To. the Editor of the "Norra-Cuina Datty News."
Sim,—At the risk of being termed not merely a "boring bookworm" but an omnivorous white ant by your correspondent '"Zadoc," 1, venture to present a little more definitely the hypothesis of relation between Chinese and Sgyptian prehistoric culture. "Zadoc"' has been sternly called to order by Mr. Sowerby in your columns for asserting that "the Chinese dragon is undoubtedly the. prototype of the Bgyptian crocodile." the word prototype was certainly ill-chosen im this case, but if equivalent' be used instead there is something to be said for it, from a symbolic standpoint.
Mr. Sowerby, in answer to my query, has inferred the Chinese dragon to have been imaginatively evolved from a python, tough the dragon's teeth are mammalian and carnivorous end its legs and claws birdlike. Unquestionably the Egyptian monster Apep (eventually identified with Set, the Devil) was portrayed on the monuments and papyri as a python, and was typical of drought, sterility and general hostility to human" welfare. But the Chinese dragon, on. the contrary, was not a figure of evil. It represented water and fertility and became associated with royalty. Comparison of the dragons of East and West should accordingly be made with caution.
A plausible comparison is between the Chinese lung (fi) and the Egyptian crocodile-god Sebek, the latter being principally worshipped in the Fayum and closely allied with the Egyptian Holy Family" of Osiris, Isis and: Horns, but at certain other places being abhorred, from which one may conjecture that it represented¢a foreign cult. which was never thoroughly domesticated. The prehistoric civilization of Egypt, according to her own records, was due to an in—vasion of metal-workers from the southeast; called the 'Followers of Horns' whose standard was a Falcon. Egyptologists are by no moans agreed as to the provenance of these invaders, but it is generally admitted that they came up the Red Sea and then crossed the de-sort into the Upper Nile Valley, whenes they conquered the aboriginal Egyptians of the Stone Age. It is well-known that Horns as a hawk was emblematic of the rising sun, and the 108th chapter of the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" describes the dwelling of Sebek as the. east of the Mount of Sunrise. These closely allied divinities were plainly of oriental origin. The Chinese dragon likewise figures as the eastern celestial quadrant.
As for the hawk, in the feudal age of China falcon-banners styled vit (Jf§) were borne in the chariots of the higher chieftains, and in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.