Transcriber’s Note: The original copy of this book wasn’t very well proofread, if at all. A large number of printing errors have been corrected, including transposed full lines of text. In one place (noted below) at least one line was omitted completely: it wasn’t possible to source another edition to check what the missing words might have been. The spelling and hyphenation of Egyptian names are often inconsistent. [Illustration: CLEOPATRA.] PREDECESSORS OF CLEOPATRA BY LEIGH NORTH _5 Drawings by G. A. Davis_ [Illustration] BROADWAY PUBLISHING CO. AT 835 BROADWAY, N. Y. 1906 Copyrighted, 1906. BY BROADWAY PUBLISHING CO., _All Rights Reserved._ TO MY HUSBAND INTRODUCTION. In attempting even a brief and imperfect outline of the history of Egyptian queens the author has undertaken no easy task and craves indulgence for its modest fulfillment. The aim has been merely to put the little that is known in a readable and popular form, to gather from many sources the fragments that remain, partly historic, partly legendary, of a dead past. To present—however imperfectly—sketches of the women who once lived and breathed as Queens of Egypt, which has been more ably and completely done—as the period was less remote and the sources of information fuller, for their royal sisters of other lands. A short article published some years ago in Lippincott’s Magazine may be said to be the nucleus of the present volume, the writer’s interest in the subject having been awakened by the study necessary to its preparation. We enter a house through the portico or vestibule. We form acquaintances on somewhat the same principle. We begin perhaps with the weather, we exchange comments on trifles, we pass through an introductory stage of intercourse before we reach the real heart of the man or woman who, in time, becomes our dearest friend. Skip the introduction if you will, busy reader, but metaphorically it forms the portico or vestibule of the Egyptian House.