of Til, a priest of Memphis, who lived during the fifth dynasty, or about five thousand years ago; its walls are covered with inscriptions showing the manners and customs of the time, and it is said that we have learned more from this tomb than from any other about the life of the ancient Egyptians.

"The sculptures show the owner of the tomb, Mr. Tih, in a great many occupations. According to the custom of the period, he built the tomb during his lifetime, and made it all ready for use after death. An ancient writer says, 'The Egyptians call their houses hostelries, on account of the short period during which they inhabit them; but they call their tombs eternal dwelling-places.' This tomb was built in Tih's

lifetime, and made ready for his long occupation by representing the scenes of his terrestrial existence.

"We have the priest of Memphis engaged in agriculture, or, rather, he is present while his men are in the fields ploughing, sowing, harvesting, thrashing grain, driving oxen, donkeys, and other animals, and performing other ordinary work. We see him hunting, fishing, sailing in boats, listening to music, witnessing dances, and otherwise amusing himself; and we see him worshipping in the temple, and superintending sacrifices of oxen, according to the religious practices of his day. The sculptures are so numerous that it would take a ream of paper to describe all of them; they show that the artists knew their work, and many of them had a sense of the ridiculous that would secure them good situations. on the comic papers of to-day.

"After seeing the tomb of Tih we went to the Apis Mausoleum, or tombs of the sacred bulls. You know that Apis, or the sacred bull, was worshipped as a divinity at Memphis; he was kept in a temple during his lifetime, and a magnificent tomb was given him after his death. The

TOMBS OF THE SACRED BULLS.

131

site of the Apis Mausoleum was unknown for many centuries; it was found by Mariette (in 1860) through the writings of one of the Greek historians. While clearing away the sand in a

certain place he found a sphinx, and he then remembered a passage in Strabo, which says:

"There is also a Serapeum in a very sandy spot, where drifts of sand are raised by the wind to such a degree that we saw some sphinxes buried up to their heads, and others half covered.'

"This was a hint to the explorer, and he acted on it by following up the line of sphinxes till he came to the entrance of the great tomb. The guide showed us into the tomb, and then lighted candles, by which we explored a series of long galleries cut in the solid rock; altogether there are more than four hundred yards of these galleries, and they have on each side of them niches, like large rooms, for holding the coffins of the bulls. Some of these rooms are empty; but there still remain twenty-four coffins of solid granite in the places where they were left many years ago. The coffins are not all of the same size, but generally about thirteen feet long, eight wide, and eleven high; most of

HUNTSMAN WITH DOGS AND GAME.

their covers are pushed aside or altogether removed, and it was evident, when the tomb was opened by Mariette Bey, that the place had been plundered, as nothing was found in the coffins except the mummy of a bull in one of them.

"There was a ladder by the side of one of the coffins, so that we climbed into it, and found that four or five persons could sit there comfortably. And think that these coffins were of solid blocks of granite, and were brought down the Nile from Assonan, and put in the rooms made for them! How they were put there nobody can tell; a thousand out one of these coffins, under the

men worked for three weeks to take direction of an engineer, and, with all sorts of pulleys and apparatus, he

only got it a short distance along the gallery. The enterprise was then abandoned, and the coffin stands where they left it.

"Irreverent visitors sometimes call these tombs the 'bull pits,' and they speak of the necropolis of Sakkara as the bone-yard.' But there are no bulls here at present, and the tombs of the surrounding region have been so thoroughly explored and plundered, that it would not be easy to find any bones in them."

TAKING A BATH IN CAIRO.

133

THE

CHAPTER X.

AN ORIENTAL BATH.-EGYPTIAN WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS.

HE excursions to Gizeh and Sakkara had not been altogether free from dust, and, consequently, the suggestion of an Oriental bath was not out of place. The boys had heard of the baths of Damascus and Constantinople, and the wonderful tales of travellers concerning them; the Doctor said the baths of Cairo were exactly like those of the cities mentioned, and they could satisfy their curiosity by trying one.

The guide advised them to go early in the forenoon, and accordingly they left the hotel a little after ten o'clock. The Doctor had no fondness for the genuine Oriental bath, and the youths made the excursion in the company of their guide. A short walk brought them to the establishment, which was in a gloomy-looking building, surmounted with a large central dome and several smaller domes. Frank could not understand the peculiarity of the bath architecture till he went inside, and found that the principal room was lighted by the central dome, while the others gave light to the smaller apartments. The windows were so small that the light was quite dim, and in some places only served, as Fred expressed it, to make the darkness visible.

The office of the bath-keeper was close to the entrance, and here the guide paid for the admission of the youths; they had left all their valuables at the hotel, and consequently had no use for the chest where the watches and purses of the bathers were deposited. Near the keeper was a cupboard, from which he took a supply of towels for the youths, and they were then directed to the dressing, or, rather, the undressing room, where they were assigned to couches, and exchanged their clothing for towels. According to the custom of the establishment, one towel was wrapped around the head and the other about the waist, and thus arrayed our young friends were hardly to be recognized.

From the dressing-room they passed to a smaller apartment, which was well but not uncomfortably warmed, and here they remained some minutes in order to become accustomed to the temperature. The bath

ing establishment is heated by means of fires under the floor, and in the more modern buildings by iron pipes around the sides of the rooms. An attendant took charge of each of the boys, and, when they were ready to move on, conducted them to the large central room of the place.

Frank gave an amusing account of his experience in the hands of the tellak, or bath attendant, who took charge of him:

"He was a strong man," said Frank, "about forty years old, and his head was shaved as smooth as a door-knob. He wore a towel around his waist, and carried another flung over his shoulder. He brought me a pair of wooden clogs, which I could not easily keep on my feet, though I tried hard to imitate the example of the people around me, and appear as though accustomed to them all my life. They tell us that there is a fashion about wearing these clogs, just as much as in putting on an overcoat or a necktie, and that you are liable to be treated rudely if you violate the custom. Perhaps they have so many foreigners in this bath that they don't mind a little awkwardness; anyway we couldn't keep the clogs in place, and nobody was uncivil.