OF THE RETURN OF HARMACHIS TO ABOUTHIS; OF THE CELEBRATION OF THE MYSTERIES; OF THE CHANT OF ISIS; AND OF THE WARNING OF AMENEMHAT On the next day I embraced my uncle Sepa, and with an eager heart departed from Annu back to Abouthis.

To be short, I came thither in safety, having been absent five years and a month, being now no more a boy but a man full grown and having my mind well stocked with the knowledge of men and the ancient wisdom of Egypt.

So once again I saw the old lands, and the known faces, though of these some few were wanting, having been gathered to Osiris.

Now, as, riding across the fields, I came nigh to the enclosure of the Temple, the priests and people issued forth to bid me welcome, and with them the old wife, Atoua, who, but for a few added wrinkles that Time had cut upon her forehead, was just as she had been when she threw the sandal after me five long years before.
"_La! la! la!_" she cried; "and there thou art, my bonny lad; more bonny even than thou wert! _La!_ what a man! what shoulders! and what a face and form! Ah, it does an old woman credit to have dandled thee! But thou art over-pale; those priests down there at Annu have starved thee, surely?
Starve not thyself: the Gods love not a skeleton.

'Empty stomach makes empty head' as they say at Alexandria.