H. Rider Haggard.

Ditchingham.

To Doctor Wallis Budge,

Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum.




AUTHOR'S NOTE

It may be thought that even in a story of Old Egypt to represent a "Ka"
or "Double" as remaining in active occupation of a throne, while the
owner of the said "Double" goes upon a long journey and achieves sundry
adventures, is, in fact, to take a liberty with Doubles. Yet I believe
that this is scarcely the case. The _Ka_ or Double which Wiedermann
aptly calls the "Personality within the Person" appears, according to
Egyptian theory, to have had an existence of its own. It did not die
when the body died, for it was immortal and awaited the resurrection
of that body, with which, henceforth, it would be reunited and dwell
eternally. To quote Wiedermann again, "The _Ka_ could live without the
body, but the body could not live without the _Ka_ . . . . . it was
material in just the same was as the body itself." Also, it would seem
that in certain ways it was superior to and more powerful than the body,
since the Egyptian monarchs are often represented as making offerings to
their own _Kas_ as though these were gods. Again, in the story of "Setna
and the Magic Book," translated by Maspero and by Mr. Flinders Petrie