“The Tanaïtic mouth, the lake and barren lands about it, which were held in abhorrence from their being overflowed by the river without producing any benefit to the country. “The twenty-eight years of his life, the twenty-eight cubits to which the Nile rises at Elephantina, its greatest height. “The 17th of Athor, the period when the river retires within its banks. “The queen of Æthiopia, the southern winds preventing the clouds being carried southward. “The different members of Osiris’s body, the main channels and canals by which the inundation passed into the interior of the country, where each was said to be afterwards buried. That one which could not be recovered was the generative power of the Nile, which still continued in the stream itself. “The victory of Horus, the power possessed by the clouds in causing the successive inundations of the Nile.” Many animals, insects, and plants were considered sacred by the Egyptians: among them were the cynocephalus ape, sacred to Thoth; shrew-mouse, sacred to Mant; dog, sacred to Anubis; cat, sacred to Pashtor Bubastis; lion, sacred to Gom, or Hercules; hippopotamus, sacred to Mars; pig and ass, emblems of Typho; goat, sacred to Mendes; cow, sacred to Athor. The sacred oxen were Apis, Mnevis, and Basis, sacred to Osiris, Apollo, and Onuphis. The sacred birds of Egypt were the vulture, eagle, hawk, white and saffron-colored cocks, little egret, sacred to Osiris; ibis, sacred to Thoth; goose, emblem of Seb. Fabulous and unknown sacred birds were the phœnix, sacred to Osiris; the “pure soul” of the king (a bird with man’s head and arms), emblem of the soul; vulture with a snake’s head; hawk with man’s and ram’s head. The sacred reptiles were the tortoise, crocodile, asp, and frog. The fabulous serpents were snakes with human heads, with hawk’s head, and with lion’s head. The sacred fishes of Egypt were the oxyrhinchus, the eel, the lepidotus, satus, and mæotes. The scorpion was the emblem of the goddess Selk. Different species of beetles were held sacred to the sun, and adopted as an emblem of the world. Foremost amongst the sacred plants of the East, being not merely a symbol, but frequently the object of worship in itself, was the undying lotus, which, from the throne of Osiris, Isis, and Nepthys, rises in the midst of the waters, bearing on the margin of its blossom the four genii. “The Persians represent the sun as ‘rob’d with light, with lotus crown’d.’ Among the Chinese it symbolized Buddha, and is the emblem of female beauty. The Japanese deem it the emblem of purity, since it is not sullied by the muddy waters in which it often grows. With the flowers of the motherwort, it is borne before the body in their funeral processions. The Hindoo deities are often represented seated upon a lotus flower. Kamadeva, or Cupid, is depicted as floating down the blue Ganges— ‘Upon a rosy lotus wreath, Catching new lustre from the tide That with his image shone beneath.’”