die, for he live there
hundred, hundred years; our people find him there when first they come
to this country, and make him kind of god. Well, he nasty beast and best
dead. I say, you like see Child? If so, come, for you our brothers now,
only please take off hat and not speak."

I intimated that we should "like see Child," and led by Harut we entered
the little sanctuary which was barely large enough to hold all of us.
In a niche of the end wall stood the sacred effigy which Ragnall and I
examined with a kind of reverent interest. It proved to be the statue of
an infant about two feet high, cut, I imagine, from the base of a single
but very large elephant's tusk, so ancient that the yellowish ivory had
become rotten and was covered with a multitude of tiny fissures. Indeed,
for its appearance I made up my mind that several thousands of years
must have passed since the beast died from which this ivory was taken,
especially as it had, I presume, always been carefully preserved under
cover.

The workmanship of the object was excellent, that of a fine artist who,
I should think, had taken some living infant for his model, perhaps a
child of the Pharaoh of the day. Here I may say at once that there could
be no doubt of its Egyptian origin, since on one side of the head was a
single lock of hair, while the fourth finger of the right hand was
held before the lips as though to enjoin silence. Both of these
peculiarities, it will be remembered, are characteristic of the infant
Horus, the child of Osiris and Isis, as portrayed in bronzes and temple
carvings. So at least Ragnall, who recently had studied many such
effigies in Egypt, informed me later. There was nothing else in the
place except an ancient, string-seated chair of ebony, adorned with
inlaid ivory patterns; an effigy of a snake in porcelain, showing that
serpent worship was in some way mixed up with their religion; and two
rolls of papyrus, at least that is what they looked like, which were
laid in the niche with the statue. These rolls, to my disappointment,
Harut refused to allow us to examine or even to touch.

After we had left the sanctuary I asked Harut when this figure was
brought to their land. He replied that it came when they came, at what
date he could not tell us as it was so long ago, and that with it came
the worship and the ceremonies of their religion.

In answer to further questions he added that this figure, which seemed
to be of ivory, contain