THE WATERS OF LETHE. 389 



We may also state that in the course of our studies 

 on these and kindred subjects, it has often struck us 

 that the origin of the famous Greek mythological idea, 

 of " LETHE". (toifa Mop), or "The Waters of Oblivion," 

 also took its rise from the phenomenon of the mirage. 

 These remarkable phantasma of the desert, as we have 

 already shown, conjure up all sorts of delusive repre- 

 sentations, only, as if in mockery, to snatch them away 

 again from the beholder's view, leaving the bare 

 surface of the " Bahr-Bela-Ma, " or " Waterless Sea" of 

 the Arab writers, alone remaining, as the stage whereon 

 they had been just before displayed. 



So also, according to the poetical fancy of the ancient 

 belief, these waters of the stream of Hades, once car- 

 ried to the lips, caused those who drank of them 

 straightway to forget everything they had seen or heard 

 or done, in a previous state of existence (it may be 

 with a nearer approximation to truth than any of us 

 fancy). These things washed out by the waters of 

 oblivion, disappeared like the phantoms of the mirage, 

 as completely as though they had never been: pre- 

 cisely as the spectres of the desert vanish from the 

 fevered gaze of the weary traveller. The idea, how- 

 ever, of memory being blotted out by water during a 

 future existence, is one which runs through some of 

 the very earliest records of mankind, and it existed 

 in the ancient Egyptian mythology at a very remote 

 period. Thus water has among other things been 

 supposed to be capable of washing away the memory 

 of offences, so that they become effaced and as 'if 

 they had never existed. 



The strange phenomena of the mirage could hardly 

 fail to produce a profound impression upon the unedu- 



