quainted with that country would think of asking such a question. "Every one," he added, "knows that those blacksmiths have the power of assuming the form of a hyæna, which as naturally belongs to them as that of a man. I had a proof of it a few days before I left Abyssinia. For while walking and conversing with one of them, I happened to turn my head aside for a few instants, and on looking round again I found that he had changed himself, and was trotting away at a little distance from me under his new form." The hyæna crocuta, or spotted hyæna*, differs from the former in its form and colour, as well as its habits, which are gregarious. It appears to answer to the Chaus of Pliny t, which Linnæus places in the Felis tribe. It is the Crocuta of Strabo, which he considers a hybrid of the wolf and the dog. Large packs of them infest the country in many parts of Upper Ethiopia, but they do not extend their visits to Nubia or Egypt; and in former times also they seem to have been unknown in Egypt. For the sculptured representations of them show that they were only brought out of curiosity as presents to the Pharaohs, to be placed among the strange animals of foreign countries in the vivaria, or zoological gardens, of the royal domain. Nor is there any probability of their having held a place amongst the sacred animals either of Egypt or Ethiopia. *The Marafeen or Marafeeb of Berber and Sennaar. THE CAT. The respect with which the Cat was treated in Egypt, was such as few of the sacred animals enjoyed. Its worship was universally acknowledged throughout the country*; and though, in some districts, the honours paid to it were less marked than in the immediate neighbourhood of Bubastis, its sanctity was nowhere denied; and the privileges accorded to the emblem of the Egyptian Diana, were as scrupulously maintained in the Thebaïd, as in Lower Egypt. "Never," says Cicerot, "did any one hear tell of a cat having been killed by an Egyptian;" and so bigoted were they in their veneration for this animal, that neither the influence of their own magistrates, nor the dread of the Roman name, could prevent the populace from sacrificing to their vengeance an unfortunate Roman who had accidentally killed a cat. ‡ When one of them died a natural death, all the inmates of the house shaved their eyebrows in token of mourning, and having embalmed the body, they buried it with great pomp; so that, as Diodorus § observes, "they not only respected some animals, as cats, ichneumons, dogs, and hawks, during their lifetime, but extended the same honours to them after death." All writers seem to agree about the respect * Strabo, xvii. p. 559. + Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 29. "Ne fando quidem auditum est, crocodilum, aut ibim, aut felem violatum ab Ægyptio." Diodor. i. 83. Vide suprà, p. 95. § Diodor. i. 83. 162 shown to the Cat throughout the country; we can therefore with difficulty credit the assertion of a late author, who states, "that in Alexandria, one of these animals was sacrificed to Horus," even though the city was inhabited by a mixed population, in great part composed of Greeks. Those which died in the vicinity of Bubastis †, were sent to that city, to repose within the precincts of the place particularly devoted to their worship. Others were deposited in certain consecrated spots set apart for the purpose, near the town where they had lived. In all cases, the expense of the funeral rites depended on the donations of pious individuals, or on the peculiar honours paid to the Goddess of whom they were the emblem. Many were, no doubt, sent by their devout masters to Bubastis itself, from an impression that they would repose in greater security near the abode of their patron; and to the same feeling which induced their removal to a choice place of burial, may be attributed the abundance of Cat mummies in the vicinity of Shekh Hassan, where a small rock temple marks the site of the Speos Artemidos. + Those cats, which during their lifetime had been worshipped in the temple of Pasht§, as the living types of that Goddess, were doubtless treated after death with additional honours, and buried in a far more sumptuous manner. This distinguished post Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. iii. 24., quoted by Larcher. Herodot. ii. 301. + Herodot. ii. 67. Of this Goddess, and her temple at Bubastis, vide suprà, Vol. I. Vide my Egypt and Thebes, p. 379. (2d Series) p. 277. raised them from the rank of emblems, to that of representatives of the Deity herself. The Cynocephalus kept in the temple of Hermopolis, or the sacred hawk adored at Heliopolis, enjoyed, in like manner, a consideration far beyond the rest of their species, though all were sacred to Thoth and Rê, the Gods of those cities: and this remark equally applies to all the sacred animals of Egypt. I have already observed, that in places where the Deities, to whom particular animals were consecrated, held a distinguished post in the sanctuary, the ceremony of removing them, after death, to another city was dispensed with.* We consequently find that the bodies of cats were embalmed and buried at Thebes, and other towns, where the rites of Pasht were duly observed: and if some individuals, as already stated, preferred, from a bigoted fancy or extravagant affection, to send the body of a favourite to the Necropolis of Bubastis, it was done with the same view, as when a zealous votary of Osiris requested, on his death-bed, that his body should be removed from his native town to "the city of Abydus. This, as Plutarch says†, was in order that it might appear to rest in the same grave with Osiris himself;" but it was merely a caprice, in no way arguing a common custom. A few instances of a similar kind probably induced Herodotus to infer the general practice of removing the cats which had died in other places to Bubastis, as the Ibis to Hermopolis. ‡ * Vide suprà, p. 100. Herodot. ii. 67. 66 + Plut. de Is. s. 20. After showing how prolific Egypt was in domestic animals, Herodotus mentions* two peculiarities of the cats, by which he accounts for their numbers not increasing to the extent they otherwise would. But these, like other prodigies of the good old times, have ceased in Egypt, and the actions of cats, like other things, have been reduced to the level of common-place realities. He tells He tells us, that "when a house caught fire, the only thought of the Egyptians was to preserve the lives of the cats. Ranging themselves therefore in bodies round the house, they endeavoured to rescue those animals from the flames, totally disregarding the destruction of the property itself; but, notwithstanding all their precautions, the cats, leaping over the heads and gliding between the legs of the bystanders, rushed into the flames, as if impelled by divine agency to self-destruction." Were this true the love of their domestic animals must frequently have sacrificed several contiguous houses, during their exertions to prevent the suicide of a cat; but, however great the grief of the Egyptians, in witnessing these wonderful cases of a feline felo de se, we may make some allowance for the exaggeration of a Greek t, and doubt the neglect of their burning dwellings‡ stated by the historian. That their numbers do not diminish in Egypt, *Herodot. ii. 66.; and Ælian, vii. 27. . I have had occasion to observe, that Herodotus has sometimes sacrificed truth to the pleasure of setting forth an amusing contrast to Greek customs, and striking his readers or hearers with surprise. Several instances of this may be pointed out in his Euterpe, 35 and 36. - “ Αμελησαντες σβεννύναι το καιομενον.” |
