Chapter 1. Once a year the elders would elect a chief and the whole tribe would go on a religious pilgrimage, on which it was the duty of every able-bodied citizen to take part. At last the great day came, and when the chief, sitting on his royal ox hide, had taken his seat on the platform and was about to begin, there was suddenly heard outside the town of Sippara the wild cry of a man: "Sippar! Sippar! Help, help!" And outside the town, along the river bank, appeared a boat, with a single man and a single maid in it. At once the cry of "Sippar! Sippar!" increased in volume and then swelled into a tremendous din, and not till the chief and all his people were drowned in a universal rush to the river bank could the boat get away. The chief of Sippara, of course, was the Egyptian king Amenophis III, who had determined to send to his ally the king of Babylonia and to the princes of Arabia an embassy with a present of a black stone from the Nile, a present that they would assuredly take as a bad omen, but that would be explained by the king of Babylon and his father Ptah-hammurabi-n-akhi in the most favorable manner possible. The stone was sent, and Amenophis III had then to be the only person present when the boat arrived, for he had to receive the messengers from the princes of Arabia and present the stone. Now his wife was called Mutnedj, and the chief of her maids was her slave, the princess Taia. It was therefore the princess Taia who was sent down to the boat, but whether she had been ordered to do so by the king and his council, as is related in the text, or whether she had herself decided to go to the boat beforehand, we cannot decide. But whichever may have been the case, she stole away from the house of the king and proceeded to the boat. But the servant who was watching over her, and the boatman, were, we are told, aware of her plan and tried to hinder her. When Taia arrived on the river bank, she saw a great crowd of people, and then a boat, in which sat the king with his counsellors. She recognized him, and she had two aims--either to be taken into the boat with him, or at any rate to watch the ceremony. At any rate, she had thought out a clever plan, and as she watched the ceremony she kept her eyes fixed on the king's hands. When he held out his right hand, she saw a ring on it. This troubled her; she could not tell what it was, and it is not till afterwards, as she tells us herself, that she discovered the significance of the ring. The king gave a signal with it, and one of his counsellors, the prince Huy, ran quickly across the planks and presented a cup to the chief, while the other counsellors gave the king a cup with wine. This seemed to be all that took place on that day. The king returned the cup to the counsellor who gave it to him, and had the boat towed back again, without taking any further notice of the girl. Then in the evening she returned to her master's house and slept on the dresser, as it were, beside the door, but the door-keeper went to his chief, who ordered him to take Taia from the place, in order that through her the king might learn her whereabouts. He carried her into a cave and went in himself. But he did not go far. He took her to Sippara. Next morning the king, on his awaking, perceived that he was alone, and in his first impulse he cried: "They have taken away my treasure." Then he dressed, summoned his servants, and said to them: "Find the treasure of the god Merodach, and whoever cannot find it let him have his hand chopped off." Then he commanded the boat to be restored and the chief priest and magistrates of Sippara to be sent for, and the king went down to the house. The chief priest and magistrates said to him: "The gods of Sippara have been carried off." And the king answered: "Who has dared to do this?" And the people replied: "There is a maiden called Taia, whom she has taken away to serve her. It is she whom the gods are carrying off." The king then ordered Taia to be brought to him, and asked her why she had come to Sippara. The girl could give no answer; but the king answered for her: "I will say that you are bringing presents to the god Merodach, and it was a sign of affection for him that the gods have allowed themselves to be stolen. They have sent you a kind of messenger from heaven, a fish that brings you the gods." "What have you to say to me?" asked the king, on hearing this. "It is my fate," answered Taia. "I know not how it will end, but I suppose that I am to end my life in this town, so I must obey the princess." "Come with me," said the king; "your life will be different here." And Taia followed him. But when they were in the palace, the king saw that the maiden had beautiful eyes. He made her his mistress, but in spite of her many charms he could not forget the goddess. She stayed in Sippara till a son was born to her, when he sent her to Babylon, to the care of the chief mistress of his harem, the mother of the god, the queen Istar-banit. And all the time he sent her away from him he had the image of the goddess Merodach and his wife, of whom he had only a little son named Asu, brought to the palace and put in it with the one who was Taia's child. SOUL AND BODY OF ETEOCHUS. The following legend was attached to a temple of Amen-Ra (Amen-Ra-asu) at Abu Giawah, in Upper Egypt. The worship of the god was introduced from Assyria, and in the earliest period the statues of the god Amen-Ra represent the Assyrian Ishtar. His father is Ramman, whose name we know from the Hebrew legend of Abraham. The names of his two sons are known as Amen-Ra and Istar. In Egypt, the worship of the god Amen was in extensive use in the Early Dynastic period; and his godfathers are Osiris, the husband of Isis, and Herut, the wife of Ra. After the invasion of the Kushites the local gods began to be assimilated to the Assyrian ones; and Istar, the spouse of Amen-Ra, became identified with Ishtar, the wife of the Assyrian Tammuz, who bore the name of Ishtar. All the statues which have come down to us of the two gods have the features of the Assyrian forms, but the name of the Assyrian Ishtar was removed. But the Assyrian name for the moon, Nisir, was preserved, and this was used by the Egyptians as the name of their goddess, Nisiru; she is identical with the goddess Astarte, whom the Greeks called Hera, and whom Homer calls Hera of the golden distaff. [Illustration: THE GOD ETEOCHUS AND THE SOUL IN THE NETHER WORLD] The origin of the myth is probably connected with the identification of Eteocles, king of Thebes, with the Assyrian Bel-Merodach. The legend concerned states that after death he left his soul behind him, which is in a strange land, but finds its way back to the body in the underworld, and that it is sometimes compelled to give up the ghost in the attempt to return. Such a motif is found also in the Babylonian myth of Etana (Gfeller, "Altorient. Texte," II, 9), and in the "Tsenhau- tableness" (R. N. E. I, p. 28). THE MYSTERIOUS GODS--THE DEAD BODIES. In a temple at Niphe a large number of figures of the dead are represented. The best preserved figures are those of the dead Thothmes-ib, the first king of Egypt, the second king Seti I, and his mother, the princess Meryt. The representation of Seti I shows that the king had a long bearded beard, while Seti I and his father Thothmes were clean shaved. At the time when the figures were made the Egyptians