Three animals were regarded as not representations merely, but incarnations of gods; these were the bull Mnevis, the goat of Mendes and the bull Apis. Apis was said to be born of a cow, yet also born of heaven. He was to be black, with a white triangle on his forehead, a mark like a half-moon on his back, and a mark like a scarabæus under his tongue. When Apis died, all Egypt mourned. As soon as a new Apis was found, the Egyptians donned their best clothing and made great rejoicings. The dead Apis was embalmed and received further worship. Apis was wrongly supposed to be the god whom the Israelites imitated in their worship of the golden calf. MUMMIES. The Egyptians held it as a central feature of their faith, that “man was not made to die,” that we were to live a future life, that death does not end all. Many heathen nations believed that the body, the flesh, was an evil thing, the seat of all base passions; not so the Egyptians. The greatest event in a man’s life happened after his death (to speak in apparent paradoxes). His funeral, and the arrangements for it, surpassed all other occasions of his life in their elaborateness. The period of mourning lasted seventy-two days. Perhaps during all this time, the process of embalming was going on by the use of peculiar preparations which were forced through his veins as the blood was withdrawn, and by wrapping the body in linen bands containing substances which prevented the flesh from decaying. The outermost bandage was covered with a kind of pasteboard, which represented the deceased as a workman in the Happy Fields, carrying the tools of husbandry. This is commonly called the mummy. Before the wrapping in the linen bandages began, the body had been steeped in a liquid called _natron_ (carbonate of soda). Herodotus presents a very full description of the process of embalming. There is no doubt but that all this was done as a preparation for the return of the soul to the body in a future world. The mummy was inclosed in a coffin of wood, and this again, if the person’s friends were rich, in a stone sarcophagus or coffin. The coffin was placed on a sledge drawn by oxen or men, taken to the river or lake-side and ferried over to the burial-place on the sacred boats. The coffin was deposited in the tomb, and prayers were said, and offerings given in the chapel above the tomb. Offerings to Osiris were made during an entire year by the family. [Illustration: SHROUDING OF THE DEAD.] [Illustration: MUMMY CASE.] [Illustration: FORMS OF MUMMY CASES. 1, 2, 3, 4. Of wood. 5, 6, 7, 8. Of stone. 9. Of wood and of early time--before the 18th dynasty. 10. Of burnt earthenware.] THE CELEBRATED BOOK OF THE DEAD.