*

bastis. This Deity had the head of a Cat, or of a lioness; and the demonstrative sign following her name was sometimes the latter, in lieu of the Cat, her peculiar emblem. Hence it is evident that the Egyptians not only included those two animals in the same family, but considered them analogous types. This, however, seems only to apply to the female, and not to have extended to the male lion, which was thought to partake of a different character, more peculiarly emblematic of vigour and strength.

Macrobius pretends that the Egyptians employed the Lion to represent that part of the heavens where the Sun, during its annual revolution, was in its greatest force, "the sign Leo being called the abode of the Sun;" and the different parts of this animal are reputed by him to have indicated various seasons, and the increasing or decreasing ratio of the solar power. The head he supposes to have denoted the "present time‡;" which Horapollo interprets as the type of vigilance; and the fire of its eyes was considered analogous to the fiery look which the Sun constantly directs towards the world.

In the temple of Dakkeh, the Lion is represented upon the shrine or sacred table of the Ibis, the bird of Hermes; and a monkey, the emblem of the same Deity, is seen praying to a Lion with the disk of the Sun upon its head.

Some also believed the Lion to be sacred to the

* Vide suprà, Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 278. +Macrob. Saturn. i. 26. Macrob. Saturn. i. 25. Macrobius also says the Sun is the "heart of heaven," and the "mind of the world" (i. 20.).

Besides

other names, he has that of Phanes (i. 18.).

Egyptian Minerva*; and Ælian says the Egyptians consecrated it to Vulcant, "attributing the fore part of this animal to fire, and the hinder parts to water."

Sometimes the Lion, the emblem of strength, was adopted as a type of the King, and substituted for the more usual representative of royal power, the sphinx; which, when formed by the human head and lion's body, signified the union of intellectual and physical strength.

In Southern Ethiopia‡, in the vicinity of the modern town of Shendy, the lion-headed Deity seems to have been the chief object of worship. He holds a conspicuous place in the great temple of Wady Owáteb, and on the sculptured remains at Wady Benat; at the former of which he is the first in a procession of Deities, consisting of Rê, Neph, and Pthah, to whom a Monarch is making offerings. On the side of the propylæum tower is a snake with a lion's head and human arms, rising from a lotus; and in the small temple at the same place, a God with three lions' heads and two pair of arms holds the principal place in the sculptures. This last appears to be peculiarly marked as a type of physical strength; which is still farther expressed by the choice of the number three §, indicative of a material or physical sense. The Lion

* Vide suprà, Vol I. (2d Series) p. 286.

+ Elian, Nat. An. xii. 7. "(Ægyptii) animantes etiam, earumque partes ad naturam referunt . . . . attribuunt igni hujus animalis (leonis) anteriora, aquæ vero posteriora." Tr.

Vide suprà, Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 241.

§ Vide suprà, Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 195., on the Numbers,

also occurs in Ethiopia, devouring the prisoners or attacking the enemy, in company with a King, as in the Egyptian sculptures.

According to Plutarch *, “the Lion was worshipped by the Egyptians, who ornamented the doors of their temples with the gaping mouth of that animal, because the Nile began to rise when the Sun was in the constellation of Leo." Horapollot says, Lions were placed before the gates of the temples, as the symbols of watchfulness and protection. And "being a type of the inundation, in consequence of the Nile rising more abundantly when the Sun is in Leo, those who anciently presided over the sacred works, made the waterspouts and passages of fountains in the form of lions. The latter remark is in perfect accordance with fact, many water-spouts terminating in lions' heads still remaining on the temples. Elian§ also says, that "the people of the great city of Heliopolis keep lions in the vestibules or areas of the temple of their God (the Sun), considering them to partake of a certain divine influence, according to the statements of the Egyptians themselves; " "and temples are even dedicated to this animal." But of this, and the statement of Horapollo respecting the Deity at Heliopolis, under the form of a lion, I have already spoken. ||

* Plut. de Is. s. 38. Vide also Pliny, xviii. 18., and Plut. Sympos. iv. 5., where he speaks of the Egyptian fountains ornamented with lions' heads for the same reason.

+ Horapollo, i. 19.

Elian, Nat. Hist. xii. 7.

Horapollo, i. 21.

Vide suprà, Vol. I. (2d Series) p. 296, 297.

The figure of a lion, or the head and feet of that animal, were frequently used in chairs, tables, and various kinds of furniture, and as ornamental devices. The same idea has been common in all countries, and in the earliest specimens of Greek sculpture. The lions over the gate of Mycena are similar to many of those which occur on the monuments of Egypt.

No mummies of lions have been found in Egypt. They were not indigenous in the country, and were only kept as curiosities, or as objects of worship. In places where they were sacred, they were treated with great care, being "fed with joints of meat, and provided with comfortable and spacious dwellings, —particularly in Leontopolis, the City of Lions; and songs were sung to them during the hours of their repast." * The animal was even permitted to exercise its natural propensity of seizing its prey; in order that the exercise might preserve its health; for which purpose a calf was put into the enclosure. And having killed the victim thus offered it, the lion retired to its den, probably without exciting in the spectators any thought of the cruelty of granting this indulgence to their favourite animal. We naturally censure them for sacrificing their humanity to a religious prejudice; but while we do so, let us not forget to anticipate the reply of an Egyptian, by calling to mind the fact, that many keepers of animals in modern Europe, without the plea

of religious feeling, commit a similar act of cruelty; living creatures being given as food to snakes and other animals, frequently for the sole purpose of amusing or astonishing an idle spectator.

PANTHER, LEOPARD, AND FELIS CHAUS.

These animals do not appear to have been sacred in Egypt, and the two former alone are represented in the sculptures. It is evident that they were merely brought to Egypt as curiosities; and their skins, which were in great request for ornamental purposes, were among the objects presented by the Ethiopians, in their annual tribute, to the Egyptian Monarchs. Though the Felis Chaus* does not occur in the sculptures, it is a native of Egypt, inhabiting principally the hills on the western side of the Nile, and sometimes extending its predatory rambles to the vicinity of the pyramids. In appearance, it is like a large cat, with a tuft of long black hair on the extremity of its ears, in which, as in its size, it bears some resemblance to the lynx.

MOUSE, RAT, JERBOA, PORCUPINE, AND HARE.

The injuries caused by mice and rats, in a country like Egypt, were far from suggesting any sanctity in these destructive animals; though jerboas, from their more secluded habits and smaller numbers, might not have excited the same animosity, either among the peasantry or the inhabitants of the

* Vide suprà, p.160.