The account of it given by the Egyptian theologians did not exhibit much inventive genius. They had started with the theory that the sun, after setting exactly west of Thebes, rose again due east of the city, and they therefore placed in the dark hemisphere all the regions of the universe which lay to the north of those two points of the compass. The first stage of the sun’s journey, after disappearing below the horizon, coincided with the period of twilight; the orb travelled along the open sky, diminishing the brightness of his fires as he climbed northward, and did not actually enter the underworld till he reached Abydos, close to the spot where, at the “Mouth of the Cleft,” the souls of the faithful awaited him. As soon as he had received them into his boat, he plunged into the tunnel which there pierces the mountains, and the cities through which he first passed between Abydos and the Fayûm were known as the Osirian fiefs. He continued his journey through them for the space of two hours, receiving the homage of the inhabitants, and putting such of the shades on shore as were predestined by their special devotion for the Osiris of Abydos and his associates, Horus and Anubis, to establish themselves in this territory. Beyond Heracleopolis, he entered the domains of the Memphite gods, the “land of Sokaris,” and this probably was the most perilous moment of his journey. [Illustration: 062.jpg ONE OF THE MYSTERIOUS BOOKS OF AMON] The feudatories of Phtah were gathered together in grottoes, connected by a labyrinth of narrow passages through which even the most fully initiated were scarcely able to find their way; the luminous boat, instead of venturing within these catacombs, passed above them by mysterious tracks. The crew were unable to catch a glimpse of the sovereign through whose realm they journeyed, and they in like manner were invisible to him; he could only hear the voices of the divine sailors, and he answered them from the depth of the darkness. Two hours were spent in this obscure passage, after which navigation became easier as the vessel entered the nomes subject to the Osirises of the Delta: four consecutive hours of sailing brought the bark from the province in which the four principal bodies of the god slept to that in which his four souls kept watch, and, as it passed, it illuminated the eight circles reserved for men and kings who worshipped the god of Mendes. From the tenth hour onwards it directed its course due south, and passed through the Aûgàrît, the place of fire and abysmal waters to which the Heliopolitans consigned the souls of the impious; then finally quitting the tunnel, it soared up in the east with the first blush of dawn. Each of the ordinary dead was landed at that particular hour of the twelve, which belonged to the god of his choice or of his native town. Left to dwell there they suffered no absolute torment, but languished in the darkness in a kind of painful torpor, from which condition the approach