the actual boundary of
the universe; a great river--analogous to the Ocean-stream of the
Greeks--lay between them and its utmost limits. This river circulated
upon a kind of ledge projecting along the sides of the box a little
below the continuous mountain chain upon which the starry heavens were
sustained. On the north of the ellipse, the river was bordered by a
steep and abrupt bank, which took its rise at the peak of Manu on the
west, and soon rose high enough to form a screen between the river and
the earth. The narrow valley which it hid from view was known as
Da'it from remotest times. Eternal night enfolded that valley in thick
darkness, and filled it with dense air such as no living thing could
breathe. Towards the east the steep bank rapidly declined, and ceased
altogether a little beyond Bakhu, while the river flowed on between low
and almost level shores from east to south, and then from south to west.
The sun was a disc of fire placed upon a boat. At the same equable rate,
the river carried it round the ramparts of the world. Erom evening until
morning it disappeared within the gorges of Dait; its light did not then
reach us, and it was night. From morning until evening its rays, being
no longer intercepted by any obstacle, were freely shed abroad from one
end of the box to the other, and it was day. The Nile branched off from
the celestial river at its southern bend;[*] hence the south was
the chief cardinal point to the Egyptians, and by that they oriented
themselves, placing sunrise to their left, and sunset to their right.

* The classic writers themselves knew that, according to
Egyptian belief, the Nile flowed down from heaven. The
legend of the Nile having its source in the ocean stream was
but a Greek transposition of the Egyptian doctrine, which
represented it as an arm of the celestial river whereon the
sun sailed round the earth.

Before they passed beyond the defiles of Gebel Silsileh, they thought
that the spot whence the celestial waters left the sky was situate
between Elephantine and Philae, and that they descended in an immense
waterfall whose last leaps were at Syene. It may be that the tales about
the first cataract told by classic writers are but a far-off echo of
this tradition of a barbarous age. Conquests carried into the heart of
Africa forced the Egyptians to recognize their error, but did not weaken
their faith in the supernatural origin of the river.