finds its source in the primordial waters into whose bosom this world
of ours is plunged. This dark country is surrounded by seven high walls,
and is approached through seven gates, each of which is guarded by a
pitiless warder. Two deities rule within it--Nergal, "the lord of the
great city," and Beltis-Allat, "the lady of the great land," whither
everything which has breathed in this world descends after death. A
legend relates that Allat, called in Sumerian Erishkigal, reigned alone
in Hades, and was invited by the gods to a feast which they had prepared
in heaven. Owing to her hatred of the light, she sent a refusal by her
messenger Narntar, who acquitted himself on this mission with such a
bad grace, that Ann and Ea were incensed against his mistress, and
commissioned Nergal to descend and chastise her; he went, and finding
the gates of hell open, dragged the queen by her hair from the throne,
and was about to decapitate her, but she mollified him by her prayers,
and saved her life by becoming his wife. The nature of Nergal fitted
him well to play the part of a prince of the departed: for he was the
destroying sun of summer, and the genius of pestilence and battle. His
functions, however, in heaven and earth took up so much of his time
that he had little leisure to visit his nether kingdom, and he was
consequently obliged to content himself with the _role_ of providing
subjects for it by despatching thither the thousands of recruits which
he gathered daily from the abodes of men or from the field of battle.
Allat was the actual sovereign of the country. She was represented with
the body of a woman, ill-formed and shaggy, the grinning muzzle of a
lion, and the claws of a bird of prey. She brandished in each hand a
large serpent--a real animated javelin, whose poisonous bite inflicted
a fatal wound upon the enemy. Her children were two lions, which she is
represented as suckling, and she passed through her empire, not seated
in the saddle, but standing upright or kneeling on the back of a
horse, which seems oppressed by her weight. Sometimes she set out on
an expedition upon the river which communicates with the countries
of light, in order to meet the procession of newly arrived souls
ceaselessly despatched to her: she embarked in this case upon an
enchanted vessel, which made its way without sail or oars, its prow
projecting like the beak of a bird, and its stern terminating in the
head of an ox. She overcomes all r