Page:Queen Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx.djvu/102

4 among the natives of the islands; then along the shores of the Indian Ocean and those of the Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Euphrates; up that river to Babylon, the renowned City of the Sun; thence across the Syrian desert to the valley of the Nile, where they finally settled, and gave the name of their mother country to a district of Nubia, calling it Maiu or Maioo. After becoming firmly established in Egypt they sent colonists to Syria. These reached as far north as Mount Taurus, founding on their way settlements along the coast of the Mediterranean, in Sidon, Tyre, the valley of the Orontes, and again on the banks of the Euphrates, to the north of Babylon, in Mesopotamia.

Mayach (that is, "the land that first arose from the bottom of the deep") was the name of the empire whose sovereigns bore the title of Can (serpent), spelt to-day khan in Asiatic countries. This title, given by the Mayas to their rulers, was derived from the contour of the empire, that of a serpent with inflated breast, which in their books and their sculptures they represented sometimes with, sometimes without wings, as the Egyptians did the uræus, symbol of their country. Ælian says: "It was the custom of the Egyptian kings to wear asps of different colors in their crowns, this reptile