** I have formed my estimate of fifteen to twenty deaths per day from the mortality of Cairo during the French occupation.  This is given by R. Desgenettes, in the Description de l’Egypte, but only approximately, as many deaths, especially of females, must have been concealed from the authorities; I have, however, made an average from the totals, and applied the rate of mortality thus obtained to ancient Thebes.  The same result follows from calculations based on more recent figures, obtained before the great hygienic changes introduced into Cairo by Ismail Pacha, i.e. from August 1, 1858, to July 31, 1859, and from May 24, 1865, to May 16, 1866, and for the two years from April 2, 1869, to March 21, 1870, and from April 2, 1870, to March 21, 1871.

Each of the corpses,moreover, necessitated the employment of at least half a dozen workmen to wash it, cut it open, soak it, dry it, and apply the usual bandages before placing the amulets upon the canonically prescribed places, and using the conventional prayers.

[Illustration:  007.jpg head of A Theban mummy]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

There was fastened to the breast, immediately below the neck, a stone or green porcelain scarab, containing an inscription which was to be efficacious in preventing the heart, “his heart which came to him from his mother, his heart from the time he was upon the earth,” from rising up and witnessing against the dead man before the tribunal of Osiris.* There were placed on his fingers gold or enamelled rings, as talismans to secure for him the true voice.**

     * The manipulations and prayers were prescribed in the “Book
     of Embalming.”

     ** The prescribed gold ring was often replaced by one of
     blue or green enamel.

The body becomes at last little more than a skeleton, with a covering of yellow skin which accentuates the anatomical, details, but the head, on the other hand, still preserves, where the operations have been properly conducted, its natural form.  The cheeks have fallen in slightly, the lips and the fleshy parts of the nose have become thinner and more drawn than during life, but the general expression of the face remains unaltered.

[Illustration:  008.jpg the manufacture and painting of the CARTONNAGE]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after Rosellini.

A mask of pitch was placed over the visage to preserve it, above which was adjusted first a piece of linen and then a series of bands impregnated with resin, which increased the size of the head to twofold its ordinary bulk.  The trunk and limbs were bound round with a first covering of some pliable soft stuff, warm to the touch.  Coarsely powdered natron was scattered here and there over the body as an additional preservative.  Packets placed between the legs,