160 EDOUARD NAVILLE. 
been thrown, representing either cats or the god Nefertum, a 
god with a human form wearing as headdress a lotus-flower, — 
over which are two feathers. The cemetery of cats has been 
known for many years to the fellaheen, who dug it out en- 
tirely, and supplied the dealers in Cairo with the bronze cats 
which fill their shops. | attempted this year an excavation 
in the cemetery; I was obliged to go very deep, as all the 
upper pits have been rifled; under such circumstances the 
digging is very ungrateful business, as the water and 
the salt have nearly destroyed the bronzes. I emptied 
several pits entirely full of bones, which are quite cal- 
cined, as they are the residue of bodies burnt in furnaces 
still visible close to the pits. It is incredible what an 
immense number of cats must have been burnt, judging 
from the number and the size of the pits. After many 
difficulties we succeeded in rescuing a few skulls, which are 
now in the hands of the illustrious naturalist, Dr. Virchow, 
of Berlin. It is very likely that the holy cat of Bubastis was 
not the ordinary domestic cat, but some larger animal of the 
feline tribe, either the wild cat or a kind of lynx. 
Under Osorkon I. Egypt was not an impoverished country ; 
we may judge of it from inscriptions which are unfortunately 
in a very bad state, but which are due to Osorkon I. Hero- 
dotus says that about three furlongs from the great temple, 
towards the east, is the temple of Hermes. I found the 
remains of it, a few scattered blocks in a clover-field, at a 
short distance out of the tell. Idug there several days ; there 
is very little left: a large architrave, with a cartouche of 
Rameses II., and a great many fragments all bearing the name 
of Osorkon I. There are fragments of a large size, belonging 
to a long inscription, in which Osorkon I. relates the weights of 
silver and of asem (silver gilt) which he gave to several temples; 
and the large quantities which he mentions remind one of the 
considerable offerings made to the religious establishments in 
the time of the great prosperity of Hgypt. I believe that this 
second temple was the treasury of the other, and that being, 
as were all treasuries and libraries, under the protection of 
Hermes Thoth, it was taken by Herodotus for a temple of 
Hermes. 
Osorkon I. did not finish the rebuilding of the temple, and 
it was Osorkon II. who completed it, and who worked chiefly 
in the second hall. This part of the building seems to have 
suffered most grievously in the destruction which I presume 
to have taken place before the accession of the Bubastites to 
the throne of Egypt. When we began rolling the blocks of 
the enormous heap which marked the site of the hall, nearly 
