ee. In spite of
this, however, women of royal blood were treated with great deference,
and royal ladies enjoyed a freedom like that of western women to-day.
They gave their opinions and transacted business and were seen in
public. Many a king only sat securely on his throne because his wife had
a better title to it than he had. This did not, however, prevent them
from making women very often quite diminutive in size in their statues,
though in some cases the king and queen are the same size and are shown
seated side by side.

It is very quiet and beautiful here in the temple this Sunday morning;
the natives themselves are not allowed to come in, and visitors only on
production of a ticket costing twenty-four shillings, which admits to
all the temples of Egypt; and, as it happens, there is no one but
ourselves. The sparrows twitter overhead in the holes and crannies of
the pillars, and the great grey and black crows wheel silently against
the blue sky, throwing moving shadows on the honey-coloured columns.

If we walk round the back of these solemn statues we shall see that
there is a quantity of deeply cut hieroglyphic writing on a great plaque
at the back of each. The name of the king himself is always written
enclosed in an oblong space called a cartouche; sometimes this cartouche
is supported by two cobras, who are supposed to defend it. The rest of
the writing tells of the deeds of the king and all the mighty feats that
he performed.

Turning to the walls we find them covered with pictures, not coloured
but done in outline by means of deep-cut clean lines. We see the king
offering fruit to weird-looking beings with men's bodies and animals'
heads--these were the Egyptian gods; there were numbers of them, far too
many to remember, but here are a few: Anubis, the jackal-headed; Thoth,
the stork-headed; Sekhet, a goddess with a lion's head (some say a
cat's). Besides these there were others of great importance: Osiris, the
god of the dead, and Isis, his wife--these were the father and mother of
Horus, the hawk-headed god. But it was to the glory of Amen-ra, the king
or chief of all the gods, who can be recognised in the pictures by two
tall feathers like quills standing straight up on his head, that that
particular temple was built.

[Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN KING.]

On one of the walls we see a long row of men, all exactly similar, one
behind the other--these are some of the numerous sons of Rameses making
offe