s died in the neighbourhood they buried it,
leaving one horn above the earth in order to mark the spot, and once
every year the boats of Atarbekhis made a tour round the island to
collect the skeletons or decaying bodies, in order that they might be
interred in a common burying-place.

[Illustration: 349.jpg PART OF THE INUNDATION IN A PALM GROVE]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gautier.

The people of Busiris patronised a savage type of religion. During the
festival of Isis they gave themselves up to fierce conflicts, their
fanatical fury even infecting strangers who chanced to be present. The
Carians also had hit upon a means of outdoing the extravagance of the
natives themselves: like the Shiite Mohammedans of the present day
at the festival of the Hassanen, they slashed their faces with knives
amidst shrieks and yells. At Papremis a pitched battle formed part of
the religious observances: it took place, however, under certain special
conditions. On the evening of the festival of Anhurit, as the sun went
down, a number of priests performed a hasty sacrifice in the temple,
while the remainder of the local priesthood stationed themselves at
the gate armed with heavy cudgels. When the ceremony was over, the
celebrants placed the statue of the god on a four-wheeled car as though
about to take it away to some other locality, but their colleagues
at the gate opposed its departure and barred the way. It was at this
juncture that the faithful intervened; they burst in the door and set
upon the priests with staves, the latter offering a stout resistance.
The cudgels were heavy, the arms that wielded them lusty, and the fight
lasted a long time, yet no one was ever killed in the fray--at least,
so the priests averred--and I am at a loss to understand why Herodotus,
who was not a native of Papremis, should have been so unkind as to doubt
their testimony.*

* The god whom the Greeks identified with their Ares was
Anhurit, as is proved by one of the Leyden Papyri. So, too,
in modern times at Cairo, it used to be affirmed that no
Mohammedan who submitted to the doseh was ever seriously
injured by the hoofs of the horse which trampled over the
bodies extended on the ground.

[Illustration: 350.jpg EPHEMERAL HOVELS OF CLAY OR DRIED BRICKS]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Haussoullier.

It is nearly always in connection with some temple or religious festival
that he refe