Some writers deny that sacred prostitution was practised in Egypt, but the great similarity between the worship of Osiris and Isis and that of Venus and Adonis renders the contrary opinion highly probable. On their way to the fêtes of Isis at Bubastis the female pilgrims executed indecent dances when the vessels passed the villages on the banks of the river. “These obscenities,” says Dufour, “were only such as were about to happen at the temple, which was visited each year by seven hundred thousand pilgrims, who gave themselves up to incredible excesses.” Strabo asserts that a class of persons called _pellices_ (harlots) were dedicated to the service of the patron deity of Thebes, and that they “were permitted to cohabit with anyone they chose.” It is true that Sir Gardner Wilkinson[233] treats this account as absurd, on the ground that the women, many of whom were the wives and daughters of the noblest families, assisted in the most important ceremonies of the temple. This fact is, however, quite consistent with Strabo’s statement, which may have referred to an inferior class of female servitors, and considering the customs of allied peoples, it is more likely to be true than the reverse. The testimony of Herodotus is certainly opposed to that of Strabo. But the former acknowledges that he did not reveal all that he knew of the secrets of Egyptian worship, and we must, therefore, receive with some hesitation his assertion that “the Egyptians are the first who, from a religious motive, have forbidden commerce with women in the sacred places, or even entrance there after having known them, without being first cleansed.” The Greek historian adds—“Almost all other peoples, except the Egyptians and the Greeks, have commerce with women in the sacred places; or, when they rise from them, they enter there without being washed.” Whatever may be the truth as to the inhabitants of ancient Egypt, at the present day the dancing girls of that country, who are also prostitutes, attend the religious festivals just as the ancient devotees of Astarté are said to have done.