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ground on which he lives; instead of which the horse, and the greatest part of other animals, in a few years impoverish the best pasture land.

"That the Ox is not so proper as the horse, the ass, the camel, &c. for carrying burthens, the form of his back and loins demonstrates; but the thickness of his neck and the broadness of his shoulders sufficiently indicate that he is proper for drawing, and carrying the yoke; it is also in this manner that he draws with the most advantage, and it is singular that this custom is not general.

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Throughout some of the French provinces they formerly obliged him to draw with his horns, for which the only reason they gave was, that when harness is fixed to his horns, he is managed with more ease: his head is very strong, and he draws very well in this manner, but with much less advantage than when he draws by the shoulders. He seems to be made on purpose for the plough; the size of his body, the slowness of his motions, the shortness of his legs, and even his tranquillity and patience when he labours, seem to concur in rendering him proper for the cultivation of the fields, and more capable than any other of overcoming the constant resistance that the earth opposes to his efforts.

"In those species of animals which man has formed into flocks, and where the multiplication is the principal object, the female is more necessary, more useful than the male; the produce of the Cow is a benefit which grows, and which is renewed every instant; the flesh of the calf is healthy and delicate; the milk is the food of children; butter relishes the greatest part of our victuals, and cheese is the common food of the country people; how many poor families are at this time reduced to live on their Cow! These same men who every day, and from morning to night, groan with anguish, exhausted with continual labour, gain nothing from the earth but black bread, and are obliged to give to others the flour, the substance of their grain; it is through them, and not for them, that the harvests are abundant; these same men who breed and multiply cattle, who take care of and are constantly occupied with them, dare not enjoy the fruits of their labor, the flesh of the beasts they are forbidden to eat, reduced as they are by the necessity of their condition, that is to say, by the brutality of other men, to live like horses, on barley and oats, or on common herbs, and sour milk.

THE COW.

"AT eighteen months old, the Cow is arrived at puberty, and the Bull when he arrives at two years; but though they can continue their species at this age, it is better to stay till they are three years old before they are suffered to procreate: the strength of these animals is greatest from three years old till nine; after this, neither Cows nor Bulls are fit for any thing but to fatten for the slaughter: as at two years of age they are almost at their full growth, the length of their lives is about fourteen years, and they seldom live longer than fifteen.

"In stature the BULL equals the horse, but he is much stronger made in all parts of his body, particularly about the neck and head; his horns are thick and large, and when enraged, he gores and tosses both man and beast. This animal is very short lived for his size and strength, seldom exceeding sixteen years.

"The dullest and most idle animals are not those which sleep the soundest, or the longest. The Ox sleeps, but his sleep is short, and not very sound: for he awakes at the least noise: he usually lies on his left side, and that kidney is always larger and fatter than the kidney on the right side.

"Oxen, like other domestic animals, differ in colour; but red appears the most common, and the redder they are the more they are esteemed. It is said, that Oxen of a bay colour last longest; that those of a brown

colour are sooner fatigued and shorter lived; that the gray, brindled, and white are not proper for work, and are only fit to be fatted for slaughter; but whatever colour the coat of the Ox is of, it should be shining, thick, and soft to touch; for if it is rough and uneven, we have reason to think that the animal is not well, or, at least, that he is not of a strong constitution.

"The Ox should only be worked from three years old to ten; and it is proper to take him then from the plough, in order to fatten and sell him, as the flesh will be better than if he be kept longer. The age of this animal is known by his teeth and horns. The firsc front teeth fall out when he is ten months old, and are replaced by others which are not so white: at sixteen months those on each side of the middle teeth drop out, and are replaced by others; and at three years old, all the incisive teeth are renewed: they are then all long, white, and even; and, in proportion as the Ox advances in years, they decay, and become unequal and black. The horns fall off at three years, and these are replaced by other horns, which, like the second teeth, fall no more; only those of the Ox and the Cow grow larger and longer than those of the Bull; the growth of these second horns is not uniform. The first year, that is to say, the fourth year of the age of the Ox, two little pointed horns sprout, which are even, and terminate at the head by a kind of knob; the following year this knob grows from the head, pushed out by a cylinder of horn, which forms and terminates also by another knob, and so on; for as long as the animal lives, the horns grow: these knobs become annular knots, which are easily to be distinguished in the horns, and by which also the age may be easily known, by reckoning three years for the first knob next the point of the horn, and one year more for each of the intervals between the other knobs.

"The breeds of Oxen, especially in England, where much pains have been taken to improve them, are numerous. One of the largest kinds is the KYLOE OX. It is a Scotch breed of cattle, chiefly of a black colour, with thick hides, much hair, and frequently large and long horns. They fatten well, and frequently attain to a great size. Mr. Culley mentions one which weighed one thousand four hundred and ten pounds and a half. The name of Kyloe is said to be derived from their having crossed the kyles or ferries, with which the Highlands of Scotland abound.

"The horse eats night and day, slowly, but almost continually; the Ox, on the contrary, eats quick, and takes in a short time all the food which he requires, after which he ceases eating, and lies down to ruminate. This difference arises from the different conformation of the stomachs of these animals. The Ox, of whose stomachs the first two form but one bag of a vast capacity, can in both of them, without inconvenience, at the same time receive grass, which it afterward ruminates and digests at leisure. The horse, whose stomach is small, and can receive but a small quantity of grass, is filled successively, in proportion as he digests it, and it passes into the intestines, where is performed the principal decomposition of the food.

"Chewing the cud is but vomiting without straining, occasioned by the reaction of the first stomach on the food which it contains. The Ox fills the first two stomachs, the paunch, and the bag, which is but a portion of the paunch, as much as he can. This membrane acts with force on the grass which it contains; it is chewed but a little, and its quantity is greatly increased by fermentation. Were the food liquid, this force of contraction would occasion it to pass by the third stomach, which only communicates with the other by a narrow conveyance, and cannot admit such dry food, or, at least, can only admit the moister parts. The food must, therefore, necessarily pass up again into the œsophagus, the orifice of which is larger than the orifice of the conduit, and the animal again chews and macerates it, and moistens it afresh with his saliva

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inclinable to blue or yellow is not good; its taste should be sweet, without any bitterness or sourness: it is best during the month of May, and during the summer; and milk is never perfectly good but when the cow is of a proper age and in good health. The milk of young heifers is too thick, that of old cows during the winter is also too thick. The milk of cows which are hot is not good, any more than that of a cow which is near her time, or which is lately calved. In the third and fourth stomach of the calf which sucks, there are clots of curdled milk; these clots of milk dried in the air serve to make rennet, and the longer it is kept the better it is, and it requires but a small quantity to make a large quantity of cheese.

"Bulls, cows, and oxen are very apt to lick themselves, but mostly when they are quiet and at rest; and it is usual to rub all the parts of their bodies which they can touch with their dung. When this precaution is not taken, they raise up the hair of their coats with their tongues, which are very rough, and they swallow this hair in great quantities. As this substance cannot digest, it remains in the stomach, and forms round smooth balls, which are sometimes of so considerable a size, that they incommode them, and prevent their digestion by remaining in the stomach. These knobs in time get covered with a brown crust, which is somewhat hard; it is notwithstanding only a thick mucilage, which, by rubbing and coaction, becomes hard and shining; it is never found any where but in the paunch, and if any of the hair gets into the other stomachs, it does not remain any more than in the bowels, but seems to pass with the aliment.

"Animals which have incisive teeth, such as the horse, and the ass, in both jaws, bite short grass more easily than those which want incisive teeth in the superior jaw; and if the sheep and the goat bite the closest, it is because they are small, and their lips thin. But the Ox, whose lips are thick, can only bite long grass; and it is for this reason that they do no harm to the pasture on which they live, as they can only bite off the tops of the young grass; they do not stir the roots, and for this reason scarcely hurt the growth; instead of which, the sheep and the goat bite so close that they destroy the stalk and spoil the root. Besides, the horse chooses the most delicate grass, and leaves the largest to grow, the stalks of which are hard; instead of this, the Ox bites these thick stalks, and by little and little destroys the coarse grass; so that, at the end of

some years the field in which the horse has lived be comes a very bad one, whilst that on which the Ox has broused becomes fine pasture."

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"THIS American animal, which is also called the Capibara, has never yet made its appearance in England. it is not a hog, as naturalists and travellers pretend: it even resembles it only by trifling marks, and differs from it by striking characters. The largest Cabiai, is scarcely the size of a hog of eighteen months' growth; the head is longer; the eyes are larger; the snout, instead of being rounded, as in the hog, is split like that of a rabbit or hare, and furnished with thick strong whiskers; the mouth is not so wide; the number and form of the teeth are different; for it is without tusks: like the peccary, it wants a tail, and, unlike to all others of this kind, it is in a manner web-footed, and thus easily fitted for swimming and living in water. The hoofs before are divided into four parts, and those behind into three; between the divisions, there is a prolongation of the skin; so that the feet, when opened in swimming, can beat a great surface of water.

"This animal, thus made for the water, swims there like an otter, seeks the same prey, and seizes the fish with its feet and teeth, and carries them to the edge of the lake to devour them, with the greatest ease. It lives also upon fruits, corn, and sugarcanes. As its legs are broad and flat, it often sits upright upon its hind legs. Its cry resembles more the braying of an ass than the grunting of a hog. Its colour is a deep reddish brown above, and fawn beneath. It seldom stirs out but at night, and almost always in company, without going far from the sides of the water in which it preys. It can find no safety in flight; and, in order to escape its enemies which pursue it, it plunges into

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dissector instantly to fly, as if he had committed a crime, those about pursuing and assailing him with stones:-a superstitious practice, by which they probably thought to compound with their consciences for an act considered sinful in itself.

At the disappearance of the dissector, the embalmers came forward. They were a kind of caste hereditary in Egypt, were held in high respect, looked upon as sacred, and permitted to have access to the temples, and to associate with the priests. They removed from the body of the deceased the parts most susceptible of decay, washing the rest with palm wine, and filling it with myrrh, cinnamon, and various sorts of spices. After this the body was put into salt for about forty days. When Moses, therefore, says that forty days were employed in embalming Jacob, we are to understand him as meaning the forty days of his continuing in the salt of nitre, without including the thirty days passed in performing the above-mentioned ceremonies; so that, in the whole, they mourned seventy days in Egypt, according to the words of Moses.

parent; and among the foldings of the mummies, Bel- | dead, was so hateful and degrading, as to oblige the zoni observed cloth as fine as our common muslin, very strong, and of an even texture.* It may be worth stating here, that round the mummy of Horsiesi, supposed to be upwards of three thousand years old, which was lately opened, and now lies at the College of Surgeons, were found pieces of linen of seven different degrees of texture; varying from that of sail-cloth to muslin; and in colour, from a deep brown to a pale delicate yellow; some of the pieces bore evident marks of having been anciently darned. The weight of the linen alone amounted to thirty-one pounds. The Egyptians had also the art of tanning leather, and staining it with various colours, as we do morocco; and they knew the method of embossing it. They were skilful in making glass, some of which was of a beautiful black. Pliny proves from this, that glassmaking was very anciently practised. Besides enamelling, the art of gilding was in great perfection among them, and they could beat gold nearly as thin as it is done in the present day. They knew also how to cast bronze and copper, and to form the latter into sheets; and they had a metallic composition not unlike our lead. Carved works were very common; and the art of varnishing, and baking the varnish on clay, was so complete, that travellers have doubted whether it could be successfully imitated at present. They also possessed skill in painting, and in the blending of colours, some of which, on the walls of the temples and the lids of the mummy-cases, have a brilliancy and apparent freshness, which betoken no small skill in their composition.

Indeed, the more we read and reflect on the works of the early Egyptians, the more we are astonished. Among the ancient tombs, M. Champollion found several highly-interesting drawings, supplying particulars of the progress of this extraordinary people in the different professions, arts, and manufactures, of the modes they pursued in agriculture, in building, in trades, in military affairs, singing, music, and dancing; in the rearing of their cattle; in portrait painting; in games and exercises; in the administration of justice, and household economy; in historical and religious monuments; in navigation and zoology.

notion, that a time would come when the soul would

It is always valuable and interesting to perceive ancient customs, as handed down by general historians, illustrating the inspired records of Holy Writ. The passages alluded to are curious, and obviously refer to the point before us: And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel. And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed; and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.-GEN. 1. 2, 3. And again, at verse 26, So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

After swathing the body in fine lawn bandages, glued together with a thin but powerful gum, they spread over it the richest perfumes. The precious trust was afterwards returned into the hands of the relations, so entirely preserved, that not only the figure and the lineaments of the face appeared unchanged, but even the eye-brows and eye-lashes were not disturbed. Thus some of the Egyptians kept the bodies of their ancestors in their houses, in open cases, or with glass before them, "not thinking it right that the features of their dead relations should be unknown or forgotten by their own kindred." For the prevalence of this rity of Diodorus, who wrote about fifty years before the strange custom at a certain period, there is the authoChristian æra: and Lucian (A. D. 150) mentions his having been present when mummies were placed on

MUMMIES AND EMBALMING. When any person died, says Diodorus, the whole of his family, and all his friends, quitted their usual habits, and put on mourning, abstaining, during the period of lamentation, from the bath, and from the use of wine and other luxuries. They seem to have had a be re-united to the body on earth, and so they endea-seats at table, as if they had been alive. It is fair to voured to preserve the frame as a fit residence for its future guest. The expense of the funerals was regulated by three different scales, which made them costly, moderate, or cheap. About 250 pounds sterling, it is supposed, would pay for the best style of embalming a body; the second charge about 601; and for the third method a trifling sum was demanded. Thus the various classes of people may generally be distinguished by the mode of their preservation.

Among the Egyptians were a set of persons who, like our undertakers, took upon themselves the whole service of the funeral for a stipulated amount. Proper officers were then employed to perform their respective parts. The duty of the first was to mark out how the dissection was to be made in the left flank for the purpose of embalming: this was executed by another officer with a sharp Ethiopian stone; and the task, as seeming to imply disrespect and cruelty towards the * Mr. Basil Montagu, in his Thoughts on Laughter, states the case of a party, against whom an action was brought in 1821, for infringing a patent, defending himself in the following remarkable manner. The question was, whether the plaintiff's mode of weaving canvass was new or not. A witness declared. that it was known and practised more than two thousand years ago! And he proved his words by referring to the cere-cloth of an Egyptian mummy of acknowledged antiquity.

conclude, however, that the bodies, instead of remainround in folds of cere-cloth, strongly saturated with ing in this way above-ground, were generally swathed aspheltum, or a bituminous pitch; that they were then deposited in a chest or coffin, according to the rank or wealth of the party, and consigned to the silent tomb. of the various cases or coffins which contain mumThere is a considerable difference in the appearance mies. These were usually made of sycamore, unlike within them, either of wood or painted plaster. The our sycamore; some of the large cases contain others inner cases are sometimes fitted to the body, others are only covers to the body. Many of the outer cases are plain, others slightly ornamented, and some literally covered with well-painted figures. Of the latter description is that represented to the left of the reader in the Engraving on the preceding page. The original (which may be seen in the British Museum, Eighth Room, Case 3,) was found by some Arabs in one of the fields of the dead at Sakara, near Cairo, and sent to England by Captain Lethieullier in 1722. The inscription, when read according to the principles of Dr. Young and Champollion, tells us, that the person whose body it originally contained, was named Arouni or Arouini, the son of Sarsares, or Sarsaris; for as

there are no vowels in the middle of the words, the names cannot be determined with perfect exactness. He appears to have been of royal blood: for the inscription in the centre begins with the words, "Royal Devotions to Phtah-Sokari," like the Papyrus of the Bubastite Princes, given in Champollion's Precis, xv. mummy with the gilt face, which is in the adjoining case, No. 2, appears not to have originally belonged to this coffin, although it was taken out of it; for it is the body of a priestess, whose name was Tsennofre.*

The

The paintings on the coffins generally refer to the entrance of the deceased into his new state of existence. Thus, in one of the compartments of the coffin of Horsiesi, a priest of Thebes, whose mummy was lately opened by Mr. Pettigrew, at the College of Surgeons, there is a remarkable group, emblematic, one might imagine, of a future trial. The god Osiris, with his usual high cap on his head, and sitting on his throne, receives a person, probably the deceased, who is introduced by a hawk-headed deity. Behind the throne stand two female figures, the foremost supposed to be Isis, the wife of Osiris, in attendance on the god. Below these are two pairs of female forms in separate rows, with ample wings extending from their arms, the lower pair having the faces of birds. Above, as well as below all these devices, appears the Scaraæus, or sacred beetle: an air of extreme absurdity is given to one of these insects, by its having the head of a hawk.

The beetle was considered by the Egyptians to represent the sun; and one, formed of stone or baked earth, is frequently found, next to the skin, on the breast of the human mummy. Such is the case with that of Horsiesi, a stone beetle, of a pale yellow, being still attached to the body; and above it, round the mummy's neck, are six or seven small pieces of different-coloured pottery strung together, probably for amulets. The body looks dark and charred, as if burnt; and its general appearance would lead, as in other instances, to the opinion, that it had been violently heated when the bandages were applied. The latter appear to have been put on wet. False eyes of enamel have been inserted in the sockets. This latter peculiarity Belzoni often observed in the mummies of priests; who always appeared folded in a most careful manner, such as to show the great respect in which their office was held. Their arms and legs, he remarks, were not enclosed in the same envelope with the body, as in the common mode, but were bandaged separately, even the fingers and toes being thus preserved distinct.-Lond. Sat. Mag.

The following Address to a Mummy a few years ago, was attributed to Mr. Roscoe.

ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY.
And thou hast walked about, (how strange a story!)
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago;

When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous.

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy,
Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune;
Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, Mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon;
Not like thin ghosts, or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features.

Tell us, for doubtless thou canst recollect,

To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame;

Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect,

Of either pyramid that bears his name?

Is Pompey's pillar really a misnonier?

Had Thebes a hundred gates as sung by Homer?

Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden

By oath to tell the mysteries of thy trade.
Then say what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue which at sun-rise played?

It is well known that the Arabs, when in search of gain among the tombs, have, on returning the mummies, frequently put them into wrong cases.

Perhaps thou wert a priest, and hast been dealing,
In human blood, and horrors past revealing.
Perchance that very hand, new pinioned flat,
Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharoah, glass to glass,
Or dropped a half-penny in Homer's hat,
Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled or knuckled,
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled!
Antiquity appears to have begun,

Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou could'st develop, if that withered tongue
Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great Deluge still had left it green;
Or was it then so old that History's pages
Contained no record of its early ages?

Still silent? incommunicative elf!

Art sworn to secresy? then keep thy vows; But pr'ythee tell us something of thyself,

Reveal the secrets of thy prison house; Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered, What thou hast seen, what strange adventures numbered?

Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have above-ground seen some strange mutations; The Roman empire has begun and ended,

New worlds have risen, we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thund'ring tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold:

A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusty cheek have rolled,
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race?

Statue of flesh-immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence!
Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,

And standest undecayed within our presence?
Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning,
When the great Trump shall thrill thee with its warning.

Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guest be lost for ever?

O let us keep the soul embalmed and pure
In living virtue, that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
Th' immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!

THE ANSWER OF THE EGYPTIAN MUMMY.
Child of the latter days! thy words have broken
A spell that long has bound these lungs of clay,
For since this smoke-dried tongue of mine hath spoken,
Three thousand tedious years have rolled away.
Unswathed at length, I "stand at ease" before ye,
List, then, oh! list, while I unfold my story:

Thebes was my birth-place-an unrivalled city,
With many gates, but here I might declare
Some strange plain truths, except that it were pity
To blow a poet's fabric into air;
Oh! I could read you quite a Theban lecture,
And give a deadly finish to conjecture.

But then you would not have me throw discredit
On grave historians-or on him who sung
The Iliad-true it is I never read it,

But heard it read when I was very young;
An old blind minstrel, for a trifling profit,
Recited parts-I think the author of it.

All that I know about the town of HOMER,

Is, that they scarce would own him in his day, Were glad, too, when he proudly turned a roamer, Because by this they saved their parish-pay; His townsmen would have been ashamed to flout him, IIad they foreseen the fuss since made about him.

One blunder I can fairly set at rest;

He says that men were once more big and bony
Than now, which is a bouncer at the best,
I'll just refer you to our friend Belzoni,

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