for the purpose in tanks; and 'when one of them happened to die,'
says the veracious writer just cited, 'it was wrapped in linen, and
after the bystanders had beaten themselves on the breast, it was
carried to the Tarichoea, where it was embalmed with coedria and
other substances which have the virtue of embalming bodies, after
which it was interred in the sacred monument.' It has puzzled not a
little the learned archæologists, who have endeavoured to discover a
profound philosophy figured and symbolised in the singular mythology
of the Egyptians, to explain how it is that in Thebes, where the
sacred character of the cat was held in the highest reverence, and
cherished with the greatest devotion, not only embalmed cats have
been found, but also the bodies of rats and mice, which had been
subjected to the same anti-putrescent process. If, however,
Herodotus is to be credited, the Egyptians owed a deep debt of
gratitude to the mice; for the venerable historian assures us, and
on the unquestionable authority of the Egyptian priests, that when
Sennacherib and his army lay at Pelusium, a mighty corps of
field-mice entered the camp by night, and eating up the quivers,
bowstrings, and buckler-leathers of the Assyrian troops, in this
summary fashion liberated Egypt from the terror of the threatened
invasion. Probably the existence of mice-mummies may be accounted
for in this way, and if--resorting to no violent supposition--we
presume in the good work which the tiny patriots so sagaciously
accomplished that their cousins-german the rats were assistant, the
whole matter receives a satisfactory explication. The hypothesis, it
is submitted, is not without plausible recommendations on its
behalf. There is extant a fragment of a comedy, entitled 'The
Cities,' written by the Rhodian poet Anaxandrides, in which the
Egyptian worship of animals is amusingly enough quizzed. A
translation will be found in Dr Prichard's _Analysis of Egyptian