Traces the relationship between humans and the cat from its original domestication in ancient Egypt c.2000 BCE, where it enjoyed high status, through to its present status as a companion on a par with the dog. Long before people valued cats as companions, however, they recognized something special about them. Cats' ease of negotiation in the dark, their silent movements, their self-detachment even as they live in our homes, their refusal to defer to humans, seem to indicate strange, even supernatural powers.