welve hours, and in its own bark, the pale disk of the moon--_Yauhu
Auhu_--followed the disk of the sun along the ramparts of the world.
The moon, also, appeared in many various forms--here, as a man born of
Nuit;[*] there, as a cynocephalus or an ibis;[**] elsewhere, it was the
left eye of Horus,[***] guarded by the ibis or cynocephalus. Like Ra,
it had its enemies incessantly upon the watch for it: the crocodile, the
hippopotamus, and the sow. But it was when at the full, about the 15th
of each month, that the lunar eye was in greatest peril.

* He may be seen as a child, or man, bearing the lunar disk
upon his head, and pressing the lunar eye to his breast.
Passages from the Pyramid text of Unas indicate the
relationship subsisting between Thot, Sibu, and Nuit, making
Thot the brother of Isis, Sit, and Nephthys. In later times
he was considered a son of Ra.

** Even as late as the Graeco-Roman period, the temple of
Thot at Khmunu contained a sacred ibis, which was the
incarnation of the god, and said to be immortal by the local
priesthood. The temple sacristans showed it to Apion the
grammarian, who reports the fact, but is very sceptical in
the matter.

*** The texts quoted by Chabas and Lepsius to show that the
sun is the right eye of Horus also prove that his left eye
is the moon.

[Illustration: 123.jpg EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION OF THE PRINCIPAL
CONSTELLATIONS OF THE NORTHERN SKY.4]

4 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the ceiling of the
Ramesseum. On the right, the _female hippopotamus_ bearing
the _crocodile_, and leaning on the _Monait_; in the middle,
the _Haunch_, here represented by the whole bull; to the
left, _Selkit_ and the _Sparrow-hawk_, with the _Lion_, and
the _Giant fighting the Crocodile_.

The sow fell upon it, tore it out of the face of heaven, and cast it,
streaming with blood and tears, into the celestial Nile, where it was
gradually extinguished, and lost for days; but its twin, the sun, or
its guardian, the cyno-cephalus, immediately set forth to find it and
to restore it to Horus. No sooner was it replaced, than it slowly
recovered, and renewed its radiance; when it was well--_uzait_--the sow
again attacked and mutilated it, and the gods rescued and again revived
it.

[Illustration: 124.jpg THE LUNAR BARK, SELF-PROPELLED, UNDER THE
PROTECTION OF THE TWO EYES.]

Each month there was