familiarities as the Greek: two friends on catching sight of one another paused before they met, bowed, then clasped one another round the knees or pretended to do so. Young people gave way to an old man, or, if seated, rose to let him pass. The traveller recalled the fact that the Spartans behaved in the same way, and approved this mark of deference; but nothing in his home-life had prepared him for the sight of respectable women coming and going as they pleased, without escort and unveiled, carrying burdens on their shoulders (whereas the men carried them on their heads), going to market, keeping stalls or shops, while their husbands or fathers stayed comfortably at home, wove cloth, kneaded the potter's clay or turned the wheel, and worked at their trades; no wonder that they were ready to believe that the man was the slave, and the wife the mistress of the family. Some historians traced the origin of these customs back to Osiris, others only as far as Sesostris: Sesostris was the last resource of Greek historians when they got into difficulties. The city was crowded with monuments; there was the temple of the Phoenician Astarte, in which priests of Syrian descent had celebrated the mysteries of the great goddess ever since the days of the XVIIIth dynasty; then there was the temple of Ra, the temple of Amon, the temple of Tamu, the temple of Bastit, and the temple of Isis.* * This list is taken mainly from one of the mutilated letters found on the back of the _Sallier Papyrus_. The Phoenician Astarte, called a foreign Aphrodite by Herodotus, was regarded by the Egyptians as a counterpart of Bastit, lady of Onkhtoui.