History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6

rments,* each of them bearing a wand. The ox-driver, while goading his beasts, cried out to them: "To the West, ye oxen who draw the hearse, to the West! Your master comes behind you!" "To the West," the friends repeated; "the excellent man lives no longer who loved truth so dearly and hated lying!"**

** The whole of this description is taken from the pictures representing the interment of a certain Harmhabî, who died at Thebes in the time of Thfitmosis IV.

* These expressions are taken from the inscriptions on the tomb of Rai

[Illustration: 014.jpg THE BOAT CARRYING THE MUMMY]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from pictures in the tomb of Nofirhotpû at Thebes.

This lamentation is neither remarkable for its originality nor for its depth of feeling. Sorrow was expressed on such occasions in prescribed formulas of always the same import, custom soon enabling each individual to compose for himself a repertory of monotonous exclamations of condolence, of which the prayer, "To