Now, you can understand that this picture-writing was not very easy work to do when you had nothing but a bruised reed to draw all sorts of animals with. Gradually the pictures grew less and less like the creatures they stood for to begin with, and at last the old hieroglyphic broke down into a kind of running hand, where a stroke or two might stand for an eagle, a lion, or a man. And very many of the Egyptian books are written in this kind of broken-down hieroglyphic, which is called "hieratic," or priestly writing. But some of the finest and costliest books were still written in the beautiful old style. On their papyrus rolls the Egyptians wrote all sorts of things--books of wise advice, stories like the fairy-tales which we have been hearing, legends of the gods, histories, and poems; but the book that is oftenest met with is one of their religious books. It is nearly always called the "Book of the Dead" now, and some people call it the Egyptian Bible, but neither of these names is the right one. Certainly, it is not in the least like the Bible, and the Egyptians themselves never called it the Book of the Dead. They called it "The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day," and the reason they gave it that name was because they believed that if their dead friends knew all the wisdom that was written in it, they would escape all the dangers of the other world, and would be able in heaven to go in and out just as they had done upon earth, and to be happy for ever. The book is full of all kinds of magical charms against the serpents and dragons and all the other kinds of evil things that sought to destroy the dead person in the other world. The scribes used to write off copies of it by the dozen, and keep them in stock, with blank places for the names of the persons who were to use them. When anyone died, his friends went away to a scribe, and bought a roll of the Book of the Dead, and the scribe filled in the name of the dead person in the blank places. Then the book was buried along with his mummy, so that when he met the demons and serpents on the road to heaven, he would know how to drive them away, and when he came to gates that had to be opened, or rivers that had to be crossed, he would know the right magical words to use.