in wax cloths, and fastening to the various parts the appropriate genius, to have been content to deposit them in the same case with the body.  The vases which the visitor is about to examine are carved in different materials, the more costly and highly finished being of arragonite, and the less important, in wood, stone, or clay.  They are all ornamented with appropriate inscriptions, consisting of exhortations of the deities to the dead, or comforting syllables from the genii of the intestines to the departed.  The visitor will not care to examine all these vases in detail, nor would any purpose be served were the unscientific spectator to hover in this corner for a whole day; it is sufficient for him to understand the passage these vases occupy in the ancient history of Egypt, and to notice cursorily the degree of excellence displayed in the manufacture of them.  He will find the hawk-head of Kebhsnuf in one direction, and the baboon-head of Hapi in another, and from these pictorial revelations he will know what part of a deceased Egyptian was deposited in each vase.

With these preliminary words we may leave him to examine the collection, reserving to ourselves the task of pointing his attention to one or two of the more remarkable specimens.  First let the visitor notice the complete set of four, in arragonite, marked 614-17.  These were for the internal parts of prince Amen-em-api, the eldest son of Rameses II., and as the visitor will notice, have severally their presiding genius, with sacred inscriptions.  Another remarkable vase is that in arragonite marked 609, with its cover fashioned in the form of a human head, and the remains of an inscription which had been laid on with a thick kind of colour.  That marked 629 with the jackal-head of Tuantmutf, bears an inscription in which the standard-bearer of Plato named Hara, part of whose body was inclosed, is reminded that the genius attends him.  One (635) of arragonite has a green waxy paint, and belonged to a royal bow-bearer of the nineteenth dynasty, named Renfu.  There is another complete set, which do not appear to have been opened, marked 636-39.  The arragonite vases are the most expensive, and, as we have remarked the most highly finished; but the visitor may notice also those in coarser material.

Having sufficiently examined these vases, the visitor may take a general glance at the contents of the saloon, and prepare to examine the Sphinxes, and colossal figures that are crowded into it.  In these he will recognise only colossal copies of many of the little figures he saw in the Mummy room up stairs.  He will see huge granite representations of the strange gods and goddesses to which the ancients devoutly knelt; and in many of these forms he will trace a placid beauty that reveals often the soul of the sculptor fettered by the strange formulas of his religion.  The visitor having examined the high reliefs on the tablets and sepulchral monuments of the ancient Egyptians, has now to examine the specimens that remain of their statuary.  But first of