rwards so
conventionalized as to represent four columns seen in
perspective, one capital overtopping another; it thus became
the image of the four pillars which uphold the world.

*** The belief in the real existence of fantastic animals
was first noted by Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et
d'Archeologie Egyptiennes_, vol. i. pp. 117, 118, 132, and
vol. ii. p. 213. Until then, scholars only
recognized the sphinx, and other Egyptian monsters, as
allegorical combinations by which the priesthood claimed to
give visible expression in one and the same being to
physical or moral qualities belonging to several different
beings. The later theory has now been adopted by Wiedemann,
and by most contemporary Egyptologists.

How could men who believed themselves surrounded by sphinxes and
griffins of flesh and blood doubt that there were bull-headed and
hawk-headed divinities with human busts? The existence of such
paradoxical creatures was proved by much authentic testimony; more
than one hunter had distinctly seen them as they ran along the furthest
planes of the horizon, beyond the herds of gazelles of which he was
in chase; and shepherds dreaded them for their flocks as truly as they
dreaded the lions, or the great felidse of the desert.[*]

* At Beni-Hassan and in Thebes many of the fantastic animals
mentioned in the text, griffins, hierosphinxes, serpent-
headed lions, are placed along with animals which might be
encountered by local princes hunting in the desert.

This nation of gods, like nations of men, contained foreign elements,
the origin of which was known to the Egyptians themselves. They knew
that Hathor, the milch cow, had taken up her abode in their land from
very ancient times, and they called her the Lady of Puanit, after the
name of her native country. Bisu had followed her in course of time,
and claimed his share of honours and worship along with her. He first
appeared as a leopard; then he became a man clothed in a leopard's skin,
but of strange countenance and alarming character, a big-headed dwarf
with high cheek-bones, and a wide and open mouth, whence hung an
enormous tongue; he was at once jovial and martial, the friend of the
dance and of battle.[*]

* The hawk-headed monster with flower-tipped tail was
called the saga.

In historic times all nations subjugated by the Pharaohs transferred
some