Psamtik descended the steps to welcome the strangers.  His austere, sallow face endeavored to assume a smile.  The high officials in his train bowed down nearly to the ground, allowing their arms to hang loosely at their sides.  The Persians, crossing their hands on their breasts, cast themselves on the earth before the heir to the Egyptian throne.  When the first formalities were over, Bartja, according to the custom of his native country, but greatly to the astonishment of the populace, who were totally unaccustomed to such a sight, kissed the sallow cheek of the Egyptian prince; who shuddered at the touch of a stranger’s unclean lips, then took his way to the litters waiting to convey him and his escort to the dwelling designed for them by the king, in the palace at Sais.

A portion of the crowd streamed after the strangers, but the larger number remained at their places, knowing that many a new and wonderful sight yet awaited them.

“Are you going to run after those dressed-up monkeys and children of Typhon, too?” asked an angry priest of his neighbor, a respectable tailor of Sais.  “I tell you, Puhor, and the high-priest says so too, that these strangers can bring no good to the black land!  I am for the good old times, when no one who cared for his life dared set foot on Egyptian soil.  Now our streets are literally swarming with cheating Hebrews, and above all with those insolent Greeks whom may the gods destroy!

     [The Jews were called Hebrews (Apuriu) by the Egyptians; as brought
     to light by Chabas.  See Ebers, Aegypten I. p. 316.  H. Brugsch
     opposes this opinion.]

“Only look, there is the third boat full of strangers!  And do you know what kind of people these Persians are?  The high-priest says that in the whole of their kingdom, which is as large as half the world, there is not a single temple to the gods; and that instead of giving decent burial to the dead, they leave them to be torn in pieces by dogs and vultures.”

[These statements are correct, as the Persians, at the time of the dynasty of the Achaemenidae, had no temples, but used fire-altars and exposed their dead to the dogs and vultures.  An impure corpse was not permitted to defile the pure earth by its decay; nor might it be committed to the fire or water for destruction, as their purity would be equally polluted by such an act.  But as it was impossible to cause the dead bodies to vanish, Dakhmas or burying- places were laid out, which had to be covered with pavement and cement not less than four inches thick, and surrounded by cords to denote that the whole structure was as it were suspended in the air, and did not come in contact with the pure earth.  Spiegel, Avesta II.]

“The tailor’s indignation at hearing this was even greater than his astonishment, and pointing to the landing-steps, he cried: 

“It is really too bad; see, there is the sixth boat full of these foreigners!”