ts trunk. This
addition to the primitive legend must date from the XVIIIth
to the XXth dynasties, when Egypt had extensive relations
with the peoples of Asia. No trace of it whatever has
hitherto been found upon Egyptian monuments strictly so
called; not even on the latest.

** The opening illustration of this chapter (p. 221) is
taken from a monument at Phihe, and depicts Isis among the
reeds. The representation of the goddess as squatting upon a
mat probably gave rise to the legend of the floating isle of
Khemmis, which HECATAEUS of Miletus had seen upon the lake of
Buto, but whose existence was denied by Herodotus
notwithstanding the testimony of Hecataeus.

But it happened that Sit, when hunting by moonlight, caught sight of the
chest, opened it, and recognizing the corpse, cut it up into fourteen
pieces, which he scattered abroad at random. Once more Isis set forth on
her woeful pilgrimage. She recovered all the parts of the body excepting
one only, which the oxyrhynchus had greedily devoured;[*] and with the
help of her sister Nephthys, her son Horus, Anubis, and Thot, she joined
together and embalmed them, and made of this collection of his remains
an imperishable mummy, capable of sustaining for ever the soul of a god.
On his coming of age, Horus called together all that were left of the
loyal Egyptians and formed them into an army.[**]

* This part of the legend was so thoroughly well known,
that by the time of the XIXth dynasty it suggested incidents
in popular literature. When Bitiu, the hero of _The Tale of
the Two Brothers_, mutilated himself to avoid the suspicion
of adultery, he cast his bleeding member into the water, and
_the Oxyrhynchus devoured it_.

** Towards the Grecian period there was here interpolated
an account of how Osiris had returned from the world of the
dead to arm his son and train him to fight. According to
this tale he had asked Horus which of all animals seemed to
him most useful in time of war, and Horus chose the horse
rather than the lion, because the lion avails for the weak
or cowardly in need of help, whereas the horse is used for
the pursuit and destruction of the enemy. Judging from this
reply that Horus was ready to dare all, Osiris allowed him
to enter upon the war. The mention of the horse affords
sufficient proof that thi