Some Poets Cats. 355 



filled by a homage which is certainly more intelligent and 

 scarcely less sincere. The days are long gone by when, to 

 bury a cat, processions of white-robed Egyptians, crowned 

 with convolvulus, acacia, and chr)-santhemum, trailed their 

 effigies of water-beast and reptile, and images of dog-headed 

 or hawk-headed gods, with the clashing of cymbals and the 

 singing of the choirs of Isis, down through long aisles 

 of reverent folk, from the Memphian temple-gates to the 

 catacombs under the rocks. 



It is to this day a fetish animal Indeed, in Siam, a 

 curious variation of the cult obtains. For there, in the 

 land of the White Elephant, there is a royal breed of cats, 

 and, so it is said, it is death for any one to take one beyond 

 the precincts of the palace. The colour of these illustrious 

 Grimalkins is very striking, being something between buff 

 and tan, with ears, nose, and other "points" jet-black. 

 Indeed, with a little trimming here and there, they might 

 easily pass for tolerable pug-dogs. But we need hardly go 

 so far as Bangkok for vestiges of the old worship, for it is 

 obvious to the most casual observer at a Cat-show, from the 

 epithets applied by visitors to the animals under exhibition 

 and the exclamations of pious rapture, that there are plenty 

 of persons of both sexes, who, if they do not actually set puss 

 up on an altar and sacrifice to it with music and incense and 

 temple rites, as was done in the palmy days of the Pharaohs, 

 are sufficiently in love with the species to be enthusiastic in 

 admiration. To hear a fierce old Russian cat described as 

 " adorable," and a snowy Persian apostrophised as " divine," 

 bridges over the interv^al between the Crystal Palace and 

 the cat temples of Bubastis, and narrows the chasm some- 

 what between Pharaoh-Necho and the cats'-meat man. 



And the modern taxidermist, as well as he can, has taken 

 up the duties of the priests, and where the creatures of the 

 Eg)'ptians' adoration used to be spiced, they are now 

 stuffed. 



