Adams, Walter M.: The house of the hidden places: a clue to the creed of early Egypt from Egyptian sources (London, 1895)

I-] The Well of Life. 25

once rigidly blocked up, the liberated soul was
born anew; and thence it came forth to
descend the ladder of the shaft, as we see in
the papyrus of Ani,* and to become re-united
with the postulant awaiting it in the "Well of
Life. Then, when the soul is restored, initia-
tion takes place and strength is given to
endure the ordeal.

Returning from the bottom of the well to
the Passage of the Horizon, and pursuing our
course still further downwards, we come, after
a short level continuation, to the subterranean
chamber or the Place of the Central Fire,
where the initiate undergoes his ordeal; a
chamber hewn out of the solid rock, and having
an inaccessible floor covered with huge blocks
of varying height resembling a pool of petrified
name, or the masses of the mountain chains
formed by the action of the earth's central

1 am indebted for this illustration to .Mr. P. Compton
Irice, the well-known expert in ancient characters, who
"as just completed the splendid facsimile of that papyrus
tor the Trustees of the British Museum.