The Temple of Bubastes, according to Herodotus, was the fairest in all Egypt, and here special reverence was paid the cat. The local goddess of this city was Pasht, who was represented as a woman with a cat's head. Cats were kept in the temples sacred to them, and doubtless the head cat of the Pasht's temple was a very splendid specimen, who, living the life of great luxury, would be buried with the pomp and magnificence of a royal personage. It was at Bubastes, on the banks of the Nile, that an annual festival in honour of the goddess Pasht was held. We are not told whether the cats took any part in the proceedings. From the towns and villages within hail, pleasure parties were sent in boats up and down the river to the city, and on their passage the men and women who crowded these boats made merry all the long summer day. The women clashed their cymbals and danced, and the men played on their flutes. Seventy thousand people, it is said, assembled at this feast, and they sacrificed victims and drank a good deal of wine.

Perhaps the cats were treated to an extra dish of some dainty to mark this red-letter day in the annals of their patroness and goddess.

Mummified Kitten (In the posession of Miss Simpson. )

The Worship Of Pasht In The Temple Of Bubastes. (British Museum. )

A Cat God Of Egypt (From the British Museum. )

A curious custom, which probably had its origin in these pilgrimages to the sacred shrine,. had until recent years survived amongst the Egyptian Moslems, who when they were starting on their way to Mecca always set apart one camel for the conveyance of several cats, and some ancient dame was told off to take charge of the precious animals. She was honoured with the title of " Mother of Cats." Her office was not an enviable one, and probably it was found that a woman was unable to wrestle satisfactorily with the refractory travellers, for at a later date a man was substituted to carry the pussies to the Holy City.

Puss As A Retriever: An Egyptian Wall Painting. (At The British Museum. )

Thebes appears to have been a favourite burying-place for cats, and also a place called Beni Hasan, one hundred miles from Cairo. A few years ago some excavations were made near this town, and thousands of little mummied bodies were found that had rested peacefully for centuries. Their graves were desecrated, their burying-ground plundered, and tons and tons of mummied forms were carted away to the neighbouring fields to serve the useful, if not romantic, purpose of manure ! According to Horopollo, the cat was worshipped in the temple of Heliopolis, because the size of the pupil of the animal's eye is regulated by the rising and waning of the sun. Plutarch, however, states in his treatise on "Isis and Osiris" that the image of a female cat was placed at the top of the sistrum as an emblem of the moon. "This, "says the historian,

"was on account of the variety of her fur, and because she is astir at night; and furthermore, because she bears firstly one kitten at a birth, and at the second two, at the third three, and then four, and then five, until the seventh time, so that she bears in all twenty-eight, as many as the moon has days. Now this, perchance, is fabulous, but 'tis most true that her eyes do enlarge and grow full at the full moon, and that on the contrary they contract and diminish at the decline of the same."

Among other fables of classic naturalists and historians may be mentioned the following by Herodotus: "If a fire occurs, cats are subject to supernatural impulses; and while the Egyptians ranged in lines with gaps between them, are much more solicitous to save their cats than to extinguish the fire, these animals slip through the empty spaces, spring over the men's shoulders, and fling themselves into the flames. When such accidents happen, profound grief falls upon the Egyptians."

Whether these frenzied cats did or did not commit suicide is open to doubt, but that they would plunge fearlessly into water is an acknowledged fact. This is attested by paintings representing sporting scenes in the valley of the Nile. Men and women used to go out on fowling excursions in a boat to the jungles and thickets of the marsh land, or to lakes in their own grounds, which abounded with wild fowl, and there among the tall reeds knock down the bird with a stick. Into these happy hunting grounds they took a cat who would jump into the water and retrieve the game as it fell. There is a painting taken and brought from a tomb in Thebes, which is now in the British Museum, and Wilkinson, in his "Manners and Customs of Ancient Egyptians," writes as follows: "A favourite cat sometimes accompanied the Egyptian sportsmen on these occasions, and the artist intends to show us, by the exactness with which he represents the animal seizing the game, that cats were trained to hunt and carry the water-fowl."

An Egyptian Toy Cat (At the British Museum. )

One of the earliest representations of the cat is to be found in the Necropolis of Thebes, which contains the tomb of Hana, who probably belonged to the Eleventh Dynasty. There is a statue of the king standing erect, with his cat Bouhaki between his feet. The large basalt statues, of which there are so many in the British Museum, both seated and standing, are examples of great interest. They have mostly the disc of lunar divinity above their heads and the royal asp above the forehead.