ys contain the same kind of bird; a lapwing, or a heron, might
come out of it,[*] or perhaps, in memory of Horus, one of the beautiful
golden sparrow-hawks of Southern Egypt. A Sun-Hawk, hovering in high
heaven on outspread wings, at least presented a bold and poetic image;
but what can be said for a Sun-Calf? Yet it is under the innocent
aspect of a spotted calf, a "sucking calf of pure mouth,"[**] that the
Egyptians were pleased to describe the Sun-God when Sibu, the father,
was a bull, and Hathor a heifer.

* The lapwing or the heron, the Egyptian _bonu_, is
generally the Osirian bird. The persistence with which it is
associated with Heliopolis and the gods of that city shows
that in this also we have a secondary form of Ra.

** The calf is represented in ch. cix. of the _Book of the
Dead_ (Naville's edition, pl. cxx.), where the text says
(lines 10, 11), "I know that this calf is Harmakhis the Sun,
and that it is no other than the Morning Star, daily
saluting Ra." The expression "_sucking calf of pure
mouth_" is taken word for word from a formula preserved in
the Pyramid texts (Unas, 1. 20).

But the prevalent conception was that in which the life of the sun was
likened to the life of man. The two deities presiding over the East
received the orb upon their hands at its birth, just as midwives receive
a new-born child, and cared for it during the first hour of the day and
of its life. It soon left them, and proceeded "under the belly of Nuit,"
growing and strengthening from minute to minute, until at noon it had
become a triumphant hero whose splendour is shed abroad over all. But as
night comes on his strength forsakes him and his glory is obscured; he
is bent and broken down, and heavily drags himself along like an old
man leaning upon his stick. At length he passes away beyond the horizon,
plunging westward into the mouth of Nuit, and traversing her body by
night to be born anew the next morning, again to follow the paths along
which he had travelled on the preceding day.

A first bark, the _saktit_, awaited him at his birth, and carried him
from the Eastern to the Southern extremity of the world. _Mazit_, the
second bark, received him at noon, and bore him into the land of Manu,
which is at the entrance into Hades; other barks, with which we are less
familiar, conveyed him by night, from his setting until his rising at
morn.[*] Sometimes he was supposed