A remarkable instance of the theanthropic sacrifice of such a sacred animal is given us in Nilus’s account of the ceremony performed by the Arabs of his time. A holy camel, chosen as a victim, was bound upon a rude cairn of piled-up stones. In this primitive altar we can hardly fail to recognise the grave of an early tribal chieftain. The leader of the band then led the worshippers thrice round the cairn in a solemn procession, chanting a solemn hymn as they went. As the last words of the hymn were sung, he fell upon the camel (like Potraj on the lamb), wounded it, and hastily drank of the blood that gushed out from it. Forthwith the whole company fell on the victim with their swords, hacked off pieces of the quivering flesh, and devoured them raw with such wild haste that between the rise of the day-star and that of the sun, the entire camel, body and bones, skin, blood, and entrails, was absolutely eaten. I need not point out the close resemblance of this savage rite to those of Potraj and of Dionysus. It is a point, however, to observe that here also the blood falls on the cairn or grave or altar. I may note that the annual sacrifice of the paschal lamb among the shepherd Hebrews is obviously a mere mitigation of this barbarous rite. In that case, as might be expected in a more civilised race, the victim is roasted whole: but it is similarly necessary that every part of it should be hastily eaten. Legend further informs us, in the instance of the Passover, that the lamb was a substitute for a human victim, and that the first-born were sanctified to Jahweh, instead of being sacrificed. Note also that the feast of the paschal lamb occupied the now familiar space of five days: the sacred animal was chosen on the tenth day of the month, and sacrificed on the fourteenth. The whole ceremonial is most illustrative and full of survivals.