After a little time, behold! the block already had legs. The old woman rejoiced greatly, and began swinging anew, and went on swinging until the block became a babe." The rude prayers and uncouth aspirations of barbarous and savage peoples, these crude ideas of the uncivilized races of men, when sounded in their deepest depths, are the folk-expression of the sacredness of the complete family, the forerunners of the poet's prayer:-- "Seigneur! préservez-moi, préservez ceux que j'aime, Frères, parents, amis, et ennemis même Dans le mal triomphants, De jamais voir, Seigneur! l'été sans fleurs vermeilles, La cage sans oiseaux, la ruche sans abeilles, La maison sans enfants." The affection of the ancient Egyptians for their children is noted by Erman. The child is called "mine," "the only one," and is "loved as the eyes of its parents"; it is their "beauty," or "wealth." The son is the "fair-come" or "welcome"; at his birth "wealth comes." At the birth of a girl it is said "beauty comes," and she is called "the lady of her father" (441. 216-230). Interesting details of Egyptian child-life and education may be read in the recently edited text of Amélineau (179), where many maxims of conduct and behaviour are given. Indeed, in the naming of children we have some evidence of motherly and fatherly affection, some indication of the gentle ennobling influence of this emotion over language and linguistic expression. True is it all over the world:-- Liebe Kinder haben viele Namen. [Dear children have many names.] _The Dead Child_. Parental affection is nowhere more strongly brought out than in the lamentations for the dead among some of the lowest tribes of Californian Indians. Of the Yokaia, Mr. Powers tells us (519. 166):-- "It is their custom to 'feed the spirits of the dead' for the space of one year, by going daily to places which they were accustomed to frequent while living, where they sprinkle piñole upon the ground. A Yokaia mother who has lost her babe goes every day for a year to some place where her little one played while alive, or to the spot where its body was burned, and milks her breasts into the air. This is accompanied by plaintive mourning and weeping and piteous calling upon her little one to return, and sometimes she sings a hoarse and melancholy chant, and dances with a wild, ecstatic swaying of the body." Of the Miwok the same authority says:-- "The squaws wander off into the forest, wringing their arms piteously, beating the air, with eyes upturned, and adjuring the departed one, whom they tenderly call 'dear child,' or 'dear cousin' (whether a relative or not), to return." Of the Niskwaili Indians, of the State of Washington, Dr. Gibbs observes (457. 205):-- "They go out alone to some place a little distant from the lodge or camp, and in a loud, sobbing voice, repeat a sort of stereotyped formula, as, for instance, a mother on the loss of her child:--