ed along their outline;
the teeth small, even, well-set, and remarkably sound; the ears are set
high on the head. At birth the skin is white, but darkens in proportion
to its exposure to the sun. Men are generally painted red in the
pictures, though, as a matter of fact, there must already have been
all the shades which we see among the present population^ from a most
delicate, rose-tinted complexion to that of a smoke-coloured bronze.
Women, who were less exposed to the sun, are generally painted yellow,
the tint paler in proportion as they rise in the social scale. The hair
was inclined to be wavy, and even to curl into little ringlets, but
without ever turning into the wool of the negro.

[Illustration: 059.jpg THE NOBLE TYPE OF EGYPTIAN. 1]

1 Statue of Ranofir in the Gizeh Museum (Vth dynasty), after
a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

[Illustration: 060.jpg HEAD OF A TILEBAN MUMMY.]

The beard was scanty, thick only upon the chin. Such was the highest
type; the commoner was squat, dumpy, and heavy. Chest and shoulders seem
to be enlarged at the expense of the pelvis and the hips, to such an
extent as to make the want of proportion between the upper and lower
parts of the body startling and ungraceful. The skull is long, somewhat
retreating, and slightly flattened on the top; the features are coarse,
and as though carved in flesh by great strokes of the blocking-out
chisel. Small frseuated eyes, a short nose, flanked by widely distended
nostrils, round cheeks, a square chin, thick, but not curling lips--this
unattractive and ludicrous physiognomy, sometimes animated by an
expression of cunning which recalls the shrewd face of an old French
peasant, is often lighted up by gleams of gentleness and of melancholy
good-nature. The external characteristics of these two principal types
in the ancient monuments, in all varieties of modifications, may still
be seen among the living. The profile copied from a Theban mummy taken
at hazard from a necropolis of the XVIIIth dynasty, and compared with
the likeness of a modern Luxor peasant, would almost pass for a family
portrait. Wandering Bisharin have inherited the type of face of a great
noble, the contemporary of Kheops; and any peasant woman of the Delta
may bear upon her shoulders che head of a twelfth-dynasty king. A
citizen of Cairo, gazing with wonder at the statues of Khafra or of Seti
I. in the Gizeh Museum, is himself, feature for feature, the very image