they reigned upon earth, and the authorship of certain prescriptions was ascribed to Ra. Thus according to the Ebers Papyrus (XLVI) Rā suffered from attacks of boils of a most malignant kind, and he made up a salve, containing sixteen ingredients, which gave him instant relief, and which was therefore certain to cure ordinary mortals. The following is a characteristic example of a prescription which, as is evident, contains a number of substances which are well known to be good for inflamed eyes, and also some others the special value of which is not clear :

The Egyptian physician was called upon not only to heal his patients, but to beautify them, and we find prescriptions for removing scurf from the skin, for changing the colour of the skin, for making the skin smooth, and the following for removing wrinkles from the face :

The population of Egypt was, in 1897, 9,734,405 persons, of whom 8,978,775 were Muhammadans, 25,200 Jews, and 730,162 Christians. The last census was taken on the 29th April, 1907, and the entire population of the country consisted of 11,272,000 persons, or nearly 16 per cent. more than in 1897.

The Egyptian Language is not Semitic, although it possesses many characteristics which resemble those of the Semitic languages, but in a less developed form. Of all the views on the subject which have been held in recent years, the most plausible one is that which makes Egyptian belong to the group of Proto-Semitic languages. The Egyptian and the Semitic languages appear to have sprung from a common stock, from which they separated before their grammars and vocabularies were consolidated. The Egyptian language developed rapidly under circumstances of which nothing is known, and then, apparently, became crystallized; the Semitic language developed less rapidly, but continued to develope for centuries after the growth of the Egyptian language was arrested. To the period when Egyptian separated itself from the parent stock no date can be assigned, but it must have taken place some thousands of years before Christ. Later, under the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties, B.C. 1550 to 1300, a large number of Semitic words were introduced into the language, and in such compositions as the "Travels of an Egyptian" (see page 70) a great many are transcribed into Egyptian characters.

The Egyptian language as known to us appears in four divisions, viz. :

1. The Egyptian of the Early Empire, which was studied and employed for literary purposes from about B.C. 4400 to about A.D. 200.

2. The Egyptian used in the ordinary business of life and for conversation, from about B.C. 2600 to 650.

3. The popular speech of the country, from about 600 or 500 B.C. to the end of the Roman Period.

4. The ordinary language of the country, after Christianity was introduced into it; this is called Coptic. It ceased to be used in Egypt as a spoken language, probably about the twelfth century, but the Holy Scriptures and the Services are in several places in Egypt read in Coptic on Sundays and Festivals, although very few people understand what is being read. Four dialects of Coptic are distinguished: (1) That of Upper Egypt, called "Sahidic." (2) That of Lower Egypt, called "Boheiric." (3) The dialect of Sûhâk and its neighbourhood. (4) The

dialect of the district of the Fayyûm. It is a noteworthy fact that, from the beginning of the second century of our era to the twelfth, the language of ancient Egypt was preserved, in a modified form, chiefly through the translations of the Holy Scriptures, which were made from Greek into Coptic.

Egyptian Writing was of three kinds, which are called "Hieroglyphic," "Hieratic," and "Demotic." The oldest form is the hieroglyphic (ie., sacred engraved writing), or purely pictorial, which was employed in inscriptions upon temples, tombs, statues, sepulchral tablets, etc., and for monumental

purposes generally. At a very early period it was found that the hieroglyphic form of writing was cumbrous, and that in cases where it was important to write quickly on papyrus, the pictorial characters were inconvenient. The scribes, therefore, began first to modify, and secondly to abbreviate the pictorial characters, and at length the form of writing called hieratic (ie., the priests' writing) was developed. Hieratic was a style of cursive writing much used by the priests in copying literary compositions on papyrus from the IVth or Vth dynasty to the XXVIth dynasty. This form of writing is well illustrated by the above reproduction of

a page from the Great Harris Papyrus in the British Museum (No. 9999), which was written about B.C. 1200. The text is read from right to left, and the following is a transcript into hieroglyphic characters of the first two lines:

:

Between the end of the XXIInd and the beginning of the XXVIth dynasty the scribes, wishing to simplify hieratic still further, constructed from it a purely conventional system. of signs from which most of the prominent characteristics of the hieroglyphic, or pictures, that had been preserved in the hieratic characters, disappeared. This new form of writing was called demotic (ie., the people's writing), but it was known among some of the early Egyptologists as enchorial (ie., native writing, or writing of the country). On the Rosetta Stone (Egyptian Gallery, No. 960) the visitor will see an example of the hieroglyphic and demotic forms of writing placed one above the other, and in the text we find that the hieroglyphic portion is called "the writing of

“the writing of books,” ¿.e., rolls of papyrus,~ The invention of the art of writing was assigned to the god Thoth, who was the great scribe of the gods, and who is frequently represented holding a writing palette and a reed pen, and the hieroglyphics, or picture signs, were, therefore, called "divine, sacred, or holy." Hieroglyphics were used for monumental purposes until about the end of the third