quid.
The crocodile bore all this without even winking; he swallowed down his
provender, plunged into the lake, and lazily reached the opposite bank,
hoping to escape for a few moments from the oppressive liberality of his
devotees.

[Illustration: 387.jpg SOBKU, THE GOD OF THE FAYUM, UNDER THE FORM OF A
SACRED CROCODILE]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-
Bey, taken in 1885. The original in black granite is now in
the Berlin Museum. It represents one of the sacred
crocodiles mentioned by Strabo; we read on the base a Greek
inscription in honour of Ptolemy Neos Dionysos, in which the
name of the divine reptile "Petesukhos, the great god," is
mentioned.

As soon, however, as another of these approached, he was again beset
at his new post and stuffed in a similar manner. These animals were in
their own way great dandies: rings of gold or enamelled terra-cotta
were hung from their ears, and bracelets were soldered on to their front
paws. The monuments of Shodit, if any still exist, are buried under the
mounds of Medinet el-Fayum, but in the neighbourhood we meet with more
than one authentic relic of the XIIth dynasty. It was Usirtasen I. who
erected that curious thin granite obelisk, with a circular top, whose
fragments lie forgotten on the ground near the village of Begig: a
sort of basin has been hollowed out around it, which fills during the
inundation, so that the monument lies in a pool of muddy water during
the greater part of the year. Owing to this treatment, most of the
inscriptions on it have almost disappeared, though we can still make
out a series of five scenes in which the king hands offerings to several
divinities. Near to Biahmu there was an old temple which had become
ruinous: Amenemhait III. repaired it, and erected in front of it two
of those colossal statues which the Egyptians were wont to place like
sentinels at their gates, to ward off baleful influences and evil
spirits.

[Illustration: 388.jpg THE REMAINS OF THE OBELISK OF BEGIG]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Golunischeff.

The colossi at Biahmu were of red sandstone, and were seated on high
limestone pedestals, placed at the end of a rectangular court; the
temple walls hid the lower part of the pedestals, so that the colossi
appeared to tower above a great platform which sloped gently away from
them on all sides. Herodotus, who saw them from a distance at the
time