The teller of the story does not relate in what manner he received this well-merited reproof.  The gentle monster, no doubt, was tolerant of his presumptuousness, and soon put him at his ease again.  During the whole period of the Egyptian’s residence on the island, in fact, the golden serpent seems to have been invariably kind to him.  The days passed by like a happy dream, and the spell of the island’s enchantment possessed him so that, in after times, the details of the events of every day were lost in the single illusion of the whole adventure.

At last the ship arrived, as it had been foretold, and the sailor watched her passing over the hazy sea towards the mysterious shore.  “I went and got me up into a tall tree,” he said, “and I recognised those that were in it.  And I went to report the matter (to the serpent), and I found that he knew it.”

Very tenderly the great monster addressed him.  “Fare thee well, little one,” he said “Fare thee well to thy house.  Mayest thou see thy children and raise up a good name in thy city.  Behold, such are my wishes for thee.”

“Then,” continued the sailor, “I laid me on my stomach, my arms were bended before him.  And he gave me a freight of frankincense, perfume and myrrh, sweet-scented woods and antimony, giraffes’ tails, great heaps of incense, elephant tusks, dogs, apes and baboons, and all manner of valuable things.  And I loaded them in that ship, and I laid myself on my stomach to make thanksgiving to him.  Then he said to me:  ’Behold, thou shalt come home in two months, and shalt press thy children to thy bosom, and shalt flourish in their midst; and there thou shalt be buried.’”

[Illustration:  PL.  XV.  A Nile boat passing the hills of Thebes.]

[Photo by E. Bird.]

To appreciate the significance of these last words it is necessary to remember what an important matter it was to an Egyptian that he should be buried in his native city.  In our own case the position upon the map of the place where we lay down our discarded bones is generally not of first-rate importance, and the thought of being buried in foreign lands does not frighten us.  Whether our body is to be packed away in the necropolis of our city, or shovelled into a hole on the outskirts of Timbuctoo, is not a matter of vital interest.  There is a certain sentiment that leads us to desire interment amidst familiar scenes, but it is subordinated with ease to other considerations.  To the Egyptian, however, it was a matter of paramount importance.  “What is a greater thing,” says Sinuhe in the tale of his adventures in Asia, “than that I should be buried in the land in which I was born?” “Thou shalt not die in a foreign land; Asiatics shall not conduct thee to the tomb,” says the Pharaoh to him; and again, “It is no little thing that thou shalt be buried without Asiatics conducting thee."[1] There is a stela now preserved in Stuttgart, in which the deceased man asks those who pass his tomb to say a prayer for his soul; and he adjures them in these words:  “So truly as ye wish that your native gods should praise you, and that ye should be established in your seats, and that ye should hand down your offices to your children:  that ye should reach your homes in safety, and recount your travels to your wives;—­then say a prayer,” &c.[2]