o her, and they said, "She shall die by
the sword." And Bata loved her most dearly, and she lived in his house,
and he passed all his days in hunting the wild animals of the desert so
that he might bring them and lay them before her. And he said to her,
"Go not out of the house lest the River carry thee off, for I know not
how to deliver thee from it. My heart is set upon the flower of the
Acacia, and if any man find it I must do battle with him for it"; and he
told her everything that had happened concerning his heart.

[Footnote 1: The god who fashioned the bodies of men.]

And many days afterwards, when Bata had gone out hunting as usual, the
young woman went out of the house and walked under the Acacia tree,
which was close by, and the River saw her, and sent its waters rolling
after her; and she fled before them and ran away into her house. And the
River said, "I love her," and the Acacia took to the River a lock of her
hair, and the River carried it to Egypt, and cast it up on the bank at
the place where the washermen washed the clothes of Pharaoh, life,
strength, health [be to him]! And the odour of the lock of hair passed
into the clothing of Pharaoh. Then the washermen of Pharaoh quarrelled
among themselves, saying, "There is an odour [as of] perfumed oil in the
clothes of Pharaoh." And quarrels among them went on daily, and at
length they did not know what they were doing. And the overseer of the
washermen of Pharaoh walked to the river bank, being exceedingly angry
because of the quarrels that came before him daily, and he stood still
on the spot that was exactly opposite to the lock of hair as it lay in
the water. Then he sent a certain man into the water to fetch it, and
when he brought it back, the overseer, finding that it had an
exceedingly sweet odour, took it to Pharaoh. And the scribes and the
magicians were summoned into the presence of Pharaoh, and they said to
him, "This lock of hair belongeth to a maiden of Ra-Harmakhis, and the
essence of every god is in her. It cometh to thee from a strange land
as a salutation of praise to thee. We therefore pray thee send
ambassadors into every land to seek her out. And as concerning the
ambassador to the Valley of the Acacia, we beg thee to send a strong
escort with him to fetch her." And His Majesty said unto them, "What we
have decided is very good," and he despatched the ambassadors.

And when many days had passed by, the ambassadors who had been
despatc