314 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XV. 



the Nile and its retiring within its own channel : 

 2. The ceasing of the northern winds, which are 

 now quite suppressed by the prevailing strength of 

 those from the south : 3. The length of the nights 

 and the decrease of the days : 4. The destitute 

 condition in which the land now appears, naked 

 and desolate, its trees despoiled of their leaves. 

 Thus they commemorate what they call the ' loss 

 of Osiris;* and on the 19th of the month Pachon 

 another festival represents the ^finding of Osiris,* '* 

 which has been already mentioned.* 



The statement of Plutarch argues very strongly 

 in favour of the opinion that the gilded figure 

 annually exposed at Sais appertained to the mys- 

 terious rites of Osiris ; and the priests doubtless 

 deviated as far from the truth in what they related 

 respecting the burial of the daughter of Mycerinus 

 within it, as in the fable, readily rejected by He- 

 rodotus, of the cause of her death. Indeed no one, 

 who considers the care taken by the Egyptians to 

 conceal with masonry, and every other means, 

 the spot where the bodies of ordinary individuals 

 were deposited, can for a moment believe that the 

 daughter of a Pharaoh would be left in that ex- 

 posed situation, \uiburied, and deprived of that 

 privilege, so ardently coveted by the meanest 

 Egyptian, of re2)osing witliin the sacred bosom of 

 the grave, removed from all that is connected 

 with this life, and free from contact with the im- 

 piu'ities of the world. 



* .SV;;^, p. 295.; and "Vol. 1. (2(1 Scricb) p. 335. 



