I was about to reply, when my attention was attracted to a "procession of the dead" crossing the river just above us, the body being placed in a gorgeous car which stood in a richly painted and gilded _baris_, with a curved prow carved with the head of Osiris. It was tied to a barge, with twenty rowers, which moved to a slow and solemn strain of music that came wildly floating across the waters to our ears, mingled with the wails of mourners who crowded the deck of the galley; chiefly women with long dishevelled hair and naked breasts, which they beat frantically at times, with piercing cries. Through a small window in the ark or car I could see the painted visage upon the head of the mummy case. It soon landed, and we resumed our conversation. "You are aware, O prince," I said, turning to him, "that Phœnicia was settled among the first of the nations, after Typhon sent the flood of waters to destroy Osiris upon earth. Of course you Egyptians believe in the universal inundation of the earth?" "The tradition is well-founded," he answered. "We believe that mighty nations existed aforetime, beyond the history of any kingdom, and that for their evils the Divine Creator of men brought upon them as punishment a mighty unknown sea, which drowned the world: that Menes, a great and good king, also called Noe-Menes, was spared by the gods, he with all his family being saved in a ship of the old world, which sailed to the mountains of Arabia Deserta, where, guided by a dove, they landed and sacrificed to the gods. This Menes, descending from the mountain, founded Egypt, first building This, or Thebis, and then Memphthis, dividing Egypt into the Thinite and Memphite provinces; and so from Egypt all the world was repeopled. "Such is our tradition, O Remeses," I said, smiling, "only instead of a mountain in Arabia, it was Libanus, in Syria, to which his galley was guided, not by a dove, but by a raven; and that his name was Ammon, or Hammun; and that the first city built was Sidon, and the next the city of the Island of Tyre." Remeses returned my smile and said, "No doubt there was a disposition in all our forefathers to give the honor of being the oldest nation to their own. Hammun is also a person in our Egyptian tradition, but is called the son of Menes; who, rebelling against his father, was driven from This or Thebis into Africa, where he founded Libya, and erected to himself, as a god, the ancient temple and worship of Ammon. From him come the Nubians and Ethiopians."