bear their hieroglyphical names:  Aswan, (Kom) Ombo, Edfu, Esneh, Keft, Kus, Keneh, Dendereh, for example.  The real origin of these being now forgotten, some of them have been given false Arabic derivations, and stories have been invented to account for the peculiar significance of the words thus introduced.  The word Silsileh in Arabic means “a chain,” and a place in Upper Egypt which bears that name is now said to be so called because a certain king here stretched a chain across the river to interrupt the shipping; but in reality the name is derived from a mispronounced hieroglyphical word meaning “a boundary.”  Similarly the town of Damanhur in Lower Egypt is said to be the place at which a great massacre took place, for in Arabic the name may be interpreted as meaning “rivers of blood,” whereas actually the name in Ancient Egyptian means simply “the Town of Horus.”  The archaeological traveller in Egypt meets with instances of the continued use of the language of the Pharaohs at every turn; and there are few things that make the science of Egyptology more alive, or remove it further from the dusty atmosphere of the museum, than this hearing of the old words actually spoken by the modern inhabitants of the land.

The religion of Ancient Egypt, like those of Greece and Rome, was killed by Christianity, which largely gave place, at a later date, to Muhammedanism; and yet, in the hearts of the people there are still an extraordinary number of the old pagan beliefs.  I will mention a few instances, taking them at random from my memory.

In, ancient days the ithiphallic god Min was the patron of the crops, who watched over the growth of the grain.  In modern times a degenerate figure of this god Min, made of whitewashed wood and mud, may be seen standing, like a scarecrow, in the fields throughout Egypt.  When the sailors cross the Nile they may often be heard singing Ya Amuni, Ya Amuni, “O Amon, O Amon,” as though calling upon that forgotten god for assistance.  At Aswan those who are about to travel far still go up to pray at the site of the travellers’ shrine, which was dedicated to the gods of the cataracts.  At Thebes the women climb a certain hill to make their supplications at the now lost sanctuary of Meretsegert, the serpent-goddess of olden times.  A snake, the relic of the household goddess, is often kept as a kind of pet in the houses of the peasants.  Barren women still go to the ruined temples of the forsaken gods in the hope that there is virtue in the stones; and I myself have given permission to disappointed husbands to take their childless wives to these places, where they have kissed the stones and embraced the figures of the gods.  The hair of the jackal is burnt in the presence of dying people, even of the upper classes, unknowingly to avert the jackal-god Anubis, the Lord of Death.  A scarab representing the god of creation is sometimes placed in the bath of a young married woman to give virtue to the water.  A decoration in white paint