my knife the outer covering-a sort of rough canvas shroud-of a mummy. It was a woman. Never, in all likelihood, had she been stirred from that place, where thousands of years ago they had laid her. Some hair-long plaited hair, black as jet-still hung about the head, and there was a kind of grin on the face. Insects-dead ages ago, as the flesh they had fed upon-were in the eye-sockets: other insects, too, that in turn had preyed upon them, were there, and the hideous succession fell out as I raised the skull, which left its body very easily. The teeth were perfect, every one of them, white and pearly still-the only evidence, save shapeliness of form, of possible beauty quick sped and long since past. Throwing down the skull-and plodding on— always over the same ghastly pavement-I peered into the darkness. But it was not until I had gone at least fifty paces, that the depth of the cavern became apparent. Near the wall, rough hewn and blackened by age, the piles were higher-an embankment of dead. I could not see the roof, nor did I proceed farther. The Professor, coming after me, found an outlet to another cavern; but I missed it. However, I had had enough.

As I turned, the candle flashed on a group which in its grotesque horror might well, like Gorgon's head, have petrified the beholder. It stood out of

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the darkness like a tangible nightmare. Leaning in easy attitude against a pile built up of skeletons, and shapeless THINGS still shrouded and bound in their cave-clothes, there were two or three bituminous* mummies, stark and stiff, muscle and limb perfect -planted umbrella fashion-apparently engaged in easy chat, and on the best of terms. Their features had been drawn into a distinct and even amiable

* The Egyptians had three different modes of embalming. By the first method (bituminous) skin, muscles, sinews, everything in fact, have been preserved intact till now; whereas by the second and third, little remains save a skeleton with withered skin, and locks of hair that turn to dust.

Herodotus speaks thus on embalming :- "When a dead body is brought to the embalmers, they exhibit to the friends different models highly finished in wood. The most perfect of these they say resembles Him (Osiris), whom I do not think it religious to name. The second is of less price: another is still more mean. They then inquire after which model the deceased shall be represented! This being settled, and the price agreed upon, the parties retire, leaving the body with the embalmers." The historian then minutely describes the different processes. "After certain

preparations, the body is washed with palm wine, and covered with pounded aromatics, and the cavity filled up with myrrh, cassia, and spices—then it is sewn up. Afterwards it (the body) is kept in natron seventy days. Then being washed, it is wrapped up in bands of fine linen smeared with gum, put into a wooden case in the form of a man, fastened up, and placed upright against the wall. This is the most costly method of embalming."-HERODOTUS, Euterpe. 86.

It costs, according to Diodorus Siculus, a talent of silver, or about 2507., independently, of course, of jewels or other valuable enclosures. So cleverly is this embalming done, says this latter writer, "that all the members are preserved perfectly, and even the hair of the eyelids and eyebrows remain undisturbed; and the whole appearance is so unaltered that every feature may be recognized."

expression. But behind the pile, looking over as it were, there rose up a sinister face, vampire-like in its hideousness, which seemed to mock at them, and a long brawny arm, somehow loosed from its sockets, stretched forward, fist clenched, threateningly-a fantastic, ghoule-like defiance. It was like some wild dream out of the Inferno.

To say that there were hundreds of skulls littered about at random would give a very inadequate idea of the population of this place of the dead. Below the surface everywhere was a close layer, well packed, of Things such as I had cut open, and then beneath that another, and another, how deep I could not tell! But one strange thing struck me in all I looked at-and I examined a great many-the teeth were perfect: no decay or failure: and the front upper teeth had in many instances been filed sharp. Livingstone speaks of certain tribes in Central Africa where women thus file their teeth to a point by way of embellishment, but I am unaware of any mention of the fact in ancient history.

Saïd was waiting anxiously for me at the aperture. He helped me out, and glad enough I was to feel the blessed sunlight about me again.

Onward! sailing by the classic groves of Acanthus which flank the western shore. Here are miles of

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mimosas to pass, a whole realm of trees, a billowy bank of golden green, on which the sunbeams sleep at noon. Under this massive foliaged roof, populous with doves, hoopoos, and birds of every bright plumage, there abides a perennial shadow, deep as the gloom of a temple. Once entangled in its rich, cool cloisters, you long to linger and thread that leafy labyrinth throughout; to linger, and, like the philosopher of old in those other groves, to dream of the Elysian fields, and to hold pleasant converse with the shades of the great and the good-those who, freed from the incumbrance of mortal flesh, wander hand in hand, and pluck the flowers of imperishable asphodel.

Onward! under the picturesque little town of Girgeh, whose early Moslem towers and mosques are being eaten away piecemeal by the encroaching river. A little colony of Coptic Christians is found at Girgeh. The brethren are proud to receive you. Their church is half-buried underground, built of stone from the old ruins. These Copts are a very ancient community. St. George, their patron saint, gives name to the town, Girgeh. The fussy fathers, robed in blue and black turbaned, greet you with boisterous good-humour. Are you not a fellowChristian? With whom, then, should they fraternize if not with a brother? So they gather round you,

inexorable with their salaams, embraces, and Scriptural salutes. You are led at once down to their sanctuary. You are taken by the hand. They almost bear you up, lest you should stumble. Heedfully, tenderly, down the steps. "Are they not dark and narrow? Gently; one more, only one-so;" and you are safely landed.

Here their complacency is infinite; one will pull this way, another lead that-anxious lest you should miss any of their treasures. There is a handsome screen of fretted woodwork in their chapel, a wooden communion table (the Alexandrian Church prohibits stone altars), and some early MS. liturgies, with other Coptic scriptures, that will interest the traveller. Aforetime the Christians were very numerous here, but a century ago the plague swept one-half of them away.

Onward still! winds from the western desert keep us ever on the wing. We pass Denderah as the sun sets. To eastward the range flashes up in the dying light: crags and peaks and promontories are transfigured into outworks of jasper and sapphire; and from the lustrous gloom which sleeps in those deep ravines of the Arabian hills rose-hued pinnacles peep out and point to heaven. Then in a twinkling all is dim. Dark against the deep crimson of the afterglow to westward, looms the great portico of Athor's