* With reference to the substances which proceeded from the eye of Râ, see the remarks of Birch, _Sur un papyrus magique du Musée Britannique_. By his tears (_romîtû_) Horus, or his eye as identified with the sun, had given birth to all men, Egyptians (_romîtû, rotû_), Libyans, and Asiatics, excepting only the negroes. The latter were born from another part of his body by the same means as those employed by Atûmû in the creation of Shû and Tafnûît.
** The same story is told, but with reference to rats only, by Pliny, by Diodorus, by Ælianus, by Macrobius, and by other Greek or Latin writers. Even in later times, and in Europe, this pretended phenomenon met with a certain degree of belief, as may be seen from the curious work of Marcus Fredericus Wendelinus, _Archipalatinus, Admiranda Nili_, Franco-furti, mdcxxiii., cap. xxi. pp. 157-183. In Egypt all the fellahîn believe in the spontaneous generation of rats as in an article of their creed. They have spoken to me of it at Thebes, at Denderah, and on the plain of Abydos; and Major Brown has lately noted the same thing in the Fayûm. The variant which he heard from the lips of the notables is curious, for it professes to explain why the rats who infest the fields in countless bands during the dry season, suddenly disappear at the return of the inundation; born of the mud and putrid water of the preceding year, to mud they return, and as it were dissolve at the touch of the new waters.
It was not Râ alone whose tears were endowed with vitalizing power. All divinities whether beneficent or malevolent, Sit as well as Osiris or Isis, could give life by weeping; and the work of their eyes, when once it had fallen upon earth, flourished and multiplied as vigorously as that which came from the eyes of Râ.
[Illustration: 224.jpg KHNÛMÛ MODELLING MAN UPON A POTTER'S TABLE. 1]
1 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Gayet. The scene is taken from bas-reliefs in the temple of Luxor, where the god Khnûmû is seen completing his modelling of the future King Amenôthes III. and his double, represented as two children wearing the side-lock and large necklace. The first holds his finger to his lips, while the arms of the second swing at his sides.