ken, a spell seemed to check the footstep of the
wanderer, a pale hand to sadden the bright glance of every eye, and to
banish the smile from every lip.

And yet many a gaily-dressed bark stopped at the shore, there was no
lack of minstrel bands, grand processions passed on to the western
heights; but the Nile boats bore the dead, the songs sung here were
songs of lamentation, and the processions consisted of mourners
following the sarcophagus.

We are standing on the soil of the City of the Dead of Thebes.

Nevertheless even here nothing is wanting for return and revival, for to
the Egyptian his dead died not. He closed his eyes, he bore him to the
Necropolis, to the house of the embalmer, or Kolchytes, and then to the
grave; but he knew that the souls of the departed lived on; that the
justified absorbed into Osiris floated over the Heavens in the vessel
of the Sun; that they appeared on earth in the form they choose to take
upon them, and that they might exert influence on the current of the
lives of the survivors. So he took care to give a worthy interment to
his dead, above all to have the body embalmed so as to endure long: and
had fixed times to bring fresh offerings for the dead of flesh and fowl,
with drink-offerings and sweet-smelling essences, and vegetables and
flowers.

Neither at the obsequies nor at the offerings might the ministers of
the gods be absent, and the silent City of the Dead was regarded as a
favored sanctuary in which to establish schools and dwellings for the
learned.

So it came to pass that in the temples and on the site Of the
Necropolis, large communities of priests dwelt together, and close to
the extensive embalming houses lived numerous Kolchytes, who handed down
the secrets of their art from father to son.

Besides these there were other manufactories and shops. In the former,
sarcophagi of stone and of wood, linen bands for enveloping mummies, and
amulets for decorating them, were made; in the latter, merchants kept
spices and essences, flowers, fruits, vegetables and pastry for sale.
Calves, gazelles, goats, geese and other fowl, were fed on enclosed
meadow-plats, and the mourners betook themselves thither to select what
they needed from among the beasts pronounced by the priests to be clean
for sacrifice, and to have them sealed with the sacred seal. Many bought
only part of a victim at the shambles--the poor could not even do
this. They bought only colored cakes in the sha