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nor pains in their endeavours to secure for themselves life in the Other World. They observed the Religious and Civil Laws most carefully, and any breach they might make in either they thought could be amply atoned for by making offerings or payment.

The Egyptian was easy and simple in disposition, and fond of pleasure and of the good things of this world. He loved eating and drinking, and he lost no opportunity of enjoying himself. The literature of all periods is filled with passages in which the living are exhorted to be happy; and we may note that in the famous Dialogue between a man who is weary of life and his soul, the latter tells the man that

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A mouse seated on a chair, with a table of food before it. A cat is presenting to it a palm branch, and behind it is a mouse bearing a fan, etc. [From a papyrus in the British Museum, No. 10,016.]

to remember the grave only brings sorrow to the heart and fills the eyes with tears. And after several observations of the same import, the soul says: "Hearken unto me, for, "behold, it is good for men to hearken; follow after pleasure "and forget care." In the Song of the Harper we read: "Bodies (ie., men) have come into being in order to pass "away since the time of Ra, and young men come in their

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places. Rā placeth himself in the sky in the morning, and "Temu setteth in the Mountain of Sunset. Men beget "children and women bring forth, and every nostril snuffeth "the wind of dawn from the time of their birth to the day "when they go to the place which is assigned to them. Make "[thy] day happy! Let there be perfumes and sweet odours "for thy nostrils, and let there be wreaths of flowers and lilies "for the neck and shoulders of thy beloved sister who shall "be seated by thy side. Let there be songs and the music of "the harp before thee, and setting behind thy back unpleasant 'things of every kind, remember only pleasure, until the day

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A cat herding geese. [From a papyrus in the British Museum, No. 10,016.]

cometh wherein thou must travel to the land which loveth "silence."

The advice to eat, drink, and be happy, is also given to a high-priest of Memphis by his dead wife That-1-em-hetep on her sepulchral tablet (Southern Egyptian Gallery, Bay 29, No. 1027). She says: "Hail, my brother, husband, friend, ". . . . let not thy heart cease to drink water, to eat bread, to

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"drink wine, to love women, to make a happy day, and to "seek thy heart's desire by day and by night. And set no "care whatsoever in thy heart: are the years which [we pass] "upon the earth so many [that we need do this]?"

The morality of the Egyptians was of a high character, and certainly higher than that of Oriental nations in general. Many of the Precepts of Ptah-hetep, Kaqemna, and Khensuhetep bear comparison with the moral maxims of the Books of Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus. The view of the Egyptian as to his duty towards his neighbour is well summed up by Pepi-Nekht, an old feudal lord of Elephantine, who flourished under the VIth dynasty, and said: "I am one who spoke good and repeated what was liked. Never did I say

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The lion and the unicorn playing a game of draughts.

[From a papyrus in the British Museum, No. 10,016.]

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"an evil word of any kind to a chief against anyone, for I "wished it to be well with me before the great god. I gave "bread to the hungry man, and clothes to the naked man. "never gave judgment in a case between two brothers "whereby a son was deprived of his father's goods. I was loved by my father, favoured by my mother, and beloved by "my brothers and sisters." Love of parents and home was a strong trait in the character of the Egyptian; and it was one cause of his hatred of military service and of any occupation. which would take him away from his town or village. He prayed, too, that in the Other World he might have his parents, wife, children, and relatives, with him on his farm in

the Fields of Peace, and that when his spirit was on the way thither, the spirits of his kinsfolk would come to meet him, armed with their staves and weapons, so that they might protect him from the attack of hostile spirits. Like all African people he loved music, singing, and dancing, and was attracted by ceremonials, processions, and display of every kind; the satirical papyri (see the illustrations on pages 27-30), and even the wall-paintings in the tombs, show that he possessed a keen sense of humour. The peasant was then, as now, a laborious toiler, and as he was literally the slave of Pharaoh for thousands of years, the ideas of freedom and national independence, as we understand them, were wholly unknown to him.

All classes were intensely superstitious, and they believed firmly in the existence of spirits,

good and bad, witches, and fiends and devils, which they tried to cajole, or wheedle, or placate with gifts, or to vanquish by means of spells, magical names, words of power, amulets of all kinds, etc. The magician was the real priest, to the lower classes at least, as he is to this day in Central Africa, for by the use of magical figures he assured his clients that he could procure for them the death, or sickness, of an enemy, riches, the love of women, dreams wherein the future would be revealed to them, and above all, the assistance of the gods. We find that about B.C. 312 a service was regularly performed in the temple of Amen-Rã at Thebes to make the sun rise. In the course of it a figure of the monster Apep, who was supposed to be lying in wait to swallow the Sun-god, was made of wax, then wrapped in new papyrus on which the "accursed name" of the fiend was written in green ink, and solemnly burned in a fire fed by a special kind of herb, whilst the priest spurned it with his left foot and poured out curses on each of the thirty "accursed names" of the evil As the wax melted and was consumed, together with the papyrus and the green ink with which his name was written, so the body of Apep was believed to be consumed in the flames of the rising sun in the eastern sky.

The spearing of Ãpep.

From the evidence given at Thebes about B.C. 1200 against certain officials who were implicated in a case of conspiracy against Rameses III, it appeared that a certain man had stolen a book of magic from the temple library. From this he obtained instructions how to make the wax figures which caused the sickness, quakings of the limbs, and death of those in whose forms they were made. An example of the wax figures which were used in the Ptolemaïc period is exhibited in Table-case C in the Third Egyptian Room, No. 198. The core is made of inscribed papyrus, and in front, in the centre, is a piece of hair, presumably that of the person on whom the magician who made the figure sought to exert his influence. Every act of daily life had some magical or religious observance associated with it, and every day, either in whole or in part, was declared to be lucky or unlucky, in accordance with a series of events which were represented by the Calendar of lucky and unlucky days.

Superstition played as prominent a part in medicine as in religion. The practice of dismembering the dead in primitive times must have taught the Egyptians some practical anatomy, and the operations connected with mummification in the later period must have added largely to their knowledge of the arrangement of the principal internal organs of the body. The Egyptians were well acquainted with the importance of the heart in the human economy, and they appear to have had some knowledge of the functions of the arteries. A considerable number of medical prescriptions have come down to us, e.g., those which are inscribed on a papyrus in the British Museum (No. 10,059) and are said to be as old as the time of Khufu (Cheops), a king of the IVth dynasty, and those of the Ebers Papyrus, of the XVIIIth dynasty; from these it is easy to see that they closely resemble in many particulars the prescriptions given in English medical books printed two or three hundred years ago. Powders and decoctions made from plants and seeds were largely used, and the piths of certain trees, dates, sycamore-figs, and other fruits, salt, magnesia, oil, honey, sweet beer, formed the principal ingredients of many prescriptions. With these were often mixed substances of an unpleasant nature, e.g., bone dust, rancid fat, the droppings of animals, etc. In order that certain drugs might have the desired effect it was necessary for the physician to recite a magical formula four times (Ebers Papyrus CVIII). Other medicines again owed their efficacy to the belief that they had been actually taken by one or other of the gods whilst

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