entences; a specially
prepared cloth was wrapped round each muscle, every drug and every
bandage owed its origin to some divinity, and the confusion of sounds, of
disguised figures, and of various perfumes, had a stupefying effect on
those who visited this chamber. It need not be said that the whole
embalming establishment and its neighborhood was enveloped in a cloud of
powerful resinous fumes, of sweet attar, of lasting musk, and pungent
spices.

When the wind blew from the west it was wafted across the Nile to Thebes,
and this was regarded as an evil omen, for from the south-west comes the
wind that enfeebles the energy of men--the fatal simoon.

In the court of the pattern-house stood several groups of citizens from
Thebes, gathered round different individuals, to whom they were
expressing their sympathy. A new-comer, the superintendent of the victims
of the temple of Anion, who seemed to be known to many and was greeted
with respect, announced, even before he went to condole with Rui's widow,
in a tone full of horror at what had happened, that an omen, significant
of the greatest misfortune, had occurred in Thebes, in a spot no less
sacred than the very temple of Anion himself.

Many inquisitive listeners stood round him while he related that the
Regent Ani, in his joy at the victory of his troops in Ethiopia, had
distributed wine with a lavish hand to the garrison of Thebes, and also
to the watchmen of the temple of Anion, and that, while the people were
carousing, wolves

[Wolves have now disappeared from Egypt; they were sacred animals,
and were worshipped and buried at Lykopolis, the present Siut, where
mummies of wolves have been found. Herodotus says that if a wolf
was found dead he was buried, and Aelian states that the herb
Lykoktonon, which was poisonous to wolves, might on no account be
brought into the city, where they were held sacred. The wolf
numbered among the sacral animals is the canis lupaster, which
exists in Egypt at the present day. Besides this species there are
three varieties of wild dogs, the jackal, fox, and fenek, canis
cerda.]

had broken into the stable of the sacred rams. Some were killed, but the
noblest ram, which Rameses himself had sent as a gift from Mendes when he
set out for the war--the magnificent beast which Amon had chosen as the
tenement of his spirit, was found, torn in pieces, by the soldiers, who
immediately terrified the whole city wi