the
priests, paraschites, and tariclleutes,--[Salter of the bodies]--bearers
and assistants, who here did their daily work, as well as innumerable
water-carriers who came up from the Nile, loaded with skins, found their
way into the establishment by a side gate.

At the farthest northern building of wood, with a separate gate, in
which the orders of the bereaved were taken, and often indeed those
of men still in active life, who thought to provide betimes for their
suitable interment.

The crowd in this house was considerable. About fifty men and women were
moving in it at the present moment, all of different ranks, and not
only from Thebes but from many smaller towns of Upper Egypt, to make
purchases or to give commissions to the functionaries who were busy
here.

This bazaar of the dead was well supplied, for coffins of every form
stood up against the walls, from the simplest chest to the richly gilt
and painted coffer, in form resembling a mummy. On wooden shelves
lay endless rolls of coarse and fine linen, in which the limbs of the
mummies were enveloped, and which were manufactured by the people of the
embalming establishment under the protection of the tutelar goddesses
of weavers, Neith, Isis and Nephthys, though some were ordered from a
distance, particularly from Sais.

There was free choice for the visitors of this pattern-room in the
matter of mummy-cases and cloths, as well as of necklets, scarabaei,
statuettes, Uza-eyes, girdles, head-rests, triangles, split-rings,
staves, and other symbolic objects, which were attached to the dead as
sacred amulets, or bound up in the wrappings.

There were innumerable stamps of baked clay, which were buried in the
earth to show any one who might dispute the limits, how far each grave
extended, images of the gods, which were laid in the sand to purify and
sanctify it--for by nature it belonged to Seth-Typhon--as well as the
figures called Schebti, which were either enclosed several together in
little boxes, or laid separately in the grave; it was supposed that they
would help the dead to till the fields of the blessed with the pick-axe,
plough, and seed-bag which they carried on their shoulders.

The widow and the steward of the wealthy Superior of the temple of
Hatasu, and with them a priest of high rank, were in eager discussion
with the officials of the embalming-House, and were selecting the
most costly of the patterns of mummy-cases which were offered to
their