46 
ON MUMMIES. 
[Nature .and Art, July 1, 186!5. 
fession of life had its drawbacks. Not to mention, 
the inconveniences and degradation of the lower 
occupations, the toil and uncertainty of trade, 
and the mechanical art, even the occupation of 
agriculture had its misfortune. An Egyptian scribe 
draws a lively picture of the miseries of the farm : 
the horses unfit for the plough, the blunted plough- 
share, the rats which over-run the corn-bins, the 
locusts that devour the crops, the bandits that 
attack the farmer, and the idle negroes, whom he 
cannot compel to work, are not forgotten. But 
the charms of learning are everywhere extolled, 
and the knowledge of hieroglyphics pointed out as 
the path to fame and honour. The young scribe 
learned to write, studied the codes of law and 
morals, undertook the keeping of accounts, and 
either became attached to the temples Avhose 
organization resembled that of the modern monas- 
teries, or else entered into the civil service of the 
state, and became one of the bureaucracy. If the 
profession of arms required his services, the youth 
was sent to a military school or a barrack. He was 
there taught all the drill and martial exercises 
required; the use of the sword, the buckler, and 
the bow. Under the earlier dynasties, infantry 
only were known or used, for the horse was un- 
known till the eighteenth dynasty, and then only 
used for the chariot. To take the chariot to pieces, 
to harness and drive the horses, was then a portion 
of the soldier’s duties. When foreign wars and 
external conquests had carried the standards of 
Egypt to the banks of the Euphrates on the 
northern, and within a few degrees of the line on 
the southern limits -of the empire, the Egyptian 
soldier traversed, as occasion required, these 
distant regions, and kept garrison amidst the hostile 
Assyrians, or revolted Negroes. In these expedi- 
tions he not unfrequently encountered the wild 
beast of the plain or waters as well as the face of the 
enemy. It was pastime to spear the crocodile of 
the Nile, or harpoon the hippopotamus— the 
behemoth of the waters : it was not less a sport 
to kill the lion of the plains of Mesopotamia or 
the forests of Syria. Nor were the diversions of 
polite society wanting to his return to Memphis, 
the capital of the lower, or Thebes, of the upper 
country. Banquets, gymnastic sports, dancing- 
girls, music, the games of chance and skill, beguiled 
his leisure hours ; the toilet occupied others ; and 
the beaux of Thebes painted their eyelids as darkly, 
as the belles. The condition of the upper civil and 
military classes was aristocratic. Their households 
were filled with slaves, many of them prisoners of 
war, who made in their workshops all that the 
master required. The domestic servants were 
nearly all slaves. The produce of the land sufficed 
for the support of the household, and as there was 
little or no money, even at a highly refined period, 
barter, or precious metals paid by weight, sufficed 
for the acquisition of such things as were required. 
At an early period the Egyptian was only a fresh- 
water sailor. He navigated undauntedly the 
placid or ruffled bosom of the Nile ; but in a later 
age his galley ploughed the deep, and the wines 
of the Syrian coast were brought on shipboard 
to the cellars of the monarch and the aristocracy. 
The Egyptian possessed all the enjoyments of 
life ; all the luxuries considered essential in those 
days to his comfort or happiness. Conquest 
obtained some ; commerce or barter others. 
The civil governmelrt was as rigorously enforced 
by police magistracy, and by the royal courts of 
“ hearers of plaints,” or judges, as the foreign 
policy was carried out by a disciplined army, 
quite adequate to hold Assyrians in check and 
negroes in awe. But the sacerdotal class soared 
above all others. They ministered to the temples, 
interpreted the oracles, taught the mysteries of 
religion and the secret of letters. The vast tem- 
ples of Egypt were a government within the civil 
government itself. The palaces at Thebes — if 
palaces at all — are so mixed up with the temples, 
that they are lost in the greatness of the religious 
edifices. The supreme Pontiff or high priest of 
Amen Ha, the Theban Jupiter, was only second to 
the monarch. , Under him were the orders of 
reverend prophets, or, as they were called, divine 
fathers and priests. The administration and or- 
ganization of these vast temples was equally mi- 
nute — scribes or clerks attended to the accounts, 
comptrollers presided over the lands, the corn, the 
cattle, the linen, the revenues of the society. 
Each department had its presiding officer ; wherever 
anything was to be kept there was an appointed 
keeper. Their riches, their rank, and their im- 
portance are attested by the numerous tombs at 
Gourneh, which record facts interesting to all stu- 
dents of ancient history and art, while the tenants 
of the sepulchres have long since disappeared. 
Their destruction commenced long before the Arab 
fellaheen or the European traveller penetrated their 
obscurity. It is as old as the sepulchres them- 
selves. The priestly order has supplied the greatest 
number of mummies. The museums of Europe 
are full of the embalmed hierarchy. The plunder 
of the tombs has gone on for centuries, and they 
are still unexhausted. A similar state of society 
prevailed at Memphis, but that capital of the 
Delta was too exposed to the attacks of the enemies 
of Egypt to retain its importance after the rise of 
the neighbouring Semitic nations. The Hyksos 
had conquered it. The magnificent sepulchres of 
the early dynasties, as well as the humbler ones of 
the officers' of their court, had been rifled at a most 
remote period. Hence, Memphis remained as an 
old religious capital, the centre of the worship of 
the god Ptah or Yulcan, and his avatar the Apis, 
till the days of the Romans ; but its political impor- 
tance had declined. Those, therefore, who plun- 
dered the sepulchres of Memphis found a less abun- 
dant harvest of mummies and their accompaniments 
than the devastators of Thebes. Under the Saites 
of the seventh century B.c. and Ptolemies, Memphis 
slightly revived, but the nation was expiring. The 
Greeks did, be it observed, no good to Egypt. They 
neither improved its art nor arrested its decadence. 
They perched their capital on the seaboard of the 
Mediterranean, and indolently governed an empire 
