was so delighted that he kept the
image in his possession for upwards of three years. In consequence
of an alarming dream he then sent him back to Egypt with presents
of great value. Whatever evil powers the moon may have exerted
since, we must credit him with having once ejected an evil spirit and
prolonged a royal life.

Returning to Thoth, we find the following valuable hints in the great
work of Baron Bunsen:--"The connection between Tet and the moon
may allude, according to Wilkinson, to the primitive use of a lunar
year. The ancients had already remarked that the moon in Egyptian
was masculine, not feminine, as the Greeks and Romans generally
made it. Still we have no right to suppose a particular moon-god,
separate from Thoth. We meet with a deity called after the moon
(Aah) either as a mere personification, or as Thoth, in whom the
agency of the moon and nature become a living principle. We find
him so represented in the tombs of the Ramesseum, opposite to
Phre; a similar representation in Dendyra is probably symbolical.
According to Champollion he is often seen in the train of Ammon,
and then he is Thoth. He makes him green, with the four sceptres
and cup of Ptah, by the side of which, however, is a sort of Horus
curl, the infantine lock, as child or son. In the inscriptions there is
usually only the crescent, but on one occasion the sign _nuter_
(god) is added. In the tombs a moon-god is represented sitting on a
bark, and holding the sceptre of benign power, to whom two
Cynocephali are doing homage, followed by the Crescent and Nuter
god. Lastly, the same god is found in a standing posture,
worshipped by two souls and two Cynocephali." [191]

With these "dog-headed" worshippers of the moon may be
associated another animal that from an early date has been
connected with the luminaries of the day and night. We saw that the
Australian moon-myth of Mityan was of a native cat. Renouf says:
"It is not improbable that the cat, in Egyptian _maeu_, became the
symbol of the Sun-god, or Day, because the word maeu also means
light." [192] Charles James Fox, with no thought of Egyptian, told
the Prince of Wales that "cats always prefer the sunshine." The
native land of this domestic pet, or nuisance, is certainly Persia, and
some etymologists assign _pers_ as the origin of _puss_. Be this as
it may, the pupil of a cat's eye is singularly changeable, dilating
from the narrow line in the day-time to the luminous orb in t