of the hoofs of the Bull Sma-ur.  He standeth up in his place between the Two Great Gods, and his sceptre and staff are in his hands.  He lifteth up his hand to the Henmemet spirits, and the gods come to him with bowings.  The Two Great Gods look on in their places, and they find Pepi acting as judge of the gods.  The word of every spirit-soul is in him, and they make offerings to him among the Two Companies of the Gods.

CHAPTER III

         STORIES OF MAGICIANS WHO LIVED UNDER THE ANCIENT EMPIRE

The short stories of the wonderful deeds of ancient Egyptian magicians here given are found in the Westcar Papyrus, which is preserved in the Royal Museum in Berlin, where it is numbered P. 3033.  This papyrus was the property of Miss Westcar of Whitchurch, who gave it to the eminent German Egyptologist, Richard Lepsius, in 1839; it was written probably at some period between the twelfth and eighteenth dynasties.  The texts were first edited and translated by Professor Erman.

THE MAGICIAN UBAANER AND THE WAX CROCODILE

The first story describes an event which happened in the reign of Nebka, a king of the third dynasty.  It was told by Prince Khafra to King Khufu (Cheops).  The magician was called Ubaaner,[1] and he was the chief Kher-heb in the temple of Ptah of Memphis, and a very learned man.  He was a married man, but his wife loved a young man who worked in the fields, and she sent him by the hands of one of her maids a box containing a supply of very fine clothes.  Soon after receiving this gift the young man proposed to the magician’s wife that they should meet and talk in a certain booth or lodge in her garden, and she instructed the steward to have the lodge made ready for her to receive her friend in it.  When this was done, she went to the lodge, and she sat there with the young man and drank beer with him until the evening, when he went his way.  The steward, knowing what had happened, made up his mind to report the matter to his master, and as soon as the morning had come, he went to Ubaaner and informed him that his wife had spent the previous day drinking beer with such and such a young man.  Ubaaner then told the steward to fetch him his casket made of ebony and silver-gold, which contained materials and instruments used in working magic, and when it was brought him, he took out some wax, and fashioned a figure of a crocodile seven spans long.  He then recited certain magical words over the crocodile, and said to it, “When the young man comes to bathe in my lake thou shalt seize him.”  Then giving the wax crocodile to the steward, Ubaaner said to him, “When the young man goes down to the lake to bathe according to his daily habit, thou shalt throw the crocodile into the water after him.”  Having taken the crocodile from his master the steward departed.

[Footnote 1:  This name means “splitter of stones.”  It will be remembered that the late Sir H.M.  Stanley was called the “stone-splitter,” because of his great strength of deed and word.]