Page:"The Mummy" Volume 1.djvu/232

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218
THE MUMMY.

living only inns, whilst they considered tombs as everlasting habitations;—a circumstance, by the way, that strongly corroborates my hypothesis, at least as far as their opinions go; as it seems to imply that both soul and body were designed to remain there."

They had now entered the Pyramid, and were proceeding with infinite difficulty along a low, dark, narrow passage: "Observe, Edric," said the doctor, "how the difficulty and obscurity of these winding passages confirm my opinion: you know, the religion of the ancient Egyptians, like that of the ancient Hindoos, was one of penances and personal privations; and, granting that to be the case, what can be more simple, than that the passages the initiati had to traverse before they reached the adytum, should be painful and difficult of access. Besides this, as you know, the bones of a bull, no doubt those of the god Apis, were found in a sarcophagus in the second Pyramid, it seems probable that it was sacred to his worship: and its vicinity to the Nile, which was indispensable to the temples of Apis, as, when it was time for him to die, he was drowned in