runs probation. Here, then, was the prob- light, masonified in the magnificent lem which lay before the first Master and unique inner Chamber of Ascent. of the Secret, the originator of "the Similarly, another great astronomical wisdom of the Egyptians : " to express, conception — viz., the Horizon but in expressing to conceal to veil, not only through the "Book of the but with a veil of light, the mysteries Dead," but through all the funereal of the Deity; and to choose such imagery of the country, as in the "Saisymbols as would convey, without an-Sinsin," or "Book of the Migrabetraying, their living energy, their tion of the Soul," the inscription of illuminative power, aud, above all, Khu-en-Aten already quoted, and that their illimitable endurance. No ordi- of Queen Anchnes-ra-neferab.1 What nary image, it is clear, no mineral, no horizon, then, is that to which such plant, no animal, no mau, could suffice mystery attaches? It cannot be that for an expression such as this. Only of Memphis, or of any specific locality, the orbs of heaven, obeying in their for the horizon of the sacred writings lustrous course the laws that know no is common to the rituals of North change, could fulfil the required condi- and South, and there is but one circle tions. Alike in the pictured and the which can be equally general — that is, masonic record, the path of the just is the circle passing through the celestial portrayed in characters of light, and poles, the horizon of the point in the his progress in the language of celestial sky which is occupied by the sun at the motion; or, at least, that language vernal equinox, and which was held by gives meaning to both. the Egyptians to be the apex of the universal heavens. That horizon to a dweller on our globe, or approximately on any member of our system, forms, as it were, the floor of the celestial A remarkable instance is that of the Orbit, involving the relation between the rotation of the earth on its axis and its revolution around the sun, on which rested the whole kalendar of dome. From the midst of it on the Egypt. Amongst the people of that day of equinox rises the sun right upcountry, as among ourselves, existed, wards in the sky as he divides the puras Dr. Brugsch has shown, the quad- ple arch of the firmament by the royal rennial cycle of leap year; but the arch of light, and from out of it the divisions of the annual course were whole hosts of stars, from pole to pole, arranged on a far more scientific plan in serried array, follow him through than the patchwork of our own system. the silent night, completing their num Each year was considered to contain abers just in time to herald his return regular orbit of thirty-six decades of from the same horizon. "The road is days, divided either into twelve equal periods, or months, each consisting of three decades, or into three equal periods, or seasons, each made up of twelve decades. At the conclusion of the Orbit in each year was an interval of divine rejoicing, consisting of five distinctive festivals, each the birthday of a great deity; and every fourth year was celebrated the yet greater festival, or jubilee, of completion. Hence in the ritual we have an entire "book," containing several chapters, entitled the "Book of the Orbit," and "The Passage of the Sun." And in the Grand Pyramid we find all these features of the Orbit, together with many other phenomena of the realms of of fire," says the ritual; "they whirl in fire behind him." Now, this horizon seems strikingly indicated by the Entrance Passage of the Grand Pyramid, which, as is well known, points a little more than three degrees from the North Pole. For accepting as most probable the date of foundation given by Dr. Brugsch (viz., the year B.C. 3700), we find that about two hundred and sixty years later (B.C. 3440) the Pole-star, Alpha Draconis, occupied, as Professor Smyth has pointed out, just 1 Translated by Mr. Budge. 2 Dr. Brugsch pays a just tribute to the valuable information given by Professor Smyth, notwithstanding the mistaken character of his views. The date here quoted is an instance in point, For the that position, so that it would shine | remained impenetrable, until Caliph right down the passage. And thus the Al Mamoon, in the ninth century of disciples of the Master of the Secret, our era, forced an opening at random who in successive generations must through the solid masonry, and hit have watched for two hundred years upon the Entrance Passage. Entering the approach of the star, would receive by the low gateway we have before us in its final co-ordination the most con- the passage of the equinox already devincing proof of the truth of those scribed, which while descending southastronomical relations wherein their wards into the depths of darkness mystical religion was embodied. Hence, points northwards to the Pole-star. As when we read in the ritual of "The we cross the gate on the seventeenth Good Paddle of the North, the Opener of the Disc," we recall at once the narrow, paddle-shaped passage, widened at the entrance towards the north, which opens the sacred interior to the outer universe, the "long, long tube" which sweeps through space, pointing perennially to the position occupied by each successive star which for a brief period of centuries keeps watch before the pole. Opening now the "Book of the Dead" as the ritual is not very happily called by modern writers -we commence the dirge which followed the process of embalming, that sacred process whereby the corruptible literally put on incorruption before the mortal could enter on the "manifestation to light" (Chap I.). Book in hand, let us ascend the western side of the northern face, as the mourners ascended the western slope in the sacred cemetery among the hills of Thebes. Then, reciting chapter by chapter as we mount course by course, we approach at the fifteenth step a gateway two courses yet above us, just as the Departed in the fifteenth chapter approaches the "Gate of the Gateway," and invokes "Haroeris, the great guide of the world, the guide of the souls in their secret place, the light dwelling in the horizons.” From this point the first veil of secrecy begins. For so effectually was the opening concealed from uninstructed eyes in ancient times by a revolving stone that the position, once lost, was impossible to recover; and for many hundred years after the fall of the Roman power the building professor honestly records it as astronomically true, although rejecting it (in favor of a later one) as absolutely fatal to his own theories, course, we recognize the point where, in the seventeenth chapter, the Deceased is said to "cross the door of earth" and exclaim, "I go from the gate of the hill, that is the gate of the North." And in the ascent we have made we recognize also "the ladder of the earth," of which a much older papyrus makes mention. From that gate we enter the descending passage of the horizon, the first "Hall in the House of Osiris," the beginning of the journey in union with that divine guide whose aid alone can enable the deceased to overcome the unseen foes awaiting him in the Secret Places, and to bear the intolerable splendor of the under-world. In that Hall takes place the reconstruction (XXI.)1 of every member of the deceased in some divine form, his preservation (XXVII.), his protection (XLII.), and his sustentation with heavenly food (LII.). Bidding farewell to the light of common day, and treading with the Departed the Entrance Passage, we arrive after a long descent at an aperture in the western wall, and passing through the opening thus disclosed, mount gently into a kind of grotto, at the bottom of the Well, a square, perpendicular shaft with footholes cut in the precipitous sides; from the top of which a level passage runs to the Queen's Chamber, that is, the "Birthplace of Osiris " mentioned in the rit ual, the chamber of his mother, the refer throughout to the chapters in the "Book of the Dead." 1 The Roman numerals enclosed in brackets 2 The only authority at present for the title of Queen's Chamber is that of the Arabs; but it is far from improbable that they obtained it from tradition, and it accords with the papyrus mentioned' above, Queen of the Pyramid. Returning | tance itself from thee. He evoketh 66 Precisely similar is the progress of the Departed described in this portion of the ritual. While the inner man (or Ka") is renovated in the First Hall of Osiris, the soul new-born, "the mystery made by the gods" being accomplished (LXIV.), comes forth from the Second Hall, the Chamber of Isis, where Osiris was born. Then passing the gate of Anruhf at the head, or northern opening, of the Well, as the gate of Rusta is the southern or lower opening the name of the southern gate is Rusta," says the ritual, the name of the northern gate is Anruhf" the soul descends the ladder of the sepulchral shaft, as may be seen in the Papyrus of Ani, into the grotto or Chamber of the Waters at the bottom of the well, the Third Hall in the House of Osiris. In the depths of that Well of Life, wherein, as the "Sai-anSinsin" tells us, approach is made to Osiris, takes place the Regeneration of the Renewed Man (or Ka) by reunion with the new-born soul amid the living waters. "I give the waters of life to every mummy," says the goddess Nout, who presides over the waters, in the inscription on the vase of Osur-Ur (given in "Records of the Past"), "to reunite it with the soul, that it may henceforth be separated from it no more forever. The Resident of the West has established thy person amid the sages of the divine Lower Region" it will be observed that both the Western position and the Lower Region accord with the position in the Pyramid; "he giveth stability to thy body, and causeth thy soul not to dis tion a living spirit endowed with a mystic name, awaits the Departed, now the Initiate; that saving bark whereby he is to pass the deep waters of death, and to approach securely the Fourth Hall in the House of Osiris, the subterranean abyss, or Place of Ordeal, whence they who cannot endure the fire pass away to nothingness. And from that same well also where he regains his living soul he catches through the opening above his first glimpse of the "Celestial Nile" (CX.), the river of life which rises beneath the throne of the Creator, Tum, that river on the waters of which the Immortals move forevermore. Resuming our exploration of the edifice, and turning back from the Infernum, as the deceased turns back from Hades (CXIX.), we remount the Passage of the Horizon, until we come to a granite gate, or portcullis, built in the roof. This great gate, which originally was totally hidden by masonry, and was only discovered by the falling of a stone when Al Mamoon was forcing his entrance into the pyramid, stands at the threshold of the Secret Places. Not only was the whole gate carefully hidden, but the lower portion of the passage within was blocked inside with enormous stones, still unremoved, and perhaps irremovable. So that even now the Lintel is still hidden, and admission is only effected through a hole forced by violence in the wall of the passage above the blocks within. With the obstruction of the doorway the experience of the deceased precisely corresponds. "I have come," says he, later on, “through the Hidden Lintel; I have come like the sun, through the Gate of the Festival." And, after a litany to the celestial intelligences who keep account of the moral actions of mankind, he approaches the difficult portal, and beseeches admission to the Double Hall of Truth, the Chambers of Confession and of Illumination, the Fifth and Sixth Halls in the House of to 3 Osiris. Here, as in the material build- | cient coffin of Amamu (the "ladder of ing, so also in the ritual, resistance is the earth" having been already asoffered at every step to the further ad- cended outside the building). Sheer vance of the Initiated (CXXV.). "I downwards, the ladder which has will not let thee go over me," says the been made for Osiris" descends into sill, "unless you tell me my name.' "the Well. Northwards the Passage of "The weight in the right place is thy Justification slopes to the Hidden Linname," is the profound reply of the tel. And southwards, still upward, Initiate. For, as the raising of the but with a very slightly different incliportcullis depends upon the true ad- nation, runs the Southern Ascending justment of the weight, so also is Passage, called by some writers the Justice the virtue without which the Grand Gallery, forming the upper porupward path remains forever closed. tion of the Hall of Truth, the Chamber Creeping with difficulty through a small of the Orbit, or Sixth Hall in the House hole forced in the concealed passage of Osiris. This remarkable structure above the blocks, we find ourselves in consists of a corridor about one huna low corridor about one hundred and dred and fifty-eight feet long and twenty-nine feet long, inclined upwards twenty feet high, built entirely on a (at an angle of a little more than slope, floor, walls, and roof, except a twenty-six degrees to the level of the small portion at the southern or upper Pyramid, and corresponding to the end. On either side of the sloping First Hall of Truth. Then, stooping floor are twenty-eight ramps, each with beneath the low gateway by which it is a hole in it, the reference to which in terminated (but not obstructed) at the the ritual has been already noticed. top, the Gate of the Festival, already | And at the upper end the slope of the mentioned, we stand upon a kind of floor line is closed abruptly just above landing-place, from which the whole the Queen's Chamber (or Hall of New system of the interior passages opens Birth) by a block three feet high formout. On every side is the "crossing of ing a daïs, or throne of judgment. the pure roads of life," of which the From hence the top of the block, or coffin of Amamu speaks. On the west-seat of the throne, runs level for about ern side is the mouth of the well, the sixty-one inches; the wall at the side Gate of Anruhf, leading down to the of the seat thus formed being not quite "roads of darkness." Before us lie vertical, but impending very slightly the Fields of Aahlu, the blessed coun- towards the slope. At the back of the try where the Justified executes the throne the gallery is brought to a terworks which he is privileged to per- mination by the southern wall closing form for Osiris. "I have digged in down within forty-two inches of the Anruhf," he says later on; "I have seat, and leaving as an exit further drilled the holes "the holes, that is, south a narrow and grave-like tunnel. for the good seed which shall bear In the sloping roof of the gallery runfruit in the King's Chamber, where ning upward from north to south, at a the corn grows 66 seven cubits high," somewhat greater inclination than the the holes which we shall see are drilled in the ramps of the Southern Ascending Passage, but to which no siguification has yet been attached. floor, are thirty-six overlappings, corresponding to the number of decades in the orbit of the Egyptian year. And on the side wall of the daïs (at the upBeyond the fields the road leads di- per end of the gallery) are five cusps, rect to the Hall of New Birth, where one above another, marking the birththe soul received her second life in the days of the five deities which termichamber of Isis, the mother of Osiris, nated the orbit, while the crowning the incarnate Deity dwelling in the jubilee of the leap year is masouified House of Humanity. From the en- in the throne to which the whole ascent trance, too, of the passage diverge the leads up immediately above the Chaminterior ladders spoken of on the an- ber of New Birth. Finally (though there are other correspondences of a est into the House of God with much similar character, upon which it would purity," exclaim the mourners, adbe too long to enter), along the slop-dressing the Departed. "The gods ing walls are seven overlappings, one have abundantly purified thee in the above another, arching over to the great tribunal. Thou art not shut out summit, and in the position corre- of Heaven: thy body is renewed in sponding to that occupied by our own the presence of Osiris. Thou hast not globe among the planets runs a deep been shut out from the House of Glory. groove, or orbit, along its entire length. Thou seest the path of beauty, comThus we are confronted with a star-pleting every transformation which tling connection between the "Orbit "thou desirest." And the ancient coffin 66 Οι Passage of the Sun," which plays of Amamu bore on the outside this so prominent a part in the ritual, and inscription, full of desire and hope. the Chamber of the Seven Rayed," "An act of homage to Anup, who mentioned in the same sacred writ-passes the deceased over the distant ings; the Chamber, that is, of the paths, the fairest of the Karneter" seven great spirits in the service of that is, the land of the holy dead. their Lord, the Creator, who," the "Thine eyes," say our own sacred same books tell us, "protect the coffin writings, "shall see the King in his of Osiris," the Hall of the Orbit beauty; they shall behold the land that crowned by the seven-fold radiance of is very far off.” supreme Intelligences who overarch the splendor of creation. A burst of triumph greets the adept as, mounting the Ascent of Justification, he accomplishes the Passage of the Sun (CXXVI.) and approaches the Chamber of the Orbit, the Hall of Illumination. "The deceased," we read (CXXVII.), “passes through the Gate of the Gateway. Prepare ye his hall when he comes. Justify his words against the accusers. There is given to him the food of the gods of the Gate. There has been made for him the crown which belongs to him as the dweller in the Secret Place." In another place the Justified himself exclaims, "I have opened the gate of Heaven and earth" (at the junction of the Passages of Orbit and of Equinox). "The soul of Osiris rests there. I cross through the halls. No defect or evil is found in me." And once more the deceased prays that he may pass this hall. "Place me before thee, O Lord of Eternity. Hail, dweller of the West, Good Being, Lord of Abydos, Let me pass through the roads of darkness; let me follow thy servants in the gate." And here apparently Shortly beyond the Hall of the Orbit the structure changes its material to granite, forming as it were a house of itself within the Pyramid — the House of Light within the House of Osiris, entered by the grave-like passage behind the throne. This is the House of Glory described on the coffin so often quoted, the house to which the illumiuated soul approaches after passing the tribunal of Osiris. Here is the " gate of the pure spirits," which they alone can enter who are washed in the waters of Life, and radiant with the splendors of the Orbit. takes place the solemn address described in the "Sai-an-Sinsin" of the gods in the House of Osiris (called in the ritual the gods of the Horizon), followed by the response of the gods in the House of Glory. And straight on the Illuminate passes through the low channel, first into the beautiful ante-chamber or "Place of Preparation," and then onward by the same low passage- each portion of which has a distinctive festival enumerated in the "Book of the Dead"—to the goal of his migration, the Seventh Hall in the House of Osiris, with its four A similar note of exultation marks portcullises and its open sarcophagus. in the passage 66 "Sai-an-Sinsin" Awake, awake, Osiris," so sing the where we read of the great Tribunal mourners to the beloved Departed, now and the House of Light. "Thou com-glorious in the House of Light, and the |