chains of silver. In the times of
eld this temple of Osiris and Isis was known for its small extent and
its poverty, and was hollowed out like a cavern in the heart of the
mountain. A narrow subterranean corridor led to it from without. But in
the days of the reign of Solomon, who had taken under his protection
all religions save those which permitted the offering of children in
sacrifice, and thanks to the zeal of Queen Astis, an AEgyptian born, the
temple had expanded in depth and height, and had become adorned with
rich offerings.

The former altar still remained inviolate in its primordial, austere
simplicity, together with a great number of small chambers surrounding
it and serving for the keeping of treasures, sacrificial objects, and
priestly appurtenances, as well as for special secret purposes during
the most occult mystic orgies.

But then, the outer court was truly magnificent, with its pylons in
honour of the goddess Hathor, and with a four-sided colonnade of four
and twenty columns. The inner, subterranean, hypostylic hall for
worshippers was built still more magnificently. Its mosaic floor was all
adorned with cunningly wrought images of fishes, beasts, amphibians
and reptiles; while the ceiling was overlaid with blue lazure, and
upon it shone a sun of gold, glowed a moon of silver, innumerable
stars twinkled, and birds soared upon outspread wings. The floor was
the earth, the ceiling the sky, and they were joined by round and
many-sided columns, like mighty tree trunks; and since all the columns
were surmounted by capitals in the form of the tender flowers of lotus
or the slender cylinders of the papyrus, the ceiling they supported did
in reality seem as light and aethereal as the sky.

The walls to the height of a man were faced with plates of red granite,
brought at the desire of Queen Astis out of Thebes, where the local
master workers could impart to the granite a smoothness like that of a
mirror, together with an amazing polish. Higher, to the very ceiling,
the walls, as well as the columns, were gay with graven and limned
images with the symbols of the gods of both AEgypts. Here was Sebekh,
honoured in Fayum in the form of a crocodile; and Thoth, the god of the
moon, depicted as an ibis in the city of Khmunu; and the sun-god Horus,
to whom a small idol-temple was consecrated in Edfu; and Bast of
Bubastis, in the form of a cat; Shu, the god of the air, as a lion;
Ptah,--an Apis; Hathor, the godde