=Destruction of mankind.=—After Rā had been reigning for a considerable time, men and women began to speak contemptuously of him, and to blaspheme him. Rā assembled the gods and took counsel with them, and, as the result, he sent forth his Eye among mankind in the form of the goddess Hathor, who destroyed men from off the earth with the exception of a small company. The goddess Sekhet assisted in the slaughter, and for several days wandered about Egypt wading in pools of men’s blood. At length Rā was appeased, and he stopped the work of slaughter; but he was weary of man, and determined to withdraw himself from the management of his affairs. After taking further counsel with the gods he retreated to a newly-constituted portion of heaven, and created there the =Sekhet-ḥetepet=, or =Elysian Fields=. According to another legend preserved in the CLXXVth Chapter of the Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Ani, No. 10,470), a general destruction of mankind was caused by =the Flood=, which was brought upon the world by the god Temu, who announced his intention of destroying everything in it, and of covering the earth with the waters of the primeval ocean Nu. The flood appears to have begun at Ḥenensu, in Upper Egypt, the Khânês of Isaiah xxx, 4, and the Herakleopolis of the Greeks, and to have submerged all Egypt. All life was destroyed, and the only beings who survived were those who were in the “Boat of Millions of Years,” _i.e._, the Ark of the Sun-god, with the god Temu. The mutilated state of a large portion of the text makes it impossible to piece the details together, but it seems that, after the earth was covered by the Flood, Temu sailed over the waters to the Island of Flame, and took up his abode there. Subsequently he was succeeded by Osiris, whose authority was disputed by Set, the god of evil; but eventually Set was overthrown, and Osiris ruled triumphantly.