AND LOWER EGYPT. 2$$ 



vernment, in concert with the priests, supported 

 this religious enthusiasm in favour of animals the 

 most useful to a nation, with whom almost all 

 the laws had a reference to agriculture. What 

 attention, what respect must not have been paid 

 toward the perfecting of a species every individual 

 of which might pretend to the honours of apotheo- 

 sis ? For if attentions are bestowed on what we 

 love, superstition is lavish of them on what it 

 adores. 



To no purpose should we look in the very con- 

 siderable number of oxen actually existing in 

 Egypt, for the vestiges of that perfection of beauty 

 which they must have had in ancient times. Though 

 the race of them be still abundantly handsome, it 

 is easy to conceive that, having been long neg- 

 lected, it must have greatly degenerated ; they 

 have, in general, small horns, and the hair dun- 

 coloured, more or less deep, a colour which docs 

 not require, in my apprehension, a very great 

 effort of the pencil ; though Maillei tells us that 

 " those animals arc of such exquisite beauty, that 

 <e the pencil is incapable of representing it*." I 

 can bear witness, that in making the complete 

 tour of Egypt, I never met any one ox which 

 struck me either from its form or colours. In de- 

 picting them as the most beautiful in the world, 



I Description of E ^ypt, by M, Maillet, in .jto. part ii. p. 27. 



the 



