He then descended with me, still lower, into those winding crypts, where lay the Seven Tables of stone, found by Hermes in the valley of Hebron. “On these tables,” said he, “is written all the knowledge of the antediluvian race,—the decrees of the stars from the beginning of time, the annals of a still earlier world, and all the marvellous secrets, both of heaven and earth, which would have been, “_but_ for this key, Lost in the Universal Sea.” Returning to the region, from which we had descended, we next visited, in succession, a series of small shrines, representing the various objects of adoration through Egypt, and thus furnishing to the Priest an occasion for explaining the mysterious nature of animal worship, and the refined doctrines of theology that lay veiled under its forms. Every shrine was consecrated to a particular faith, and contained a living image of the deity which it adored. Beside the goat of Mendes, with his refulgent star upon his breast, I saw the crocodile, as presented to the eyes of its idolaters at Arsinoë, with costly gems in its loathsome ears, and rich bracelets of gold encircling its feet. Here, floating through a tank in the centre of a temple, the sacred carp of Lepidotum exhibited its silvery scales; while, there, the Isiac serpents trailed languidly over the altar, with that movement which most inspires the hopes of their votaries. In one of the small chapels we found a beautiful child, feeding and watching over those golden beetles, which are adored for their brightness, as emblems of the sun; while, in another, stood a sacred ibis upon its pedestal, so like, in plumage and attitude, to the bird of the young Priestess, that I could gladly have knelt down and worshipped it for her sake. After visiting these various shrines, and listening to the reflections which they suggested, I was next led by my guide to the Great Hall of the Zodiac, on whose ceiling, in bright and undying colours, was delineated the map of the firmament, as it appeared at the first dawn of time. Here, in pointing out the track of the sun, among the spheres, he spoke eloquently of the analogy that exists between moral and physical darkness—of the sympathy with which all spiritual creatures regard the sun, so as to sadden and droop when he sinks into his wintry hemisphere, and to rejoice when he resumes his own empire of light. Hence, the festivals and hymns, with which most of the nations of the earth are wont to welcome the resurrection of his orb in spring, as an emblem and pledge of the re‐ascent of the soul to heaven. Hence, the songs of sorrow, the mournful ceremonies,—like those Mysteries of the Night, upon the Lake of Saïs,—in which they brood over his autumnal descent into the shades, as a type of the Spirit’s fall into this world of death.