THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN left six hundred men dead on the field. On Dec. 13th Merawi was reached, and here Messrs. Hanbury and Waddington made a somewhat prolonged stay for the purpose of examining the antiquities at and in the neighbourhood of Gebel Barkal. Their investigations of the pyramids and temples occupied them about ten days, and they left the site of the city of Napata on Dec. 24th.

On their way down the river they made a small excavation on the Island of Arko, but " it was only by the strongest application of " terror that seven men were at length prevailed upon to work for "six or seven hours." Their labours were not quite useless, for they found the head of a seated statue of black granite, and the foundations of a thick wall.

Mr. Waddington records the existence of a curious belief at that time among the Shaikiya people as to the use to which Egyptian monuments might be put. The arms of the black granite statue were broken off by the men at the request of their wives, who hoped, either by the violence of the act or by the possession of fragments from the breakage, to obtain the power of producing large families, or at least to avoid the stigma of barrenness. He goes on to say that similar acts, by which, even if effectual, the increase of the human race would be too dearly purchased, have been, and are still, frequently performed by the Arabs of Egypt, and lamented by the travellers who describe them. The women of many of the tribes in the Egyptian SOdan believe implicitly that, if they touch or rub colossal or large statues of men and animals with their bodies, they will produce large families of strong children. Until quite recently it was no uncommon thing on Fridays and holidays to see Sudani women from Cairo hovering near the large wooden staircase which formed the main entrance of the palace at Giza, wherein the National Collection of Egyptian Antiquities was housed for some years.

At the foot of this staircase were two large stone statues of the clever African ape which the Egyptians held sacred to Thoth, and Sfidani women used to come to them, mutter prayers for offspring before them, and then rub their hands and bodies against them, and try to sit upon them. The custom is the more curious from the fact that the SOdani folk declare all such statues of men and animals to be the work of unbelievers and idolaters; but at the 36