combien d'autres siècles pour produire l'oubli de tant de choses! et ramener l'homme sur la même sol à l'état de nature où nous l'avons trouvé ! jamais tant d'espace dans un seul point; jamais les pas du temps plus prononcés et mieux servis!"

LETTER XXIX.

TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

MY LADY,

Thebes, Sept. 10, 1826.

SINCE the time of Lady Montagu few female travellers, if any, have followed in her steps; and of the few who were qualified to supply her glowing language and elegant description, Egypt, unfortunately, had never the advantage of their observations. It is for this reason that I once presumed to express my regret that your Ladyship had not visited this interesting country. I have been endeavouring, in the vicinity of Thebes, to gather information on the subject of ancient inhumation; and the result of my inquiries I address

your Ladyship, believing any subject connected with science cannot be devoid of interest, however appalling it may appear, under the lens of

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modern refinement and sickly sensibility. I am aware that where "the feebler faint" the energetic feel, and that sensibility, like other qualities, seeks an asylum on the lips when it has been banished from the heart. To understand the reason of embalming dead bodies, and bestowing them in costly sepulchres, it is necessary to refer to the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which opinion the Egyptians held in common with the Hindoos. The religions of both, in all probability, had one common origin. They believed in the same two principles of good and evil. The gods of the Egyptians little differed from those of the Hindoos; the Osiris of the former, the Isis, the Thoth, the Horus, and the Anubis were not very different in their attributes from the Brahma, the Bistnu, the Chrishna, the Seeb, and the Indra of the Hindoos. The ten incarnations of Brahma, the Castes coming from his four members, viz. mouth, arms, stomach, and feet, are only other versions of the various appearances of Osiris, and the dispersion of his scattered members over the earth.

That both people originally believed in one

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true God*, I think is evident, from the inscriptions found in both countries. A temple of Sais had this description of the Egyptian deity: "I am all that has existed, does exist, and ever shall exist; and my veil no mortal hath yet uncovered."

In the Hindoo Shaster the attributes of one God are thus enumerated in these sublime words: "The Supreme Being exists unseen, preeminent; that which is and must remain. He is the Almighty God, the prime Creator, the mansion of the world, the incorruptible Being distinguished from all transient things, the ancient Pooros, the supreme supporter of the universe, and by whom the universe is spread abroad. He is immaterial, therefore above all conception. He is invisible, and therefore can have no form; and from what we behold of his works, we may conclude that he is eternal! omnipresent! omnipotent! omniscient! and infinite in glory!"

The Egyptian process of embalming, however,

*Plutarch says, that the people of the Thebais worshipped only the immortal God under the name of Ptha: and, on Franklin's authority, the word made use of by the modern Copts to signify the Deity is Ptha.

was unknown in India; indeed it could be practised in no other country but in Egypt, where there was no dampness or moisture to counteract the antiseptic process. We have good reason to know it was not in general use among the Jews, though that people borrowed the fashion of their sepulchres from the Egyptians. In Jerusalem, as in Thebes, the tombs are cut in the sides of the mountains; there are the same galleries, charnels, and sarcophagi; and some of the same gaudy paintings are still to be found in a Jewish tomb adjoining the supposed sepulchre of Absalom. In Wady El Mousa, the tomb of Aaron, differs in nothing from one of the tombs at Gourna. Burckhardt mentions the splendour of this sepulchre, and the number of stone coffins sunk in the floor; but neither in the tomb of Aaron, nor in the sepulchre of the kings in Jerusalem, has a single mummy been found, nor any vestige of the balsamic preparations.

Had the climate of other eastern countries admitted of embalming, most probably that process would have been adopted; but, as I have said before, it was the dryness of the air of Upper Egypt only which mainly tended to prevent de