the Hindoos. There is a tradition that in ancient times they had the same custom of offering to the god of the stream a virgin richly dressed. At a later period an image of wax was thrown into the river, instead of the human victim. When foreign kings married their princesses, it was customary to send them water from the Nile, however great the trouble or expense might be. At the annual rising of the river, the priests went in grand procession to strew it with lotus blossoms, and chant hymns in its praise. They burned frankincense to the sun at its rising, meridian, and setting, and offered to it solemn sacrifices on the fourth of each month. They carried offerings to the temples, in token of gratitude for recovery from sickness. They seated an image of the dead at their banquets to remind them of their own mortality. They built their tombs with upper apartments, richly sculptured and painted. There the priests went on stated occasions to perform religious ceremonies, accompanied by relatives, bringing offerings to the departed-not to his mortal remains, but to the portion of divinity that was in him and had gone elsewhere. They consecrated the very rocks with which their sacred edifices were to be built. They dedicated each month and each day to the service of some particular deity. Their ancient attitude of worship was sitting with the thighs resting on the heels. Many of the statues were in this position. The sculptures represent kings and priests worshiping with hands uplifted before their faces, the palms turned toward the deity. Their common oblations were wine, oil, meal, cakes, turtledoves, young pigeons, fruit, flowers, vases, jewels, or whatever they had vowed. On important occasions they burnt incense and sacrificed red bullocks. If a single black hair was found on the animal, or if every hair did not grow in its natural and proper form, the priest rejected it; but if he found it without blemish he put his seal upon it. Wine was poured upon the altar, a fire kindled thereon, and the god solemnly invoked. They then cut the head from the victim, saying, 'If there be any evil to come upon any part of Egypt, may it light upon this head.' On account of this custom no Egyptian would eat the head of a beast. If there were Greeks in the market it was sold to them; if not, it was thrown into the river.

The entrails of the victim were taken out and consulted by the priests for auguries. The legs, shoulders, and loins were cut off for food, and the body was burned as an offering, after being stuffed with bread, honey, figs, raisins, and various aromatics. On some occasions the spectators scourged themselves while it was burning. The priests commenced the sacrifice after a fast, and finished by feasting on the portions set apart for them."

"There was a grand celebration, called the Feast of Lamps, held at Sais, in honor of Neith. Those who did not attend the ceremony, as well as those who did, burned lamps before. their houses all night, filled with oil and salt; thus all Egypt was illuminated. It was deemed a great irreverence to the goddess for anyone to omit this ceremony. At Bubastis was

an annual festival in honor of its goddess. It was probably connected with some holy object of pilgrimage, for people flocked to it from all parts of the country. It sometimes brought together a concourse of 'seven hundred thousand men and women, not to mention children.' The Nile, overspread with highly-ornamented barges, resembled a floating city, and the air resounded with choruses and musical instruments. When these companies approached a city they landed to frolic and bandy jests with those on shore. The women danced, played on musical instruments, and sometimes threw aside all their garments.

"In autumn they had mournful processions in search of the lost Osiris, weeping and lamenting as they went. One of the ceremonies was to lead the sacred cow seven times round the temple. From the astronomical character of their worship it is a natural inference that the circuits round the temple indicated the passage of the sun through the seven signs of the zodiac. When the genial warmth of spring returned, they had joyful processions, exulting over Osiris found.

"The twenty-fifth day of December was a festival in honor of the birthday of Horus. The commemoration of that day, both in ancient Hindostan and ancient Egypt, was probably owing to the fact that the sun at that period begins to return from the winter solstice. .

"Of all their religious festivals, none were so grand and solemn as those consecrated to Osiris and Isis, called the Greater and Lesser Mysteries. Little is known of them on account of the profound secrecy with which they were observed, and the penalty of death which awaited anyone who should divulge them. None but priests were initiated until the later times, when the exceptions were very rare. The honor of ascending to the Greater Mysteries was difficult to attain and very highly appreciated. Even a prince could not approach them until he had entered the priesthood; and not all priests were admitted. The candidates must be of unsullied moral character and go through a long process of study and purification. When initiation commenced they were required to prepare themselves by long fasts and undergo a series of very severe ordeals, during which time they were required to manifest the most perfect obedience and resignation. The blazing suns at midnight, fiery serpents, visions of the gods, and other splendid and sublime pageantry employed during the celebration of these Mysteries, are supposed to have been symbolical of the origin of the soul, its fall to earth, its travels through successive spheres, and final return to the home of tranquil glory. Some of the ceremonies and hymns to the gods, said to have been immodest, doubtless originated in their mystical ideas concerning the masculine and feminine principles that pervade the universe-ideas little likely to be understood or appreciated when viewed through the medium of modern habits of thought.

"In all the religious observances of Egypt, the priests alone understood the meaning of what they witnessed, for great care was taken to hide theological theories under a thick veil of mysterious emblems. They had, moreover, two sets of written characters. One, called the sacred or sarcedotal writing, was a concise abridgement of the hieroglyphics applied to all religious and scientific subjects, and known only to the priests. Another, called the epistolary or common style, was used for social or commercial purposes, and taught only to priests and merchants. If the names of deities occurred, they were always expressed in symbolic characters, not by the letters which formed the name, it being deemed

irreverent to write them like other words. Champollion says the name of their principal deity was pronounced by sounds which expressed the written symbol, and were quite different from the holy name itself."

"A variety of animals were venerated only in particular districts. Thebans abstained from sheep because the ram was an emblem of their god Amun. They never put one to death except on the annual festival of that deity, when they sacrificed a ram with many ceremonies and placed the skin upon his image. At Mendes the presiding deity was Kham, god of generation, who was represented with the head of a shegoat and the legs of a male; therefore goats were sacred in that region. The god Anubis was represented with a dog's head. Wherever his worship prevailed the dog was sacred, and they shaved their heads in token of mourning when one died. In some places apes and monkeys were sacred, being. connected with the history of the god Thoth. At Heliopolis they detested the crocodile and assigned it to Typhon, the destroyer; but in the vicinity of Lake Moeris they worshiped the ugly creature. They kept a crocodile in the tank at the temple, and fed it with portions of the sacrifices. The priests having rendered it perfectly tame by kind treatment adorned it with bracelets of gold and necklaces of artificial gems. Worshipers brought offerings of bread and wine. In those districts they deemed it a mark of favor from the deity to be devoured by these monsters. A story is recorded of a woman who brought up a young crocodile, and her countrymen considered her the nurse of a divinity. Her little son played fearlessly with the beast, but when it grew large it devoured the boy. His mother exulted, considering his fate peculiarly blest in thus being incorporated with the household god. In some places small serpents were kept in the temples, fed on honey and flour. It was considered a mark of divine favor to be bitten by any of this species. At Bubastis they wor shiped a goddess represented with the head of a cat, and in that region cats were sacred. When one of them died they shaved their eyebrows in sign of mourning. If a person killed one, even accidentally, a mob gathered around him and tore him to death without a trial. When they went to foreign

wars they embalmed dogs and cats that died on the way and brought them home for honorable burial. Belzoni found entire tombs filled with nothing but embalmed cats, carefully folded in red and white linen, the head covered by a mask representing its face.

"Serpents are winding about the ceilings (of the temples), or interwoven in rings, to represent vast astronomical cycles. There are serpents with the heads of deities, and serpents with the legs of human beings; serpents winged, and serpents crowned. In both Hindostan and Egypt this creature was the symbol of wisdom and immortality. There was a mystical and significant number, and the triangle is found in all their sacred places. Perhaps its three sides were a type of their divine triad, or trinity, consisting of the masculine principle of the universe, the feminine principle, and the offspring and result of the two. The emblem of life so often found on Egyptian monuments is explained by Sir J. G. Wilkinson as the union of the perpendicular line and the horizontal line as already mentioned as in use among the Hindoos; one being the representative of the masculine emblem of generation, and the other of the feminine, both together signifying the reproduction of life, or birth. It is surmounted by a ring, which is sometimes formed of eggs. This cross of Hermes, as it is called, is in various ways connected with the hieroglyphics of the planets, and is everwhere placed in the hands of deities, especially of Osiris. The sculptures often represent them offering it with a cornucopia of fruit and grain to kings at their inauguration, perhaps to signify the bestowal of abundant harvests, numerous flocks, and many children. It was generally worn by the devout, and was considered an amulet of great virtue, a protection from evil spirits. When this cross was twined with a serpent it was the emblem of immortal life. The mundane egg occurs often among the sculptures, and so does an eye, to represent the all-seeing eye of Osiris and the sun. There are apes and dwarfs looking pigmy and strange in the presence of colossal companions. The mysterious emblem called the sphinx was much more frequently introduced in Egypt than in India. It is supposed to have been a royal emblem, manifesting their ideas of what a king