ed the occasion to secure their recognition and
their reception on board of it.[*] Once admitted, they took their share
in the management of the boat, and in the battles with hostile deities;
but they were not all endowed with the courage or equipment needful to
withstand the perils and terrors of the voyage. Many stopped short by
the way in one of the regions which it traversed, either in the realm of
Khontamentit, or in that of Sokaris, or in those islands where the good
Osiris welcomed them as though they had duly arrived in the ferry-boat,
or upon the wing of Thot. There they dwelt in colonies under the
suzerainty of local gods, rich, and in need of nothing, but condemned
to live in darkness, excepting for the one brief hour in which the
solar bark passed through their midst, irradiating them with beams of
light.[**]

* This description of the embarkation and voyage of the
soul is composed from indications given in one of the
vignettes of chap. xvi. of the _Book of the Dead_ (Naville's
edition, vol. i. pl. xxii.), combined with the text of a
formula which became common from the times of the XIth and
XIIth dynasties (Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et
l'Archeologie Egyptiennes_, vol. i. pp. 14-18, and _Etudes
Egyptiennes_, vol. i. pp. 122, 123).

** Maspero, _Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie
Egyptiennes_, vol. ii. pp. 44, 45.

The few persevered, feeling that they had courage to accompany the sun
throughout, and these were indemnified for their sufferings by the most
brilliant fate ever dreamed of by Egyptian souls., Born anew with the
sun-god and appearing with him at the gates of the east, they were
assimilated to him, and shared his privilege of growing old and dying,
only to be ceaselessly rejuvenated and to live again with ever-renewed
splendour. They disembarked where they pleased, and returned at will
into the world. If now and then they felt a wish to revisit all that was
left of their earthly bodies, the human-headed sparrow-hawk descended
the shaft in full flight, alighted upon the funeral couch, and, with
hands softly laid upon the spot where the heart had been wont to beat,
gazed upwards at the impassive mask of the mummy.

[Illustration: 284.jpg THE SOUL DESCENDING THE SEPULCHRAL SHAFT ON ITS
WAY TO REJOIN THE MUMMY. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Deveria.

This was but for a moment, since nothing compelled these perfect souls
to