tiful statues or with mighty,
enormous figures, far bigger than you can conceive until you have seen
them--figures whose fist is bigger than your whole body, whose fingers
are about the size of you, made by the ancient Egyptians, the wonderful
people who held the Israelites in captivity--great frowning, mighty
figures brought here from across the sea. Or you can go down other
corridors lined with many things from savage lands--curious ornaments
and boats, and rough skin clothes; or you can see, too, the most
interesting part of all, where there are mummies.

In the days long ago, when the land of Egypt was very great and
powerful, while England was a lonely little island inhabited by savage
men, who knew of nothing beyond their own shores, the Egyptians used to
spend much time and money on preserving the bodies of their dead, for
they thought that if a man's body were allowed to decay he could never
live again in the other world; so when anyone died the body was cut open
and filled with rich spices and wrapped in many bandages all steeped in
certain ointments. And these things really did preserve the bodies from
decay, so that now, two or three thousand years after, we, the English,
who have learned to travel and understand many things, go to the land of
Egypt, now not great and mighty any more, and pull out the dead bodies
of their kings and queens, who lived and loved and reigned when our
ancestors were savages, and we bring them back to England and put them
in glass cases for everyone to see. There they lie, these people who
thought so differently from us, who never knew anything about us, who
were rich and powerful, and now are of no consequence. It seems strange,
doesn't it? Some are still in the painted wooden cases, into which they
fit as into coffins; others have been taken out, and are shown with all
the red-brown bandages wound round and round their limbs, and in some
cases part of these bandages have been undone and the foot or the leg of
a mummied man or woman is visible.

There is not much else here that can be explained in writing, though
many things that you would care to see.

At South Kensington there are many large fine buildings, and the finest
of them all is the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was opened by King
Edward in 1909. It contains all sorts of wonderful and beautiful art
work.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

The Natural History Museum at South Kensington is a lar