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waste, an eternity of waters, subject to as violent commotions 
from storm and tempest as his own troubled mind, and again 
relapsing into a state of calm and purity even more harrowing, 
by recollection, to the distracted and restless wanderer. 
6. Into that Ocean however went, continuously, as it appeared, 
the only objects that would now seem to him of interest, — 
his new gods; the sun, followed by his constant satellites; 
and the refresher and revivifier of his other god, — the earth— 
indeed a feature of it — the river. This is strongly borne 
out by Egyptian representation. The frontispiece depicts a 
very remarkable hieroglyph in the portico at Tentyris; the 
sun supported on a pyramid composed of the symbols of fire 
and water, with the head of Osiris in front, placed over the cist 
or chest in which Typhon imprisoned him. The characteristics 
of Osiris are shown in his negro lips and in the horns of the 
bull Apis,. From the details the meaning of the figure is 
apparent ; all the symbols of fire are incomplete, the apices 
being absent ; all those of water, on the contrary, are 
perfect V '> the pyramid is not a true one, but elongates to 
the left, or west ; the head of Osiris is placed studiedly in the 
western elongation, i.e. towards the left or west ; the rays slant ; 
and on the left of the cist is an extra enclosure.* It is clear 
that this refers to the sun setting in the ocean, water being 
shown by the perfect symbol, and fire by the deficient one. 
Moreover, the whole is canopied by a vast female figure, whose 
garments covered with water-lines" clearly represent the Ocean, 
not the Mediterranean towards the north, but the vast ocean 
supposed by the ancients to surround the world, as we are told 
by Herodotus ; and which ideal surrounding is completed in 
the hieroglyph in question, by an equally vast oceanic figure 
opposite to the above, the hands and feet of both meeting each 
other. Osiris wearing the horns of Apis in this case strengthens 
the simile, as Apis, Hepi, or Hapi signifies in Egyptian to 
conceal.*!' Beneath the above I have placed a hieroglyph from 
the same temple, representing the god Nilus holding the 
sources of the Nile, which, issuing in serpentine forms from his 
hands, and being lost in the ocean, fulfil the remainder of the 
metaphor I have chosen. 
7. The people we call Egyptians probably reached Egypt 
* The interior of this chest, with its western chamber, corresponds so 
exactly with one of the old Irish dwellings that it almost seems to indicate 
the snn going towards the land of a people having like habitations and 
living westward. A drawing of one is placed at the foot of the chest under 
description. 
f Bunsen, vol. i., Vocabulary, page 462. 
