interested themselves in the temple.  Monthotpu dug a well which was kept fully supplied by the infiltrations from the Nile.  He enlarged and cleaned out the sacred lake upon which the priests launched the Holy Ark, on the nights of the great mysteries.  The alluvial deposits of fifty centuries have not as yet wholly filled it up:  it is still an irregularly shaped pond, which dries up in winter, but is again filled as soon as the inundation reaches the village of El-Kharbeh.

[Illustration:  384.jpg USIRTASEN I. OF ABYDOS]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by M. de Banville.

A few stones, corroded with saltpetre, mark here and there the lines of the landing stages, a thick grove of palms fringes its northern and southern banks, but to the west the prospect is open, and extends as far as the entrance to the gorge, through which the souls set forth in search of Paradise and the solar bark.  Buffaloes now come to drink and wallow at midday where once floated the gilded “bari” of Osiris, and the murmur of bees from the neighbouring orchards alone breaks the silence of the spot which of old resounded with the rhythmical lamentations of the pilgrims.

Heracleopolis the Great, the town preferred by the earlier Theban Pharaohs as their residence in times of peace, must have been one of those which they proceeded to decorate con amore with magnificent monuments.

[Illustration:  385.jpg A PART OF THE ANCIENT SACRED LAKE OF OSIRIS NEAR THE TEMPLE OF ABYDOS]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey,
     taken in 1884.

Unfortunately it has suffered more than any of the rest, and nothing of it is now to be seen but a few wretched remains of buildings of the Roman period, and the ruins of a barbaric colonnade on the site of a Byzantine basilica almost contemporary with the Arab conquest.  Perhaps the enormous mounds which cover its site may still conceal the remains of its ancient temples.  We can merely estimate their magnificence by casual allusions to them in the inscriptions.

[Illustration:  368.jpg THE SITE OF THE ANCIENT HERACLEOPOLIS]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Golenischeff

We know, for instance, that Usirtasen III. rebuilt the sanctuary of Harshafitu, and that he sent expeditions to the Wady Hammamat to quarry blocks of granite worthy of his god:  but the work of this king and his successors has perished in the total ruin of the ancient town.  Something at least has remained of what they did in that traditional dependency of Heracleopolis, the Fayum:  the temple which they rebuilt to the god Sobku in Shodit retained its celebrity down to the time of the Caesars, not so much, perhaps, on account of the beauty of its architecture as for the unique character of the religious rites which took place there daily.  The sacred lake contained a family of tame crocodiles, the image and incarnation