170 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XII. 



l6th ancestor, they made the same observation to 

 him as to me, though I had said nothing respect- 

 ing my ancestry. Having taken me into a large 

 consecrated chamber, they showed me a series of 

 as many wooden statues as there had been high 

 priests during the above-mentioned period ; for 

 each high priest, while yet living, had his image 

 placed there ; and having counted them all before 

 me, they proved that every one had succeeded his 

 father at his demise, beginning from the oldest, 

 and coming down to the last. The same had been 

 done before Hecatseus, when he boasted of his ge- 

 nealogy ; and in opposing his pretensions by the 

 number of their high priests, they denied that any 

 man was descended from a Deity. Each statue, 

 they argued, represented a Piromis engendered 

 by a Firomis * (a man engendered by a man) ; 

 and having gone through the whole number of 

 345, they showed that every one was the son of 

 his predecessor, without a single instance of any 

 being descended from a God, or even a hero." 



Of their idea respecting the manifestation of the 

 Deity on earth, which the Egyptians entertained in 

 common with the Hindoos, but which is far more 

 remarkable in their mode of treating it, I shall not 

 speak at present. This question is totally different 

 from that of the existence of the Gods on earth, 

 alluded to by Herodotus, and must be looked upon 

 vmder a very different aspect, as the most curious 



* Piromi is the Egyptian word signifying " the man," which Hero- 

 dotus, from his ignorance of the language, has translated "good and 

 virtuous." The sense itself ought to have pointed out the meaning of 

 the word, romi, " man." 



