The Egyptians worshipped many other animals besides the sacred bull; the dog, wolf, hawk, crocodile, and cat were all considered gods, and any one who might kill one of these animals, even by accident, was punished with death. When a cat died every one in the family cut off his eyebrows, and when a dog died the whole head was shaven. And if on their journeys the Egyptians found the dead body of a cat or dog, they always brought it home and embalmed it with great care. The reason why the Egyptians reverenced these animals was, that they believed that the soul of man, after his death, passed into the bodies of different animals, and that after three thousand years it would return and inhabit a human form again, so, of course, they did not look upon a cat or dog as we do, merely as an animal to be petted or used, but they thought that in this animal dwelt the soul of some human being, and hence it was sacred to them. One of the great gods of Egypt was the River Nile; and no wonder that they worshipped it, as it was to them the means of life. It never rains in Egypt, and the land would be like a desert were it not for the overflowing of the Nile. Once a year this great river, swollen by the waters that have poured into it from the lake country above, overflows its banks, watering the country on either side of it, and leaving, when it recedes, a deposit of rich mud upon the land; then the people sow and plant, sure of a good harvest. Up and down the Nile Valley extends a chain of rocky mountains, and these the Egyptians used as places of burial. The tombs, or catacombs, as they are called, are ornamented with pictures and sculptures which may be seen to this day. The subjects of these paintings were always taken from life. People were represented planting, sowing, and reaping, spinning, weaving, sewing, washing, dressing, and playing. Even the games of children were shown in these tombs, and the balls and dolls and toys with which they played. Would you not feel strange to stand in one of these catacombs and see the figure of a doll carved in the rock, and to know that it is the tomb of some little Egyptian girl who died three thousand years ago? The games which children play to-day are not new, and when you have a game of ball or top or leap-frog, when you play with your dolls, or sit down and tell each other fairy stories, you are only doing the same thing that the little Egyptian and Grecian boys and girls did thousands of years ago; it makes them seem like real children to think that, doesn't it?