lady; it was a glory to have long hair, and it was only when this failed her that she had recourse to what was purely artificial. In one of the novels of ancient Egypt, the "Tale of Two Brothers," we find the heroine of more than three thousand years ago so busy braiding her hair that she begs her brother-in-law not to disturb her, but to fetch what he wants from the chest himself, "lest her locks might fall by the way." Perhaps the prettiest way of wearing the hair is found in the representation of one of the lute-playing damsels in a Theban tomb, whose naturally curling hair follows the curves of both head and neck, giving us a pretty picture of a graceful girl amongst so many that border upon the grotesque.

Amongst the women of Nubia we find living pictures at the present day of

these old Egyptian styles;

and the shocks of hair in innumerable little plaits, carefully oiled with castoroil, make one sometimes wonder whether the ladies of the old frescoes are not around one in very life; while in the children's hands are dolls made of pieces of cane, with miniature models of ancient wigs pinned on to the top with a long thorn.

Wooden pillows are used by these Nubian

given great pleasure; and with the Egyptians, as well as with the Hebrews, oil was symbolical of joy and gladness. Rouge and other colouring substances were used by women in Egypt to enhance, as they thought, their beauty; the eyes had often a green line underneath them; the lashes and eyebrows were pencilled in black; and, as in modern Egypt, the nails were always stained red with a preparation from the henna

women, hollowed out for the head, not so much to give rest in sleep as to guard the hair from being injured during unconsciousness. Wooden pillows from Egyptian tombs fill glass cases in our museums, and it is strange to see how little difference there is between the ancient and the modern.

Curious hair recipes occur on some of the papyri, some of which are very absurd. One to prevent the hair from turning grey directs that a salve should be made from the blood of a black calf cooked in oil; in another that of a black bull is preferred for the same object; evidently the colour of the animal was to pass through the salve into the hair. In another place we read of the tooth of a donkey dipped in honey being used for really strengthening the hair; and the ingredients for an ingenious compound are given for injuring the hair of a rival, and the counter-remedy to be used by those who think their hair-oil has been tampered with by a suspicious friend. Cakes of some composition which absorbed oil were always placed on the heads of the guests at feasts, and from them the oil gradually trickled down through the hair. A most disagreeable practice this may seem to us, but to them it appears to have

plant. In our museums we can see the little pots and vases formerly filled with these unguents and colours, and the pencils they used with them, as well as various sorts of combs and hair-pins; of the latter there is a very pretty set in the Museum at Boulak single-pronged wooden pins with jackalheads, stuck into a cushion

in the form of a turtle, which was evidently one of the favourite dressingtable ornaments belonging to the deceased lady.

All these little essentials of the toilet were placed in the tombs by the loving hands of friends and relations for the use of that spiritual body, which they believed required all the adornment the lady had loved upon earth.

Notwithstanding the elaborate care lavished by the Egyptian lady on her

personal adornment, she adopted a simplicity of dress suitable to the climate in which she lived. Except for the wig, the head was usually uncovered, with sometimes a coloured band tied round it. The queens often wore the vulture head-dress, but this was more as an official ornament than as a covering. In common life also the women, both of high and low degree, went barefoot, though they had sandals to wear when they were in full dress. These sandals were made of papyrus, or palm fibre, or of leather; they had straps to pass round the foot and between the toes, and in some a piece of the sole was turned up, and bent over the toes to protect them; in later times some of the leather sandals had sides to them, which causes them very much to resemble modern shoes.

We cannot help noticing in Egypt, as in other countries, how very much national or individual character is expressed by the form of dress worn. In the ancient tombs of Beni Hasan the nationality of the strangers (there represented as arriving in Egypt) is indicated not only by their Shemite faces, but also by their long rich robes, contrasting with the plain white dress of the Egyptians, which was in accordance with

the character of that nation, whose simplicity, gentleness, and poetic temperament is yet seen amongst the modern dwellers on the banks of the Nile. Herodotus says of dress in Egypt that "the men have two vests, the women only one;" and it is a fact of Egyptian history that the dress of the man was always more

give us a very good idea of their beauty. The outer robe which covered the old close-fitting garment descended in graceful folds to the feet; it was sometimes made without sleeves, part of the dress hanging over the shoulders and tied in front with long bows; at other times the left arm only was put through a sleeve, and the right arm left free; or there might be two sleeves either almost close-fitting to the arms, or hanging down nearly as far as the knees. These dresses were capable of artistic draping according to the taste of the individual, but always in the case of the woman followed the beautiful lines of her figure, and were never forced, like some of the men's clothes in ancient Egypt and some of the modern dresses of our own country, to represent an exaggerated shape which could belong to no human being. The dress simply clothed the figure; the woman, too unconscious of her beauty to try to hide it, allowed the long sweeping lines to be seen, until the Greeks. taught them those beautiful elaborate folds of drapery which win the admiration of the world. The material found in such quantities in the tombs is never "made up" into dresses, partly because such dresses as were worn required little making, partly perhaps because the living friends and relations thought that the fashions might alter so much in the course of years, that the lady who was gone to the Hidden Land would rather have her trousseau in such form that she could use it as she liked. This material is always of linen, generally toned by age to a beautiful yellow or tawny brown. Notwithstanding

TRANSPARENT DRESS.

elaborate and complicated than that of the woman. The old historian adds that "they [that is, both men and women] are so regardful of neatness that they wear only linen, and that always newly washed." The testimony of Herodotus is borne out by the representations of men washing their clothes found at Beni Hacan (about 2000 B.C.), while every traveller on the Nile often sees the modern Egyptian washing his one long blue shirt in the river; afterwards he washes himself, and then putting on his wet garment, both dry together in the sun as he goes about his work.

Under the old empire in ancient Egypt, both queen and peasant wore, as a rule, the same close-fitting robe, which reached from the shoulders to the ankle; this was either supported by two straps somewhat like the modern braces worn by men, or it covered the shoulders and opened on the chest in V form. These dresses were made of linen, sometimes of an unbleached yellow hue, though white was preferred as the coolest and the most cleanly.

When later the great conquests of the Egyptians opened out the country to foreign influences and customs, we find a great change in the fashion of dress; then it was that both men and women began to wear the long transparent robes, more decorative perhaps than useful; these are found represented most perfectly in the sculptures of Abydos, though some of the casts from the tombs of the kings at Thebes in the British Museum

TRANSPARENT DRESS.

their love for white, we often find the Egyptians represented their goddesses or their deceased friends in robes remarkable for the wealth of colouring lavished upon them. These dresses are sometimes yellow with

red sashes tied in front, the long ends reaching to the bottom of the robe; sometimes red covered with yellow stars; others are embroidered in diamond patterns with pearls and precious stones, designs of lotus or papyrus forming a beautiful border at the top and bottom. This colouring may seem to us crude and harsh, and indeed it is quite unsuitable for our dull climate, but in the atmosphere of Egypt the briiliance of the sunshine takes out all vivid colouring, and blends it into the softness and harmony of a rainbow.

The Eastern love for colour and decoration was shown also by the taste of the ancient Egyptians for jewellery, often composed of many-coloured enamelled pastes or stones in harmonious patterns; this is fully borne out in the Egypt of to-day, where young and old,

A DOLL OF ANCIENT EGYPT.

rich and poor, alike love their jewels, whether they consist of costly diamonds, or of strings of cheap and gaudy beads. In the old frescoes the ladies are represented literally covered with ornaments, and we are able to compare these pictures with the objects themselves found on the mummies. Some of these have a religious character, such are the amulets and charms, which were supposed to help the deceased in the under-world, the sacred eye of Horus, the symbols of life and of stability, the scarabæus or sacred beetle; numbers of these are found in the coffins, in either costly or common metal, according to the wealth or rank of the deceased. Rings with emblems of the gods are very frequent; they often tell us to the service of which divinity the wearer

was

These

devoted, or they give us his rank, as they were often used as official seals. In the Louvre is, for instance, the ring of Rameses II. with a horse on the seal. Pectoral plates, sometimes of rich workmanship, protected the heart of the deceased, and were often in the form of the outspread wings of the sacred hawk or vulture, the feathers beautifully enamelled in different colours. All mummies had their jewels, but some of the most beautiful which have been found are those now at Paris, which belonged to a 'son of Rameses II. are surpassed by those of Queen Aahhotep (mother of Aahmes I. of the Eighteenth Dynasty, or of his wife Nofertari) which form one of the glories of the Boulak Museum, and show us to what perfection the Egyptian goldsmiths of that period carried their art. Some of the bracelets are of gold open work, with figures of animals wrought in enamel. The large necklace is composed of eight or nine rows of ornaments; of these we may mention the little gold jackals that sit on their haunches, the figures of antelopes pursued by tigers, the vultures and hawks with their wings outspread, the lotus and other flowers; all these were sewn on to some material by a little ring behind each figure, and the whole was fastened round, the neck by a clasp composed of two hawks' heads of gold. Below this necklace was worn the pectoral, in which the king is represented standing in the centre of a little shrine; on either side is a divinity pouring over his head the water of purification. Besides these jewels there is the queen's diadem of gold with sphinxes guarding a cartouche of blue enamel, and many amulets and charms; one of the latter consists of a little gold boat with golden rowers holding their silver oars under the orders of the commander seated in the centre. Many of the human and animal figures in this collection are really beautiful sculptures in miniature. With her jewels was buried the queen's mirror of gilded bronze, its ebony handle decorated with a carved golden lotus-flower. Mirrors of the same shape are to be found in all museums; the Arabs in Egypt sell them to the tourists, and the Nubian children treat them as playthings; they are all loot from the tombs of ladies of the ancient past, who seem to have found great delight in studying the appearance of dress or features with the help of their mirrors of polished bronze.

Thus we learn, both from the pictures of bejewelled ladies and from the mummies of the ladies themselves, that jewellery was much more an article of dress in the old time than it is now; in fact, it follows from the above that, while giving but scant attention to the more perishable materials of their clothing which was worn in the simplest possible forms, they lavished their skill of workmanship upon the more costly and more lasting jewellery. Bracelets were worn on the upper part of the arms, as well as on the wrists; heavy twists of gold adorned the ankles; other jewels covered the forehead, neck, and breast. Earrings were introduced from the East during the period of the great conquests of the fourteenth century B.C., and were often so heavy that they were fastened to the wig instead of to the ears. In no museum can Egyptian jewellery be so well studied as at Boulak, where it