284 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



miracle in question, but as a thinking man he cannot refrain from 

 expressing the opinion that perhaps the baboons may have existed 

 before there were any Jews. 



We, for our part, prettily imagined and related as the story is, 

 accept this interpretation the more readily, that the apes with which 

 the pious zealots of Aila may have had to do are old acquaintances 

 of ours. For in Arabia there occur only the Hamadryas or sacred 

 baboons; and we find the same excellently depicted on very ancient 

 Egyptian monuments. It was the arrangement of their hair which 

 appeared to the ancient Egyptians so remarkable that they chose it 

 as a model for their sphinxes; while to this day it serves as a pattern 

 for the coiffure of the dusky beauties of the Eastern Soudan. The 

 sacred baboon holds a very important place in ancient Egyptian 

 theology, as we learn, among other things, from HorapoUon, inter- 

 preter of hieroglyphs. According to him the monkey was kept 

 in the temples and embalmed after death. He was considered the 

 inventor of writing, and was therefore not only sacred to Thoth or 

 Mercury, the founder of all science, but a near relative of the 

 Egyptian priests, and, on his ceremonious entrance into the 

 sanctuary, he was subjected to an examination, in which the priest 

 thrust a writing tablet, ink, and pen into his hand, and called upon 

 him to write, that they might see whether he were worthy to be 

 received or not. It was also maintained that he stood in secret 

 relations with the moon, and that the latter exercised an extra- 

 ordinary influence over him; and, finally, he was credited with the 

 faculty of dividing time in so obvious a manner, that Trismegistus 

 took his actions as the model after which he constructed his water- 

 clock, which, like the monkey, divided day and night into twelve 

 equal parts. 



It is worthy of note that, while the ancient Egyptians regarded 

 a relationship with the monkeys as probable, they did not deem it 

 possible that they should be descended from a monkey stock. Such 

 a view of the degree of relationship between man and monkey is 

 first met with among the Indians. From very ancient times until 

 the present day there has prevailed among them a belief that at 

 least a few royal families are descended from one of the sacred 



