Joseph, more fortunate than Bata, rose from his prison to the highest office of state. The dreams, through which this was accomplished, were in full keeping with the belief of the age. Dreams even to-day play an important part in the popular faith of Egypt. In the days of the Pharaohs it was the same. Thothmes IV. cleared away the sand that had overwhelmed the Sphinx, and built a temple between its paws, in consequence of a dream in which Ra-Harmakhis had appeared to him when, wearied with hunting, he had lain down to sleep under the shadow of the ancient monument. A thousand years later Nut-Amon of Ethiopia was summoned by a dream to march into Egypt. In Greek days, when the temple of Abydos had fallen into ruin, an oracle was established in one of its deserted chambers, and those who consulted it received their answers in the “true dreams” that came to them during the night. The dreams, however, needed at times an interpreter to explain them, and of such an interpreter mention is made in a Greek inscription from the Serapeum at Memphis. At other times the dreamer himself could interpret his vision by the help of the books in which the signification of dreams had been reduced to a science. The dreams of Pharaoh and “his two eunuchs,” however, “the chief butler” and “the chief baker,” were of a strange and novel kind, and there were no books that could explain them. Even the “magicians” and “wise men” of Egypt failed to understand the dream of Pharaoh. And yet, when the Hebrew captive had pointed out its meaning, no doubt remained in the mind of Pharaoh and his servants that he was right. From time immemorial the Nile had been likened to a milch-cow, and the fertilising water which it spread over the soil to the milk that sustains human life. The cow-headed goddess Hathor or Isis watched over the fertility of Egypt. It was said of her that she “caused the Nile to overflow at his due time,” and the “seven great Hathors” were the seven forms under which she was worshipped. In the seven kine, accordingly, which stood “upon the bank of the river” the Egyptian readily saw the life-giving powers of the Nile. It needed but the word of the Pharaoh to change the Hebrew slave into an Egyptian ruler, second only to the monarch itself. His very name ceased to be Semitic, and henceforth became Zaphnath-paaneah. He even allied himself with the exclusive priesthood of Heliopolis or On, marrying Asenath, the daughter of the priest of Ra. By name and marriage, as well as by position, he was thus adopted into the ranks of the native aristocracy.