Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 57 



" biffat " or tabby cat of the modern Arabians), 

 gave her name to Bubaftis (Pi-Bast, the City of 

 Baft). 1 The parent of our cat is to be fought, 

 either in the felis bubafles or the /. caligata 

 (mamculata}^ found at prefent wild in Egypt. 

 Probably the latter, with an admixture of other 

 (trains, is the original ftock. It is a native of 

 Northern Africa, about a third fmaller than our 

 wild cat, and of a yellowim colour, fomewhat 

 darker on the back and whitim on the belly. 

 Thus Egypt, the granary of the ancient world, 

 naturally was the firft country of the Weftern 

 world to domefticate the cat. It is mentioned in 

 infcriptions as early as 1684 B.C., and was cer- 

 tainly kept as a pet in Egypt 1,300 years B.C. 

 The earlieft known reprefentation of the cat as a 

 domeftic creature is on a tablet of the eighteenth 

 or nineteenth dynafty at Leyden, wherein it appears 

 feated under a chair. It was venerated in certain 

 diftridls of ancient Egypt : 



" Illic eeluros, hie pifcem fluminis, illic 

 Oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Dianam." 



(Juv., Sat. 1 5, 7.) 



1 See Burton, " Land of Midian " (Kegan Paul and Co., 

 1879), v l- i-> P- I! 3' The above learned Egyptologift would 

 derive Bacchus and his priefts, the Bacchi and Bacchantes, from 

 the Ofiric term, Bafs. It is at leaft a curious faft that the drefs 

 of theie priefts confifted of a leopard's fkin. 



" According to Lenormant, the cat does not appear on 

 Egyptian fculpture earlier than the thirteenth dynasty (2020, 

 B.C.), and therefore the credit of its domeftication is due to the 

 inhabitants of the Upper Nile. This procefs, remarks Hehn, 

 muft have taken a long time, but it was thoroughly fucceffful 

 in the end." (W. R. S. Ralfton, Nineteenth Century, Jan., 

 1883.) 



