The head was at first always uncovered; but we see at one time a fillet, or simple band for the hair, beginning to be worn; then we come to a curious low cap, and next to a high, almost mitre-like cap, and finally to a variety of headgear. The hair and the beard are sometimes elaborately curled; but as a rule the Egyptians were clean-shaven. The beard, however, was recognised as so important in some of the religious ceremonies that it is said that a false beard was sometimes worn on these sacred occasions. It is rather like the wearing of wigs by our judges and barristers in Court. At the beginning of the great eighteenth dynasty, we find the longer gowns, which are like our night-gowns, worn more and more, and the priestly garments and those of the great men becoming more and more rich and long. Likely enough this change was due to the closer intercourse which the Egyptians now began to have with the Eastern Empire, where the longer and richer garments were commonly worn. {40} But, after all, when you hear or read the words Ancient Egypt, what, at first, do you begin to think of? I know what ideas the words first suggest to me--pyramids and mummies. They are both so extraordinary and unlike what we find in other countries. And they both have rather the same meaning at the back of them, namely, that the Egyptians paid a very great respect to the bodies of the dead. For the mummifying was, of course, to preserve the body, and the pyramids were only one form of the immense and immensely expensive tombs which they built for the mummies to be laid in. And I do not want you to be misled by something that I wrote a few pages back about the Egyptians not supposing that the favour of the gods was to be won by good behaviour, but rather by very exact ritual and ceremonies. That is true, but I also said then that they did think that the behaviour of a person while alive made a great difference to his future after death. That is a fact that we may be quite certain of. There is a very famous old Egyptian book, called _The Book of the Dead_, illustrated with pictures showing all that happened, after his death, to a certain illustrious Egyptian; how he passed through several gates, each guarded by its own horrible demons, how he arrived at the great judgment-seat at last, and how there his good deeds in this life were weighed against his bad, and the good were found to be more than the bad, so that he was allowed to go on to a place in which it hardly seems as if he was likely to be very, very happy, but at least it was far better fortune for him than if he had been found guilty and been given to the tormentor. The tormentor is shown in many of {41} the pictures waiting for him. He is a terrible creature, with teeth and claws. [Sidenote: Slaves]