330 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN'S. CHAP. XIII. 



countrymen, by turning them from their former 

 barbarous course of Hfe, teaching them moreover 

 to cultivate and improve the fruits of the earth. 

 . . . With the same good disposition, he afterwards 

 travelled over the rest of the world, inducing the 

 people every where to submit to his discipline, by 

 the mildest persuasion. . . . During his absence 

 fi'om his kingdom, Typho had no opportunity of 

 making any innovations in the state, Isis being ex- 

 tremely vigilant in the government, and always on 

 her guard. After his return, liowever, having first 

 persuaded seventy-two other persons to join with 

 him in the conspiracy, together with a certain 

 Queen of Ethiopia named Aso, who chanced to be 

 in Egypt at the time, he contrived a proper strata- 

 gem to execute his base designs. For, having pri- 

 vily taken the measure of Osiris's body, he caused a 

 chest to be made exactly of that size, as beautiful 

 as possible, and set off with all the ornaments of art. 

 This chest he brought into the banqueting room, 

 where after it had been nuich admired by all present, 

 Typho, as if in jest, promised to give it to any one 

 of them, whose body upon trial it might be found 

 to fit. Upon this, the whole company, one after 

 the other, got into it ; but as it did not fit any of 

 them, last of all Osiris laid himself down in it ; uj)on 

 which the conspirators immediately ran together, 

 clapped on the cover, and then, fastening it on the 

 outside with nails, poured melted lead over it. 



"After this, having carried it away to the river 

 side, they conveyed it to the sea by the Tanaitic 

 mouth of the Nile, which for this reason is still 



