those which I have heard are either attached to the ancient monuments of the country or can be shown to go back to the traditions and beliefs of ancient Egypt. The golden bark of the Sun-god on the sacred lake of Karnak, or the heifer which was believed to ascend from the river once a year at Sharona on the eve of the festival of the Nile-gods are illustrations of the fact. The beliefs and customs of the people equally bear witness to the continuity of habit, and traditions among the inhabitants of the Sa’îd. Near Minia the dead are still ferried over the Nile to be buried on its eastern bank as they were five thousand years ago, and in spite of the fulminations of orthodox Mohammedanism or the Coptic Patriarch, food is still offered to them, and the living, whether Mohammedan or Coptic, hold a three days’ festival once a year over their graves. The fellaḥ may call himself a Christian or a Mohammedan, but at heart he remains a worshipper of Isis and Osiris, or rather of the local deities who were disguised under those names. It will be seen further on that the doctrine of the Ka or “Double” still lingers among the descendants of the subjects of Rameses, and the beliefs connected with the afarît or “spirits” and the mezaiyara or water-witch can be traced to an Old Egyptian source. On the other hand, the belief in the ghûl seems to me to be of Arab origin: it belongs to the desert, not to the cultivated soil.
I.
“A man had two sons. When they grew up, he saw the sons, one was a thief and the other a murderer. He did not know what to do. A neighbour said to him: ‘Send them to school.’ So to school they went, and the one became a lawyer and the other a doctor.”
II.
“A man of our village (Helwân is meant) had a wife who was very niggardly. If her husband or one of his
