[Illustration:  013.jpg the funeral of HABMHABI]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the coloured print in
     Wilkinson.  The left side of this design fits on to the right
     of the preceding cut.

In place of a boat, a shrine of painted wood, also mounted upon a sledge, was frequently used.  When the ceremony was over, this was left, together with the coffin, in the tomb.*

     * I found in the tomb of Sonnozmu two of these sledges with
     the superstructure in the form of a temple.  They are now in
     the Gizeh Museum.

The wife and children walked as close to the bier as possible, and were followed by the friends of the deceased, dressed in long linen garments,* each of them bearing a wand.  The ox-driver, while goading his beasts, cried out to them:  “To the West, ye oxen who draw the hearse, to the West!  Your master comes behind you!” “To the West,” the friends repeated; “the excellent man lives no longer who loved truth so dearly and hated lying!"**

     ** The whole of this description is taken from the pictures
     representing the interment of a certain Harmhabi, who died
     at Thebes in the time of Thfitmosis iv.

     * These expressions are taken from the inscriptions on the
     tomb of Rai

[Illustration:  014.jpg the boat carrying the mummy]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from pictures in the tomb of
     Nofirhotpu at Thebes.

This lamentation is neither remarkable for its originality nor for its depth of feeling.  Sorrow was expressed on such occasions in prescribed formulas of always the same import, custom soon enabling each individual to compose for himself a repertory of monotonous exclamations of condolence, of which the prayer, “To the West!” formed the basis, relieved at intervals by some fresh epithet.  The nearest relatives of the deceased, however, would find some more sincere expressions of grief, and some more touching appeals with which to break in upon the commonplaces of the conventional theme.  On reaching the bank of the Nile the funeral cortege proceeded to embark.*

     * The description of this second part of the funeral
     arrangements is taken from the tomb of Harmhabi, and
     especially from that of Nofirhotpu.

[Illustration:  015.jpg the boats containing the female weepers and the people of the household]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from paintings on the tomb of
     Nofirhotpu at Thebes.

They blended with their inarticulate cries, and the usual protestations and formulas, an eulogy upon the deceased and his virtues, allusions to his disposition and deeds, mention of the offices and honours he had obtained, and reflections on the uncertainty of human life—­the whole forming the melancholy dirge which each generation intoned over its predecessor, while waiting itself for the same office to be said over it in its turn.