100 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XIV. 



into one sepulchre may have been from tlieir en- 

 joying less consideration there, than in other towns 

 where their worship prevailed. For even those 

 which were held sacred througliout the country, 

 were not equally esteemed in every place ; and 

 the exclusive privileges they enjoyed in one town, 

 might have been denied in another, without de- 

 priving them of the title they claimed to the name 

 of Sacred Animals. At Thebes, however, Sig'. 

 Passalacqua discovered birds, rats, shrewmice, toads, 

 snakes, Scarabaei, and flies, embalmed and deposited 

 in the same tomb ; and I have seen one there, in 

 which were found the mummies of cats, snakes, 

 and cows. But in the same cemetery, I observed 

 a sepulchre appropriated solely to cats, another to 

 hawks, and another to fish. 



Some were buried in the district where they 

 died ; others were transported to the nome or city 

 where they were particularly sacred, — except, 

 perhaps, when the place in which they had been 

 kept, paid them similar honours. For it is not to 

 be supposed that the city of Thebes would will- 

 ingly suffer the embalmed bodies of the Ibis it 

 had fed, and highly venerated, to be transported 

 to Hermopolis; though this last was the place more 

 peculiarly appointed to the worship of that bird, 

 and of I'lioth, the Deity to whom it was sacred. 

 Indeed, the fact of our finding the embalmed 

 bodies of the Ibis, both at Tliebes, Memphis, 

 and other places, sufficiently establishes this con-- 

 jecturc; and shows, that tlie animals removed to 

 the patron city were only taken from places where 



