d the main highway of the city; and the pageant, accompanied
throughout by innumerable lanterns and wax tapers, took its course up
one of these streets, crossing the water by a bridge up-stream, and
down the other, to the haven, every possible standing-place, out of
doors [106] and within, being crowded with sight-seers, of whom Marius
was one of the most eager, deeply interested in finding the spectacle
much as Apuleius had described it in his famous book.

At the head of the procession, the master of ceremonies, quietly waving
back the assistants, made way for a number of women, scattering
perfumes. They were succeeded by a company of musicians, piping and
twanging, on instruments the strangest Marius had ever beheld, the
notes of a hymn, narrating the first origin of this votive rite to a
choir of youths, who marched behind them singing it. The tire-women and
other personal attendants of the great goddess came next, bearing the
instruments of their ministry, and various articles from the sacred
wardrobe, wrought of the most precious material; some of them with long
ivory combs, plying their hands in wild yet graceful concert of
movement as they went, in devout mimicry of the toilet. Placed in
their rear were the mirror-bearers of the goddess, carrying large
mirrors of beaten brass or silver, turned in such a way as to reflect
to the great body of worshippers who followed, the face of the
mysterious image, as it moved on its way, and their faces to it, as
though they were in fact advancing to meet the heavenly visitor. They
comprehended a multitude of both sexes and of all ages, already
initiated into the divine secret, clad in fair linen, the females
veiled, the males with shining [107] tonsures, and every one carrying a
sistrum--the richer sort of silver, a few very dainty persons of fine
gold--rattling the reeds, with a noise like the jargon of innumerable
birds and insects awakened from torpor and abroad in the spring sun.
Then, borne upon a kind of platform, came the goddess herself,
undulating above the heads of the multitude as the bearers walked, in
mystic robe embroidered with the moon and stars, bordered gracefully
with a fringe of real fruit and flowers, and with a glittering crown
upon the head. The train of the procession consisted of the priests in
long white vestments, close from head to foot, distributed into various
groups, each bearing, exposed aloft, one of the sacred symbols of
Isis--the corn-f