the inheritance which he had wrongly retained,--according to
others, part of it only. The gods ratified the sentence, and awarded to
the arbitrator the title of _Uapirahuhui_: he who judges between two
parties. A legend of more recent origin, and circulated after the
worship of Osiris had spread over all Egypt, affirmed that the case had
remained within the jurisdiction of Sibu, who was father to the one, and
grandfather to the other party. Sibu, however, had pronounced the same
judgment as Thot, and divided the kingdom into halves--_poshui_; Sit
retained the valley from the neighbourhood of Memphis to the first
cataract, while Horus entered into possession of the Delta. Egypt
henceforth consisted of two distinct kingdoms, of which one, that of the
North, recognized Horus, the son of Isis, as its patron deity; and the
other, that of the South, placed itself under the protection of Sit
Nubiti, the god of Ombos.[*]

* Another form of the legend gives the 27th Athyr as the
date of the judgment, assigning Egypt to Horus, and to Sit
Nubia, or _Doshirit_, the red land. It must have arisen
towards the age of the XVIIIth dynasty, at a time when their
piety no longer allowed the devout to admit that the
murderer of Osiris could be the legitimate patron of half
the country. So _the half_ belonging to Sit was then placed
either in Nubia or in the western desert, which had, indeed,
been reckoned as his domain from earliest times.

The moiety of Horus, added to that of Sit, formed the kingdom which Sibu
had inherited; but his children failed to keep it together, though it
was afterwards reunited under Pharaohs of human race.

The three gods who preceded Osiris upon the throne had ceased to reign,
but not to live. Ra had taken refuge in heaven, disgusted with his own
creatures; Shu had disappeared in the midst of a tempest; and Sibu had
quietly retired within his palace when the time of his sojourning upon
earth had been fulfilled. Not that there was no death, for death, too,
together with all other things and beings, had come into existence in
the beginning, but while cruelly persecuting both man and beast, had for
a while respected the gods. Osiris was the first among them to be struck
down, and hence to require funeral rites. He also was the first for whom
family piety sought to provide a happy life beyond the tomb. Though he
was king of the living and the dead at Mendes by virtue of