over the wanderings which had to be performed by the seemingly extinct
spirit before its resuscitation as another being in a new form; and
Egyptian priests governed in the temples of these gods, which were purely
Egyptian in style, and which had been built at a very early date over the
tomb-cave of the sacred bulls. And even the Greek ministers of Serapis,
settled at Memphis, were ready to follow the example of their rulers and
to sacrifice to Osiris-Apis, who was closely allied to Serapis--not only
in name but in his essential attributes. Serapis himself indeed was a
divinity introduced from Asia into the Nile valley by the Ptolemies, in
order to supply to their Greek and Egyptian subjects alike an object of
adoration, before whose altars they could unite in a common worship.
They devoted themselves to the worship of Apis in Osiris at the shrines,
of Greek architecture, and containing stone images of bulls, that stood
outside the Egyptian sanctuary, and they were very ready to be initiated
into the higher significance of his essence; indeed, all religious
mysteries in their Greek home bore reference to the immortality of the
soul and its fate in the other world.

Just as two neighboring cities may be joined by a bridge, so the Greek
temple of Serapis--to which the water-bearers belonged--was connected
with the Egyptian sanctuary of Osiris-Apis by the fine paved road for
processions along which Klea now rapidly proceeded. There was a shorter
way to Memphis, but she chose this one, because the mounds of sand on
each side of the road bordered by Sphinxes--which every day had to be
cleared of the desert-drift--concealed her from the sight of her
companions in the temple; besides the best and safest way into the city
was by a road leading from a crescent, decorated with busts of the
philosophers, that lay near the principal entrance to the new Apis tombs.

She looked neither at the lion-bodies with men's heads that guarded the