Both men and women loved ornaments, and covered their necks, breasts, arms, wrists, and ankles with many rows of necklaces and bracelets. The bracelets were made of elephant ivory, mother-of-pearl, or even flint, very cleverly perforated. The necklaces were composed of strings of pierced shells,[**] interspersed with seeds and little pebbles, either sparkling or of unusual shapes.[***] Subsequently imitations in terra-cotta replaced the natural shells, and precious stones were substituted for pebbles, as were also beads of enamel, either round, pear-shaped, or cylindrical: the necklaces were terminated and a uniform distance maintained between the rows of beads, by several slips of wood, bone, ivory, porcelain, or terra-cotta, pierced with holes, through which ran the threads. ** The burying-places of Abydos, especially the most ancient, have furnished us with millions of shells, pierced and threaded as necklaces; they all belong to the species of cowries used as money in Africa at the present day. *** Necklaces of seeds have been found in the tombs of Abydos, Thebes, and Gebelen. Of these Schweinfurth has identified, among others, the _Cassia absus_, "a weed of the Soudan whose seeds are sold in the drug bazaar at Cairo and Alexandria under the name of _shishn_, as a remedy, which is in great request among the natives, for ophthalmia." For the necklaces of pebbles, cf. Maspeeo, Guide du visiteur, pp. 270, 271, No. 4129. A considerable number of these pebbles, particularly those of strange shape, or presenting a curious combination of colours, must have been regarded as amulets or fetishes by their Egyptian owners; analogous cases, among other peoples, have been pointed out by E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p. 189. [Illustration: 073.jpg MAN WEARING WIG AND NECKLACES.1] 1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a portrait of Pharaoh Seti I. of the XIXth dynasty: the lower part of the necklace has been completed. Weapons, at least among the nobility, were an indispensable part of costume. Most of them were for hand-to-hand fighting: sticks, clubs, lances furnished with a sharpened bone or stone point, axes and daggers of flint,[*] sabres and clubs of bone or wood variously shaped, pointed or rounded at the end, with blunt or sharp blades,--inoffensive enough to look at, but, wielded by a vigorous hand, sufficient to break an arm, crush in the ribs, or smash a skull with all desirable precision.[**] The plain or triple curved bow was the favourite weapon for attack at a distance,[***] but in addition to this there were the sling, the javelin, and a missile almost forgotten nowadays, the boomerang, we have no proof however, that the Egyptians handled the boomerang[****] with the skill of the Australians, or that they knew how to throw it so as to bring it back to its point of departure.[v]