344 TPIE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAr. XV» 



and whose laws were distinguished by that hu- 

 manity which punished with death, the murder 

 even of a slave.* 



I have, therefore, no scruple in doubting this 

 statement altogether, and in agreeing with the his- 

 torian of Halicarnassus, respecting the improba- 

 bility of such a custom among a civilised people. 

 And when we consider how solemnly the Moslems 

 declare the pillar of clay, now left at the mouths 

 of tlie canals, when opened to receive the water of 

 the inundation, to have been the substitute which 

 the humanity of Amer adopted in lieu of the virgin 

 annually sacrificed to the Nile at that season, (pre- 

 vious to the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs,) we 

 may learn how much reliance is to be placed on 

 tradition, and what is stated to be recorded fact. 

 For, though Arab historians lived very near to the 

 time when that sacrifice is said to have been abo- 

 lished, though the pillar of earth is still retained 

 to commemorate it, and though it bears the name 

 of Harooset e'Neel, ''the bride of the Nile,"— all far 

 stronger arguments than any brought forward re- 

 specting the human sacrifices of early Egypt, — we 

 are under the necessity of disbelieving the exist- 

 ence of such sacrifices in a Christian country, 

 at the late period of a.d. 038, when the religion 

 of Islam supplanted that of the cross on the banks 

 of the Nile. 



That red-haired men were treated with great 

 contempt by the Egy})tians, is perfectly true. But 

 however much their prejudices were excited 



* Vide supra. Vol. II. p. 36. 



