fine crops of corn with seven or nine ears to one stalk; grand fruits of
all kinds, melons, pumpkins, and cucumbers, flax for weaving linen, and
everything that a people can desire. Indeed, the water of the river is
so delicious, that it is said that those who have once tasted it are
always longing to drink it again.

The sons of Mizraim, son of Ham, who first found out this fertile
country, were a very clever race, and made the most of the riches of the
place. They made dykes and ditches to guide the floodings into their
fields and meadows; they cultivated the soil till it was one beautiful
garden; they wove their flax into fine linen; and they made bricks of
their soft clay, and hewed stone from the hills higher up the river, so
that their buildings have been the wonder of all ages since. They had
kings to rule them, and priests to guide their worship; but these
priests had very wrong and corrupt notions themselves, and let the poor
ignorant people believe even greater folly than they did themselves.

They thought that the great God lived among them in the shape of a bull
with one spot on his back like an eagle, and one on his tongue like a
beetle; and this creature they called Apis, and tended with the utmost
care. When he died they all went into mourning, and lamented till a calf
like him was found, and was brought home with the greatest honour; and
for his sake all cattle were sacred, and no one allowed to kill them.
Besides the good Power, they thought there was an evil one as strong as
the good, and they worshipped him likewise, to beg him to do them no
harm; so the dangerous crocodiles of the Nile were sacred, and it was
forbidden to put them to death. They had a dog-god and a cat-goddess,
and they honoured the beetle because they saw it rolling a ball of earth
in which to lay its eggs, and fancied it an emblem of eternity; and thus
all these creatures were consecrated, and when they died were rolled up