annihilation, however, is only the fate of those inveterately wicked.
Those respecting whom hopes of reformation may be entertained are
condemned to return to earth and do penance in long cycles of lives in the
bodies of various animals. This is what is known as the transmigration of
souls. The kind of animals the soul should animate, and the length of its
transmigrations, were determined by the nature of its sins.

TOMBS.--The Egyptians bestowed little care upon the temporary residences
of the living, but the "eternal homes" of the dead were fitted up with the
most lavish expenditure of labor. These were chambers, sometimes built of
brick or stone, but more usually cut in the limestone cliffs that form the
western rim of the Nile valley; for that, as the land of the sunset, was
conceived to be the realm of darkness and of death. The cliffs opposite
the ancient Egyptian capitals are honeycombed with sepulchral cells.

[Illustration: BRICK-MAKING IN ANCIENT EGYPT, (From Thebes.)]

In the hills back of Thebes is the so-called Valley of the Tombs of the
Kings, the "Westminster Abbey of Egypt." Here are twenty-five magnificent
sepulchres. These consist of extensive rock-cut passages and chambers
richly sculptured and painted.

The subjects of the decorations of many of the tombs, particularly of the
oldest, are drawn from the life and manners of the times. Thus the artist
has converted for us the Egyptian necropolis into a city of the living,
where the Egypt of four thousand years ago seems to pass before our eyes.

THE PYRAMIDS.--The Egyptian pyramids, the tombs of the earlier Pharaohs,
are the most venerable monuments that have been preserved to us from the
early world. They were almost all erected before the Twelfth Dynasty.