*** The belief in the real existence of fantastic animals was first noted by Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie Egyptiennes_, vol. i. pp. 117, 118, 132, and vol. ii. p. 213. Until then, scholars only recognized the sphinx, and other Egyptian monsters, as allegorical combinations by which the priesthood claimed to give visible expression in one and the same being to physical or moral qualities belonging to several different beings. The later theory has now been adopted by Wiedemann, and by most contemporary Egyptologists. How could men who believed themselves surrounded by sphinxes and griffins of flesh and blood doubt that there were bull-headed and hawk-headed divinities with human busts? The existence of such paradoxical creatures was proved by much authentic testimony; more than one hunter had distinctly seen them as they ran along the furthest planes of the horizon, beyond the herds of gazelles of which he was in chase; and shepherds dreaded them for their flocks as truly as they dreaded the lions, or the great felidse of the desert.[*] * At Beni-Hassan and in Thebes many of the fantastic animals mentioned in the text, griffins, hierosphinxes, serpent- headed lions, are placed along with animals which might be encountered by local princes hunting in the desert. This nation of gods, like nations of men, contained foreign elements, the origin of which was known to the Egyptians themselves. They knew that Hathor, the milch cow, had taken up her abode in their land from very ancient times, and they called her the Lady of Puanit, after the name of her native country. Bisu had followed her in course of time, and claimed his share of honours and worship along with her. He first appeared as a leopard; then he became a man clothed in a leopard's skin, but of strange countenance and alarming character, a big-headed dwarf with high cheek-bones, and a wide and open mouth, whence hung an enormous tongue; he was at once jovial and martial, the friend of the dance and of battle.[*] * The hawk-headed monster with flower-tipped tail was called the saga. In historic times all nations subjugated by the Pharaohs transferred some of their principal divinities to their conquerors, and the Libyan Shehadidi was enthroned in the valley of the Nile, in the same way as the Semitic Baalu and his retinue of Astartes, Anitis, Eeshephs, and Kadshus. These divine colonists fared like all foreigners who have sought to settle on the banks of the Nile: they were promptly assimilated, wrought, moulded, and made into Egyptian deities scarcely distinguishable from those of the old race. This mixed pantheon had its grades of nobles, princes, kings, and each of its members was representative of one of the elements constituting the world, or of one of the forces which regulated its government. [Illustration: 113.jpb SOME FABULOUS BEASTS OF THE EGYPTIAN DESERT 1]