AND LOWER EGYPT. 295 



has been written concerning it, and much of this 

 writing has been fabulous. It was one of the ani- 

 mals held sacred in ancient Egypt. Honours were 

 rendered to it on its death ; it was maintained with 

 the greatest solicitude during life ; funds were set 

 apart for its support, as well as to that of other 

 species ; they served up to him, as to cats, bread 

 steeped in milk, or fish of the Nile cut down into 

 morsels*; and it was generally forbidden to kill 

 any of the race. Object of the worship of a cele- 

 brated people, the pretended protector of the most 

 singular country in the world, against a scourge 

 the most grievous to an agricultural nation, a stran- 

 ger and unknown in our climate : what a field 

 for the production of the marvellous! Accord- 

 ingly it has not been spared. The greater part of 

 travellers have seen the mangouste without ex- 

 amining it ; and with their minds prejudiced by 

 the stories which the ancients and the moderns 

 have spread respecting if, they have successively 

 copied their relations. It was reserved for the torch 

 of criticism, guided by the genius of BufFon, to 

 dissipate a multitude of errors which obscured na- 

 tural history in general, and that of the mangouste 

 in particular -j-. I shall not repeat here what may 



* See the notes upon the translation ot Herodotus, by Lar- 

 cher, sect. 65 and 67. 



f See the Natural Hist, of Quad. Animals, art. of the Man- 



u 4 be 



