured
from their occupations. The character and costume of an archer, or of a
spear-man, were ascribed to such as roamed through Hades, to pierce the
dead with arrows or with javelins. Those who prowled around souls to cut
their throats and hack them to pieces were represented as women armed
with knives, carvers--_donit_--or else as lacerators--_nokit_. Some
appeared in human form; others as animals--bulls or lions, rams or
monkeys, serpents, fish, ibises, hawks; others dwelt in inanimate
things, such as trees,[*] sistrums, stakes stuck in the ground;[**] and
lastly, many betrayed a mixed origin in their combinations of human and
animal forms. These latter would be regarded by us as monsters; to the
Egyptians, they were beings, rarer perhaps than the rest, but not the
less real, and their like might be encountered in the neighbourhood of
Egypt.[***]

* Thus, the sycamores planted on the edge of the desert
were supposed to be inhabited by Hathor, Nuit, Selkit, Nit,
or some other goddess. In vignettes representing the
deceased as stopping before one of these trees and receiving
water and loaves of bread, the bust of the goddess generally
appears from amid her sheltering foliage. But occasionally,
as on the sarcophagus of Petosiris, the transformation is
complete, and the trunk from which the branches spread is
the actual body of the god or goddess. Finally, the whole
body is often hidden, and only the arm of the goddess to be
seen emerging from the midst of the tree, with an
overflowing libation vase in her hand.

** The trunk of a tree, disbranched, and then set up in the
ground, seems to me the origin of the Osirian emblem called
_tat_ or _didu_. The symbol was afte