orientalcairocit00sladuoft

34^ Oriental Cairo
at Heliopolis carrying the ashes of his father from Arabia
just as the remains of the Holy Carpet are brought back from
Arabia now. The father Phoenix, when he felt that his time
had come, retired to Arabia and cremated himself— the new
Phoenix sprang from the ashes, which he transfered to Heliopolis
so religiously. The mother was never mentioned. The
Egyptians called the Phcenix Bennu, and consecrated it to
Osiris. The pagans took it as an emblem of the traveller
returning from strange and distant lands after long separa-
tion. The Christians made it the symbol of the consolatory
hope that all which dies, fades, or is extinguished in Nature
shall revive to new life, bloom, and glory. Herodotus has
much to say about the Phoenix, which, he admits, he had
never seen except in a picture. He says that " if he was like
his picture he was partly golden-coloured and partly red,
and in outline and size was very like an eagle." I, too, have
seen his picture in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and, with due
deference to Herodotus, I think he looks much more like a
stork with a dash of cormorant or pelican. He concludes
with the following naive remark :
" They say that he has the following contrivance, which in
my opinion is not credible. They say that he comes from
Arabia, and brings the body of his father to the Temple of
the Sun, having enclosed him in myrrh, and there buries him
in the temple. He brings him in this manner : first, he
moulds an egg of myrrh as large as he is able to carry ; then
he tries to carry it, and, when he has made the experiment,
he hollows out the egg and puts his parent into it, and stops
up with some more myrrh the hole through which he has
introduced the body ; so when his father is put inside the
weight is the .same as before. Then, having covered it over,
he carries him to the Temple of the Sun in Egypt. This they
say is done by this bird."
The Phoenix was so popular that it was symbolical of
many things, from the soul to the inundation of the Nile ;
and there were people who thought it only came to Heliopolis
every seven thousand years, which goes to prove that
Heliopolis must have been a very ancient city.
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