The ideas held by the Egyptians concerning the power of the Nile-god are well illustrated by a lengthy Hymn to the Nile preserved on papyrus in the British Museum (Sallier II, No. 10,182). “Homage to thee, O Ḥāpi, thou appearest in this land, and thou comest in peace to make Egypt to live. Thou waterest the fields which Rā hath created, thou givest life unto all animals, and as thou descendest on thy way from heaven thou makest the land to drink without ceasing. Thou art the friend of bread and drink, thou givest strength to the grain and makest it to increase, and thou fillest every place of work with work.... Thou art the lord of fish ... thou art the creator of barley, and thou makest the temples to endure for millions of years.... Thou art the lord of the poor and needy. If thou wert overthrown in the heavens, the gods would fall upon their faces, and men would perish. When thou appearest upon the earth, shouts of joy rise up and all people are glad; every man of might receiveth food, and every tooth is provided with meat.... Thou fillest the storehouses, thou makest the granaries to overflow and thou hast regard to the condition of the poor and needy. Thou makest herbs and grain to grow that the desires of all may be satisfied, and thou art not impoverished thereby. Thou makest thy strength to be a shield for man.” Elsewhere he is called the “father of the gods of the company of the gods who dwell in the celestial ocean,” and he was declared to be self-begotten, and “One,” and in nature inscrutable. In another passage of the same hymn it is said that the god is not sculptured in stone, that images of him are not seen, “he is not to be seen in inscribed shrines, there is no habitation large enough to contain him, and thou canst not make images of him in thy heart.” These statements suggest that statues or figures of the Nile-god were not commonly made, and it is a fact that figures of the god, large or small, are rare. In the fine collection of figures of Egyptian gods exhibited in the Third Egyptian Room, which is certainly one of the largest in the world, there is only one figure of Ḥāpi (No. 108, Wall-case 125). In this the god wears on his head a cluster of papyrus plants 𓇇, before which is the Utchat, or Eye of Horus, 𓂀, and he holds an altar from which he pours out water. The only other figure of the god in the British Museum collection is the fine quartzite sandstone statue (Southern Egyptian Gallery, No. 766) which was dedicated to Ȧmen-Rā by Shashanq, the son of Uasarken and his queen Maāt-ka-Rā. Here the god bears on his out-stretched hands an altar, from which hang down bunches of grain, green herbs, flowers, waterfowl, etc. The statue was dedicated to Ȧmen-Rā, who included the attributes of Ḥāp among his own. [Illustration: The NILE from SEA to SOURCE]