soldiers, officials, guardians of temples, and priests proudly executing
their office in their distinctive panther skins. Three individuals in
the Gîzeh were contemporaries, or almost so, of the young girl of the
Turin Museum. They are dressed in rich costumes, to which they have,
doubtless, a just claim; for one of them, Hori, surnamed Râ, rejoiced in
the favour of the Pharaoh, and must therefore have exercised some
court function. They seem to step forth with a measured pace and firm
demeanour, the body well thrown back and the head erect, their
faces displaying something of cruelty and cunning. An officer, whose
retirement from service is now spent in the Louvre, is dressed in a
semi-civil costume, with a light wig, a closely fitting smock-frock
with shirt-sleeves, and a loin-cloth tied tightly round the hips and
descending halfway down the thigh, to which is applied a piece of stuff
kilted lengthwise, projecting in front. A colleague of his, now in the
Berlin Museum, still maintains possession of his official baton, and is
arrayed in his striped petticoat, his bracelets and gorget of gold.
A priest in the Louvre holds before him, grasped by both hands, the
insignia of Amon-Ra--a ram's head, surmounted by the solar disk, and
inserted on the top of a thick handle; another, who has been relegated
to Turin, appears to be placed between two long staves, each surmounted
by an idol, and, to judge from his attitude, seems to have no small idea
of his own beauty and importance. The Egyptians were an observant
people and inclined to satire, and I have a shrewd suspicion that the
sculptors, in giving to such statuettes this character of childlike
vanity, yielded to the temptation to be merry at the expense of their
model.

The smelters and engravers in metal occupied in relation to the
sculptors a somewhat exalted position. Bronze had for a long time been
employed in funerary furniture, and _ushabtiu_ (respondents),* amulets,