ts strange green little images of
figures half human and half bestial. Round the interior are the
deities to whom the various parts of the human body were severally
dedicated. Since this massive granite was the coffin of Hapimen, it
has been known to the Turks as the "Lover's Fountain," and used by
them as a cistern. The Syenite sarcophagus of a standard-bearer, is
marked 18. The chest of a royal sarcophagus that was taken from the
mosque of St. Athanasius at Alexandria, and which contained the mummy
of a king of the twenty-eighth dynasty, is marked number 10. On the
exterior, the Sun is represented, attended by appropriate deities
travelling through the hours of the day; and on the interior the
visitor will recognise the quaint symbolic forms of the usual
sepulchral gods and goddesses. The two remaining sarcophagi are those
of a scribe and priest of the acropolis of Memphis, and a bard. That
of the former, marked 3, is covered with the figures of Egyptian
divinities and inscriptions to the deceased; that of the latter, in
arragonite, is in the form of a mummy, like those first examined by
the visitor. This coffin has five distinct lines of hieroglyphics
engraved down the front, expressing a chapter of the funeral ritual:
and the face bears evidence of having been gilt.

Having sufficiently examined these massive coffins, upon which the
proudest undertaker of modern times must look humbly, and deplore the
decline of his business as an art, the visitor should at once turn to
other specimens of the sepulchral art of the ancient Egyptians. Of
these, the most interesting are the sepulchral tablets, which are
literally

ANCIENT EGYPTIAN TOMBSTONES.

Our modern tombstones record only the virtues of the dead. If future
generations have to rely upon the revelations of our churchyards for
facts connected with the people of modern times, they will write that
we were all of us faultless as fathers, irreproachable as husbands,
and devoted and self-sacrificial as children. Every tombstone is
engraved with a catalogue of human virtues; and idlers wandering round
about our country churches, find themselves surrounded by the ashes of
fond husbands, innocent angels, and adored wives. These prattlings of
sorrow have their happy significance, since they show the universal
forgiveness that follows even the worst and basest of mankind to the
grave. But viewed as historical records, tombstones are sadly erring
guides. They tell histories