oS THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XIII. 



I have elsewhere observed that the term dzrelf, 

 applied to the eastern branch of the Nile, which 

 comes from the lake Dembea, in Abyssinia, pro- 

 perly signifies blacky in opposition to the Ahiadt or 

 white river ; for though azrek also implies dark 

 hlue^ it has not that signification when opposed to 

 ivhite. In proof of which it is only necessary to 

 add, that a black horse is styled dzrek as well as 

 aswed, and the same term is applied to any thing 

 in the sense of our ^^ jet black" 



At Silsilis this Deity is worshipped as the third 

 member of a triad composed of Re, Pthah, and 

 Nilus — the Sun, the creative power, and the river ; 

 the last being, as the third person in these triads 

 always was, the result of the other two. It is pro- 

 bable that the marked respect with which he was 

 there invoked arose from the peculiar protection 

 they desired of him, when the blocks hewn in the 

 quarries of Silsilis, for the temples of Upper and 

 Lower Egypt, were committed to the charge of the 

 stream that was to convey them to their different 

 destinations. 



In the Temple of Luxor at Thebes are two 

 figures of this Deity, one of a blue, the other of 

 a red hue, to whom the education of the infant 

 Amenoph III., the son of Queen Maut-m-Shoi, and 

 another child, are supposed to be entrusted. The 

 children are carried in the arms of the red-coloured 

 Deity ; and the other follows behind, carrying the 

 sacred tausy or emblems of life. The former is 

 probably intended to indicate the turbid ap})earance 

 of the Nile during the inundation (rather than, as 



