NOTE-BOOK OF A NATUEALIST. 307 



question, whether it was intended to do so or no, what 

 would you say were the crocodile's intentions ? ' 

 ' You ask me a perplexing question, truly.' 

 But almost everything has its bright side, and so has 

 a crocodile. Did not one save good King Minas when 

 he tumbled into the water ? And were they not reckoned 

 admirable safeguards for preventing robbers from cross- 

 ing the river ? In short, they made a very respectable 

 figure among the mob of animal and vegetable Eg3rptian 

 deities, and were treated accordingly, as we shall j^re- 

 sently see. Silence is not only the gift, but the attri- 

 bute of the gods, and as the ancients believed that a cro- 

 codile had no tongue he had a pretty safe claim, which, 

 joined to his alleged fore-knowledge of the extent of the 

 inundation of the Nile, was all-sufficient for his deifica- 

 tion. Hence, no doubt existed of the salvation of the 

 man devoured by one of these reptiles. The sure road 

 to heaven went through a crocodile's maw ;* and even 

 those who were bitten by one were considered peculiarly 

 fortunate. The priests were not slow in availing them- 

 selves of these articles of belief, which they themselves 

 had invented, and accordingly they took care to have 

 tame crocodiles ready to receive the offerings of the faith- 

 ful. Strabo saw one of these at Arsinoe, that ' city of 

 the crocodiles,' and an apolaustic life he seems to have 

 led. Bread, meat, and wine, the contributions of travel- 

 lers and pious neighbours, formed his ordinary diet. 

 Strabo's host — a man of consequence, and the guide of 

 the party in everything relating to sacred things — led 

 the way to the pond, carrying from the table a small 

 cake, some roasted meat, and a cup of spiced wine well 

 mulled. They found Suchos, in which name the croco- 



* If a person was killed by a crocodile, or drowned in the Nile, 

 his body was embalmed by the priests, and deposited in the sacred 

 tombs. 



