lamentation that he made, and I told them as well as I could, that the sunne which gave us light was darkened, that is to say, that the king, Don Emanuel (of Portugal), was departed this life; and suddenly all of us began to make our moane, and the friars went their way."

BEARDS.

THE Persians in very early times were accustomed to give great attention to their beards. We are informed by Chrysostom, that their kings had the beard interwoven or matted with gold thread; and the accuracy of this information is evinced by the ancient Persian sculp tures, which still remain, in which the common beards are curiously and nicely curled, while those of the throned personages are stiff and matted. In the same sculptures other persons, who, from the offices they are performing, appear to be slaves or servants, have the beard in its natural state. The beards, even of Persia, have however undergone fluctuations. During the Suffavean dynasty it appears that only mustaches on the upper lip were common. Europeans who travelled in the country during that period, describe and delineate the Persian face as destitute of beard. Now, however, the ancient zeal for beards has revived; and the king himself has one of the finest ever seen. It reaches below his waist, and is altogether so rich an appendage that it forms an unfailing theme of admiring talk among the subjects of the shah, who seem sometimes to feel that, were other claims wanting, his beard would alone entitle him to reign over men.

The beards of the Persians naturally attain a larger size than those of the Turks, the Russians, or perhaps any other people. They are mostly of a black color naturally, but the practice of dying the beard, either to strengthen the intensity of the natural black, or to give that color where it does not exist, is universal among all classes. The operation by which this is effected is painful and tedious, and must in general be repeated every fort

BEARDS DRESSED.

a, Turkish sheik, beard disposed in locks; b, Mameluke, shaved on the chin; c, Turkish officer shaved under the lower lip; d, e, Turkish gentlemen; d, chin and angle of the mouth shaved, leaving a tuft of hair under the lower lip; e, chin shaved, and upper

lip closely trimmed."

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63

night. It is always performed in the hot bath, as the saturation of the hair, which takes place in bathing, enables it to take the color better. In the first instance a thick paste of henna is plastered over the beard; and, after it has remained for about an hour, it is washed away, and leaves the beard of a deep orange color, bordering on that of brickdust. Then another paste, made from the leaf of the indigo, is applied in the same manner, and allowed to remain for two hours. Throughout all the progress of this operation, the man with the beard is obliged to lie on his back, while the die, more particularly in the latter application, causes the lower part of the face to smart and burn, and contracts the features in a very mournful manner. When the patient first comes forth from the bath, the color of his beard is a dark bottlegreen, which becomes a jet black only after twenty-four hours' exposure to the air. The operation is one of considerable nicety, otherwise the final result may be a purple or a parti-colored beard instead of a black one. Many of the common people are so much smitten by the fiery red produced by the first application, as to decline to have it changed to black. The meteoric appearance of such beards is very whimsical, nor less so the blue beards which are preferred in Bockhara. All colors but black are, however, considered vulgar in Persia. "It is inconceivable," says Mr. Morier, "how careful the Persians are of this ornament: all the young men sigh for it, and grease their chins to hasten the growth of the hairs; because, until they have there a respectable covering, they are not supposed fit to enjoy any place of trust"

MANUFACTURES, MUMMIES.

THE ancient Egyptians had made considerable progress in several manufactures, to a degree which is really surprising. Their linen manufacture had a perfection equal to our own; for in many of their painted figures we find the garments represented quite transparent; and among the foldings of the mummies, Belzoni observed cloth as fine as our common muslin, very strong, and of an even texture.* It may be worth stating here, that round the mummy of Horsiesi, supposed to be upward of three thousand years old, which was lately opened, and now lies at the College of Surgeons, were found pieces of linen of seven different degrees of texture; varying from that of sail-cloth to muslin; and in color, from a deep brown to a pale delicate yellow; some of the pieces bore evident marks of having been anciently darned. The weight of the linen alone amounted to thirty-one pounds. The Egyptians

* Mr. Basil Montagu, in his Thoughts on Laughter, states the case of a party against whom an action was brought in 1821, for infringing a patent, defending himself in the following remarkable manner: The question was whether the plaintiff's mode of weav ing canvass was new or not. A witness declared, that it was known and practised more than two thousand years ago! And he proved his words by referring to the cere-cloth of an Egyptian mummy of acknowledged antiquity,

had also the art of tanning leather, and staining it with various colors, as we do morocco; and they knew the method of embossing it. They were skilful in making glass, some of which was of a beautiful black. Pliny proves from this, that glass-making was very anciently practised. Beside enamelling, the art of gilding was in great perfection among them, and they could beat gold nearly as thin as it is done in the present day. They knew also how to cast bronze and copper, and to form the latter into sheets; and they had a metallic composition not unlike our lead. Carved works were very common; and the art of varnishing, and baking the varnish on clay, was so complete, that travellers have doubted whether it could be successfully imitated at present. They also possessed skill in painting, and in the blending of colors, some of which, on the walls of the temples and the lids of the mummycases, have a brilliancy and apparent freshness, which betoken no small skill in their composition.

Indeed, the more we read and reflect on the works of the early Egyptians, the more we are astonished. Among the ancient tombs, M. Champollion found several highly-interesting drawings, supplying particulars of the progress of this extraordinary people in the different professions, arts, and manufactures, of the modes they pursued in agriculture, in building, in trades, in military affairs, in singing, music, and dancing; in the rearing of their cattle; in portrait-painting; in games and exercises; in the administration of justice, and household economy; in historical and religious monuments; in navigation and zoology.

MUMMIES AND EMBALMING.

When any person died, says Diodorus, the whole of his family, and all his friends, quitted their usual habits, and put on mourning, abstaining, during the period of lamentation, from the bath, and from the use of wine and other luxuries. They seem to have had a notion, that a time would come when the soul would be reunited to the body on earth, and so they endeavored to preserve the frame as a fit residence for its future guest. The expense of the funerals was regulated by three different scales, which made them costly, moderate, or cheap. About 250 pounds sterling, it is supposed, would pay for the best style of embalming a body; the second charge about 60 pounds; and for the third method a trifling sum was demanded. Thus the various classes of people may be generally distinguished by the mode of their preservation. Among the Egyptians were a set of persons who, like our undertakers, took upon themselves the whole service of the funeral for a stipulated amount. Proper officers were then employed to perform their respective parts. The duty of the first was to mark out how the dissection was to be made in the left flank for the purpose of embalming: this was executed by another officer with a sharp Ethiopian stone; and the task, as seeming to imply disre