or, The Silver Skates 205

XXV
LEYDEN

HE boys met at the museum, and were soon engaged
in examining its extensive collection of curiosities,
receiving a new insight into Egyptian life, ancient and
modern. Ben and Lambert had often visited the British
Museum ; but that did not prevent them from being surprised
at the richness of the Leyden collection, “There were house-
hold utensils, wearing apparel, weapons, musical instruments,
sarcophagi, and mummies of men, women and cats, ibexes
and other creatures. “They saw a massive gold armlet that
had been worn by an Egyptian king at a timé when some
of these same mummies, perhaps, were nimbly treading the
streets of Thebes; and jewels and trinkets such as Pharaoh’s
daughter wore, and the children of Israel borrowed when they
departed out of Egypt.

There were other interesting relics from Rome and Greece
and some curious Roman pottery, which had been discovered
in digging near the Hague,—relics of the days when the
countrymen of Julius Casar had settled there. Where did
they not settle? I, for one, would hardly be astonished if
relics of the ancient Romans should some day be found deep
under the mass growing round the Bunker Hill Monument.

When the boys left this museum, they went to another, and
saw a wonderful collection of fossil animals, skeletons, birds,