present day the exportation of the beautiful cattle of the district forms a very important item of Sûdân trade. The natives who lived by breeding cattle were called by the Egyptians Menti," ie., "cattle-men," and their modern descendants are called "Bakkârah," which also means " cattlemen." In all times they have been a wild and lawless folk,

The bull Hap (Apis), with the triangular blaze on his
forehead, and the scarabs, etc., on his back.

[Table-case H, Third Egyptian Room.]

ferocious, blood-thirsty, and cruel. The early cattle-men worshipped the bull, and this animal played a prominent part in later Egyptian mythology. Several kinds of bulls were worshipped in Egypt: Apis at Memphis, Mnevis at Heliopolis, and Bachis at Hermonthis, and one of the greatest of the titles of Osiris was "Bull of Amentet," or "Bull of the

Other World." The cow also was worshipped under the name of Hathor, and a flint cow-head in the British Museum (Tablecase M in the Third Egyptian Room) proves that her cult dates from the latter part of the Neolithic Period. The paintings on the walls of early tombs show that several kinds. of cattle were known to the Egyptians, and the inscriptions make it clear that the old feudal lords and gentry of Egypt devoted much attention to cattle-breeding, and that

The bull Mer-ur (Mnevis).

[Table-case H, Third Egyptian Room.]

they made a regular trade of it. (See the models of cows in the Wall-cases on the Landing of the North-West Staircase, No. 140, and the wall painting in Standard-case I in the Third Egyptian Room.) Oxen and cows were fattened like the smaller animals and geese, and, before they were turned out for the season into the deserts to browse upon the growth which followed the rains, they were branded, or marked in some way with their owner's name,

The camel was certainly known in the Predynastic Period, for the head of an earthenware figure of one was found at Abydos a few years ago; but this animal cannot have been used for transport purposes, or bred by the early Dynastic Egyptians, for otherwise we should find pictures of him on the walls of the tombs. One of the earliest mentions of the camel is contained in the "Travels of an Egyptian" (Brit. Mus. Papyrus No. 10,247), where we find the Semitic word for camel under the form kamaal

The camel plays no part in Egyptian mythology. The commonest beast of burden was the ass, which was bred in large numbers, and was employed like oxen for treading out the corn and for riding. One of the desert caravans

of Her-Khuf, an old feudal lord of Elephantine under the VIth dynasty, contained 300 asses. The ass was admired for his strength, endurance, and virility, and he appears in Egyptian mythology as a form of the Sun-god. Sheep and goats were always bred in large numbers. The horse may have been known in Egypt in the XIIth dynasty, but he was not bred there until the experience gained by the Egyptians in their Asiatic campaigns showed them his value in military. operations. Horses must have been

Flint Cow's head.

plentiful in Egypt under the XXIInd [No. 86, Table-case M, dynasty, "for Solomon had horses "brought out of Egypt," and "a chariot "came up and went out of Egypt, for six hundred shekels "of silver, and an horse for an hundred and fifty" (1 Kings x, 28, 29). Excellent representations of horses are seen in the wall-painting in Standard-case D in the Third Egyptian Room, and in the battle-scene of Rameses II on the South Wall of the Fourth Egyptian Room, above the cases.

The pig is not often represented on the monuments, but a painting in a tomb at Thebes shows that swine were used on farms for treading out the corn. From a very early period the god of evil, Set, was believed to have appeared in the form of a "black pig when he smote the Eye of Horus (ie., the Sun). The gods then decreed that pigs

should be sacrificed to Horus, with bulls, sheep, and goats In one form of the Judgment Scene the pig is the emblem of evil, and also in the Book of the Dead (see Chapters XXXVI and CXII). On the other hand, the sow was an animal sacred to Isis, and small figures of sows were worn as amulets attached to necklaces. (See the figures of sacred animals in Wall-case No. 121 in the Third Egyptian Room.) Under the early dynasties a species of ram, which became the symbol of the god Khnemu, with flat horns projecting at right angles from the sides of his head, was common in Nubia, but it appears to have died out before the end of the XIIth dynasty. Another kind of ram, apparently indigenous to Nubia, became the symbol of the god Amen of the Sûdân.

The principal instrument used in farming was the plough , the share of which was made of a piece of wood tied to a long pole; at the other end of the pole was fixed a bar, which was made fast to the horns of the cows which drew the plough. This primitive instrument was little more than a stout stake tied to a pole which was drawn over the ground, and made a very shallow furrow. The stiff Nile mud was further broken up by the hoe, of which examples may be seen in the Wall-case No. 102 in the Third Egyptian Room (No. 281, etc.). As soon as the fields were ready to receive the seed, the sowing took place, and when the seed had been cast into the furrows it was trodden in by the animals on the farm being driven over it. The sowing was done by hand, and no drill appears to have been used. The fields were watered either by allowing the water to flow from a large basin or reservoir on to them, or by machines which lifted the water from the canal to their level, or from the Nile itself. The commonest water-raising machine resembled the modern shâdûf, which was worked by one or two men. Two stout stakes were driven firmly into the ground at the edge of the stream, and between them was tied a long pole, heavily weighted with a mass of mud or stone at one end. To the end of the longer half of the pole a rope and a leather bucket were tied. The labourer drew the pole down until the bucket entered the stream, and the weight of the counterpoise at the other end helped him to raise the water to the surface of the field, where he poured it into the channel leading to the growing crop.

At the harvest the crops were cut with the small sickle (see Table-case K in Third Egyptian Room, Nos. 1-4), which in primitive times was made of flint or a series of flints set in a wooden frame, and in later times of iron or bronze. The wheat or barley was tied up into small bundles by the reapers, and carried to the threshing floor, where the grain was trodden out by animals-donkeys, swine, etc. The threshing floor, as we may see from the wall paintings and pictures on papyri, was circular in form, and its edges were raised,

, thus preventing the animals, as they ran round and round in it, from scattering the grain with their feet. The operations of ploughing, reaping, and treading out the corn are well illustrated by the Vignette No. 35, from the Ani Papyrus. (See Standard-case G in the Third Egyptian Room.) When the grain had been trodden out, it was thrown up by hand into heaps, the wind blowing away the chaff whilst it was in the air. It was next carried in baskets, or bags, to the store or granary, which was usually near the house. Here it was either piled up in heaps on mud stands with raised edges, or poured into large bins built in the walls along a rectangular courtyard. (See the models of granaries in Standard-case C in the Fourth Egyptian Room.)

Trade. The trade of Egypt appears to have been chiefly in the hands of the seafaring folk of the Delta, who probably worked the imports and exports of the country in connection with the Semitic merchants who traded in the seaports of Phoenicia and the Mediterranean generally. The chief export of Egypt was corn, which was carried all over the Mediterranean, and we know from Genesis, xii, xli-xliii, that when grain was scarce in other countries, the merchants were in the habit of going to Egypt to supply their wants. At intervals, however, serious famines came upon Egypt (Genesis xli, 55, 56), and when corn could not be imported, the mortality among the people was very great. In the reign of Ptolemy III (B.C. 247) there was a famine in Egypt, and the King expended much gold in purchasing grain at a high price to save the lives of the people of Egypt, and he caused corn to be brought to Egypt from Eastern Syria, and Phoenicia, and Cyprus. Next in importance came the linen of Egypt, which, in the form of byssus, was famous throughout Western Asia. Under the XVIIIth dynasty considerable quantities of gold were exported from Egypt to Northern Syria, Assyria and Babylonia. The gold came