Thothmes III. was the man who overran Palestine with his armies two hundred years before the birth of Moses, and has left us a diary of his adventures; for, like Cæsar, he was author as well as soldier. It seems strange that though the body mouldered to dust, the flowers with which it had been wreathed were so wonderfully preserved, that even their colour could be distinguished; yet a flower is the very type of ephemeral beauty, that passeth away and is gone almost as soon as born. A wasp which had been attracted by the floral treasures, and had entered the coffin at the moment of closing, was found dried up, but still perfect, having lasted better than the king whose emblem of sovereignty it had once been; now it was there to mock the embalmer's skill, and to add point to the sermon on the vanity of human pride and power preached to us by the contents of that coffin. Inexorable is the decree, "Unto dust thou shalt return." Following the same line of meditation, it is difficult to avoid a thought of the futility of human devices to achieve immortality. These Egyptian monarchs, the veriest type of earthly grandeur and pride, whose rule was almost limitless, whose magnificent tombs seem built to outlast the hills, could find no better method of ensuring that their names should be had in remembrance than the embalmment of their frail bodies. These remain, but in what a condition, and how degraded are the uses to which they are put. The spoil of an ignorant and thieving population, the pet curiosity of some wealthy tourist, who buys a royal mummy as he would buy the Sphinx, if it were moveable; "to what base uses art thou come," O body, so tenderly nurtured, so carefully preserved!