surrection. The priests did not disclose
their subtler mysteries before barbarian eyes, nor did they teach the
inner meaning of their dogmas, but the little they did allow him
to discern filled the traveller with respect and wonder, recalling
sometimes by their resemblance to them the mysteries in which he was
accustomed to take part in his own country. Then, as now, but little
attention was paid to the towns in the centre and east of the Delta;
travellers endeavoured to visit one or two of them as types, and
collected as much information as they could about the remainder.
Herodotus and his rivals attached little importance to those details of
landscape which possess so much attraction for the modern tourist. They
bestowed no more than a careless glance on the chapels scattered up and
down the country like the Mohammedan shrines at the present day, and the
waters extending on all sides beneath the acacias and palm trees during
the inundation, or the fellahin trotting along on their little asses
beside the pools, did not strike them as being of sufficient interest to
deserve passing mention in an account of their travels.

[Illustration: 348.jpg MODERN MOHAMMEDAN SHEKHS TOMBS]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gautier.

They passed by the most picturesque villages with indifference, and
it was only when they reached some great city, or came upon some
exceptionally fine temple or eccentric deity, that their curiosity was
aroused. Mendes worshipped its patron god in the form of a live ram,*
and bestowed on all members of the same species some share of the
veneration it lavished on the divine animal. The inhabitants of
Atarbekhis,** on the island of Prosopitis, gave themselves up to the
worship of the bull.

* Herodotus says that both the goats and the god were named
Mendes in Egyptian, but he is here confusing ordinary goats
with the special goat which was supposed to contain the soul
of Osiris. It was the latter that the Egyptians named after
the god himself, Bainibdiduit, i.e. _the soul of the master
of the city of Diduit_.

** The old explanation of this name as the _City of Hathor_
has been rightly rejected as inconsistent with one of the
elementary rules of hieroglyphic grammar. The name, when
properly divided into its three constituent parts, means
literally _the Castle of horus the Sparrow-hawk, or Hat-har-
baki_

When one of these animal