human bodies. There were bulls, cows, sheep, monkeys, foxes, bats, crocodiles, fishes, and birds in them: idols often occur; and one tomb was filled with nothing but cats, carefully folded in red and white linen, the head covered by a mask representing the cat, and made of the same linen. I have opened all these sorts of animals. Of the bull, the calf, and the sheep, there is no part but the head which is covered with linen, and the horns project out of the cloth; the rest of the body being represented by two pieces of wood, eighteen inches wide, and three feet long, in a horizontal direction, at the end of which was another, placed perpendicularly, two feet high, to form the breast of the animal. The calves and sheep are of the same structure, and large in proportion to the bulls. The monkey is in its full form, in a sitting posture. The fox is squeezed up by the bandages, but in some measure the shape of the head is kept perfect. The crocodile is left in its own shape, and after being well bound round with linen, the eyes and mouth are painted on this covering. The birds are squeezed together, and lose their shape, except the ibis, which is found like a fowl ready to be cooked, and bound round with linen like all the rest. * * *

The next sort of mummy that drew my attention, I be lieve I may with reason conclude to have been appropriated to the priests. They are folded in a manner totally different from the others, and so carefully executed, as to show the great respect paid to those personages. The bandages are stripes of red and white linen intermixed, covering the whole body, and producing a curious effect from the two colors. The arms and legs are not enclosed in the same envelope with the body, as in the common mode, but are bandaged separately, even the fingers and toes being preserved distinct. They have sandals of painted leather on their feet, and bracelets on their arms and wrists. They are always found with the arms across the breast, but not pressing it; and though the body is bound with such a quantity of linen, the shape of the person is carefully preserved in every limb. The cases in which mummies of this sort are found, are somewhat better executed, and I have seen one that had the eyes and eyebrows of enamel, beautifully executed in imitation of nature. * * *

The dwelling-place of the natives is generally in the passages, between the first and second entrance into a tomb. The walls and the roof are as black as any chimney. The

inner door is closed up with mud, except a small aperture sufficient for a man to crawl through. Within this place the sheep are kept at night, and occasionally accompany their masters in their vocal concert. Over the door-way there are always some half-broken Egyptian figures, and the two foxes, the usual guardians of burial-places. A small lamp, kept alive by fat from the sheep, or rancid oil, is placed in a niche in the wall, and a mat is spread on the ground; and this formed the grand divan' wherever I was.

There the people assembled round me, their conversation turning wholly on antiquities. Such a one had found such a thing, and another had discovered a tomb. Various articles were brought to sell to me, and sometimes I had reason to rejoice at having stayed there. I was sure of a supper of milk and bread served in a wooden bowl; but whenever they supposed I should stay all night, they always killed a couple of fowls for me, which were baked in a small oven heated with pieces of mummy cases, and sometimes with the bones and rags of the mummies themselves. It is no uncommon thing to sit down near fragments of bones: hands, feet, or skulls, are often in the way; for these people are so accustomed to be among the mummies, that they think no more of sitting on them than on the skins of their dead calves. I also became indifferent about them at last, and would have slept in a mummy pit as readily as out of it.

Here they appear to be contented. The laborer comes home in the evening, seats himself near his cave, smokes his pipe with his companions, and talks of the last inundation of the Nile, its products, and what the ensuing season is likely to be. His old wife brings him the usual bowl of lentils and bread moistened with water and salt, and (when she can add a little butter) it is a feast. Knowing nothing beyond this, he is happy. The young man's chief business is to accumulate the amazing sum of a hundred piastres (eleven dollars and ten cents,) to buy himself a wife, and to make a feast on the wedding-day.

If he have any children, they want no clothing: he leaves them to themselves till mother Nature pleases to teach them to work, to gain money enough to buy a shirt or some other rag to cover themselves; for while they are children they are generally naked or covered with rags. The parents are roguishly cunning, and the children are schooled by their example, so that it becomes a matter of course to cheat strangers. Would any one believe that, in such a

state of life, luxury and ambition exist? If any woman be destitute of jewels, she is poor, and looks with envy on one more fortunate then herself, who perhaps has the worth of half a crown round her neck; and she who has a few glass beads, or some sort of coarse coral, a couple of silver brooches, or rings on her arms and legs, is considered as truly rich and great. Some of them are as complete co quettes in their way as any to be seen in the capitals of Europe.

When a young man wants to marry, he goes to the father of the intended bride, and agrees with him what he is to pay for her. This being settled, so much money is to be spent on the wedding-day feast. To set up housekeeping, nothing is requisite but two or three earthen pots, a stone to grind meal, and a mat which is the bed. The spouse has a gown and jewels of her own; and if the bridegroom present her with a pair of bracelets of silver, ivory, or glass, she is happy and fortunate indeed.

The house is ready, without rent or taxes. No rain can pass through the roof; and there is no door, for there is no want of one, as there is nothing to lose. They make a kind of box of clay and straw, which, after two or three days' exposure to the sun, becomes quite hard. It is fixed on a stand, an aperture is left to put all their precious things into it, and a piece of mummy-case forms the door. If the house does not please them, they walk out and enter another, as there are several hundreds at their command; I might say several thousands, but they are not all fit to receive inhabitants.

LESSON XLI.

Address to the Mummy in Belzoni's Exhibition, London.-
NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

AND thou hast walk'd about (how strange a story!)
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous.

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted Dummy,
Thou hast a tongue-come, let us hear its tune;

Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, Mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,

Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,

But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features.

Tell us

-for doubtless thou canst recollect,

To whom should we assign the sphinx's fame?
Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect

Of either Pyramid that bears his name?
Is Pompey's pillar really a misnomer?
Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?
Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and forbidden

By oath to tell the mysteries of thy trade,
Then say what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue which at sunrise played?
Perhaps thou wert a Priest-if so, my struggles
Are vain;-Egyptian priest ne'er owned their juggles
Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,
Has hob-a-nobb'd with Pharaoh glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny* in Homer's hat,

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great Temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled,
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,

Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled
Antiquity appears to have begun

Long after thy primeval race was run.

Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations;

The Roman empire has begun and ended;

New worlds have risen-we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
March'd armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

*Pron. hú'-pen-në.

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold :-

A heart has throbb'd beneath that leathern breast,

And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled :Have children climb'd those knees, and kissed that face?

What was thy name and station, age and race ?

Statue of flesh-immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence!

Pos'thumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,

And standest undecayed within our presence, Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment morning, When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning. Why should this worthless tegument endure, If its undying guest be lost for ever?

O let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue; that when both must sever, Although corruption may our frame consume, Th' immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.

LESSON XLII.

Green River.-BRYANT.

WHEN breezes are soft, and skies are fair,
I steal an hour from study and care,
And hie me away to the woodland scene,
Where wanders the stream with waters of green,
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink
Had given their stain to the wave they drink.
And they, whose meadows it murmurs through,
Have named the stream from its own fair hue.

Yet pure its waters, its shallows are bright
With colored pebbles and sparkles of light,
And clear the depths where the eddies play,
And dimples deepen and whirl away;

And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot
The swifter current that mines its root;

Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill,
The quivering glimmer of sun and rill

With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown,

Like the ray that streams from the diamond stone.
O, loveliest there the spring days come,

With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees' hum;