ct which it produces in the long run
on the teeth of those who habitually used it as an article
of diet, has been observed in mummies of the most important
personages.

Movement and animation were not lacking at certain hours of the day,
particularly during the morning, in the markets and in the neighbourhood
of the temples and government buildings: there was but little traffic
anywhere else; the streets were silent, and the town dull and sleepy. It
woke up completely only three or four times a year, at seasons of solemn
assemblies "of heaven and earth:" the houses were then opened and their
inhabitants streamed forth, the lively crowd thronging the squares and
crossways. To begin with, there was New Year's Day, quickly followed
by the Festival of the Bead, the "Uagait." On the night of the 17th
of Thot, the priests kindled before the statues in the sanctuaries and
sepulchral chapels, the fire for the use of the gods and doubles during
the twelve ensuing months. Almost at the same moment the whole country
was lit up from one end to the other: there was scarcely a family,
however poor, who did not place in front of their door a new lamp in
which burned an oil saturated with salt, and who did not spend the whole
night in feasting and gossiping.*

* The night of the 17th Thot--which, according to our
computation, would be the night of the 16th to the 17th
--was, as may be seen from the Great Inscription of Siut,
appointed for the ceremony of "lighting the fire" before the
statues of the dead and of the gods. As at the "Feast of
Lamps"

The festivals of the living gods attracted considerable crowds, who
came not only from the nearest nomes, but also from great distances in
caravans and in boats laden with merchandise, for religious sentiment
did not exclude commercial interests, and the pilgrimage ended in a
fair.

[Illustration: 114.jpg TWO WOMEN WEAVING LINEN AT A HORIZANTAL LOOM]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a picture on the tomb of Khnum-
hotpu at Beni-Hasan. This is the loom which was
reconstructed in 1889 for the Paris Exhibition, and which is
now to be seen in the galleries of the Trocadero.

For several days the people occupied mentioned by Herodotus, the
religious ceremony was accompanied by a general illumination which
lasted all the night; the object of this, probably, was to facilitate
the visit which the souls of the dead were suppose