great gain to the priests,
both in this and other countries, as, after decorating the idol gods
for a time, these rich offerings were their perquisites, who of course
encouraged this notable sort of devotion. We are told that it was
carried so far that some idols had both winter and summer garments.

Tokens of friendship consisting of richly embroidered veils,
handkerchiefs, &c., were then, as now, passing from one fair hand to
another, as pledges of affection; and as the last holy office of love,
the bereaved mother, the desolate widow, or the maiden whose budding
hopes were blighted by her lover's untimely death, might find a
fanciful relief to her sorrows by decorating the garment which was to
enshroud the spiritless but undecaying form. The chief proportion of
the mummy-cloths which have been so ruthlessly torn from these
outraged relics of humanity are coarse; but some few have been found
delicately and beautifully embroidered; and it is not unnatural to
suppose that this difference was the result of feminine solicitude and
undying affection.

The embroidering of the sails of vessels too was pursued as an article
of commerce, as well as for the decoration of native pleasure-boats.
The ordinary sails were white; but the king and his grandees on all
gala occasions made use of sails richly embroidered with the
phoenix, with flowers, and various other emblems and fanciful
devices. Many also were painted, and some interwoven in checks and
stripes. The boats used in sacred festivals upon the Nile were
decorated with appropriate symbols, according to the nature of the
ceremony or the deity in whose service they were engaged; and the
edges of the sails were finished with a coloured hem or border, which
would occasionally be variegated with slight embroidery.

Shakspeare's description of the barge of Cleopatra when she embarked
on the river Cydnus to meet Antony, poetical as it is, seems to be
rigidly correct in detail.

Enobarbus.--I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver;
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water, which they beat, to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion (cloth of gold, of tissue),
O'erpi