emple of the god of the
dead reared its naked walls. Here Anhuri, having passed from life to
death, was worshipped under the name of Khontamentit, the chief of that
western region whither souls repair on quitting this earth.

It is impossible to say by what blending of doctrines or by what
political combinations this Sun of the Night came to be identified with
Osiris of Mendes, since the fusion dates back to a very remote
antiquity; it had become an established fact long before the most
ancient sacred books were compiled. Osiris Khontamentit grew rapidly in
popular favor, and his temple attracted annually an increasing number of
pilgrims. The Great Oasis had been considered at first as a sort of
mysterious paradise, whither the dead went in search of peace and
happiness. It was called Uit, the Sepulchre; this name clung to it after
it had become an actual Egyptian province, and the remembrance of its
ancient purpose survived in the minds of the people, so that the
"cleft," the gorge in the mountain through which the doubles journeyed
toward it, never ceased to be regarded as one of the gates of the other
world.

At the time of the New Year festivals, spirits flocked thither from all
parts of the valley; they there awaited the coming of the dying sun, in
order to embark with him and enter safely the dominions of Khontamentit.
Abydos, even before the historic period, was the only town, and its god
the only god, whose worship, practised by all Egyptians, inspired them
all with an equal devotion.

Did this sort of moral conquest give rise, later on, to a belief in a
material conquest by the princes of Thinis and Abydos, or is there an
historical foundation for the tradition which ascribes to them the
establishment of a single monarchy? It is the Thinite Menes, whom the
Theban annalists point out as the ancestor of the glorious Pharaohs of
the XVIII dynasty: it is he also who is inscribed in the Memphite
chronicles, followed by Manetho, at the head of their lists of human
kings, and all Egypt for centuries acknowledged him as its first mortal
ruler.

It is true that a chief of Thinis may well have borne such a name, and
may have accomplished feats which rendered him famous; but on closer
examination his pretensions to reality disappear, and his personality is
reduced to a cipher.

"This Menes, according to the priests, surrounded Memphis with dikes.
For the river formerly followed the sand-hills for some distance on th