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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Peeps At Many Lands: Ancient Egypt, by James Baikie.
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt, by James Baikie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt
+
+Author: James Baikie
+
+Illustrator: Constance Baikie
+
+Release Date: September 29, 2007 [EBook #22799]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: ANCIENT EGYPT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Geetu Melwani, Bruce Albrecht and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 501px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="325" height="400" alt="cover."
+ title="cover" /></div>
+
+
+<h2>PEEPS AT<br />
+MANY LANDS<br />
+
+ANCIENT EGYPT<br /></h2>
+
+
+<h3><br />
+BY<br />
+REV. JAMES BAIKIE, F.R.A.S.<br /><br /><br /></h3>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 501px;">
+<a name="plate1" id="plate1"><img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="501" height="700" alt="PLATE 1."
+ title="Plate 1" /></a>
+<span class="caption">PLATE 1. AN EGYPTIAN GALLEY. <br /><br /></span></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>PEEPS AT MANY LANDS<br />
+ANCIENT EGYPT<br />
+<br /><br />
+BY<br />
+REV. JAMES BAIKIE, F.R.A.S.<br /><br /></h3>
+
+<h5>AUTHOR OF<br /> "PEEPS AT THE HEAVENS,"<br /> "THE STORY OF THE PHARAOHS,"<br /> "THE SEA KINGS OF CRETE," ETC.<br />
+<br />
+WITH SIXTEEN FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS,<br />
+THOSE IN COLOUR BEING BY<br />
+CONSTANCE N. BAIKIE</h5>
+
+<p class='center'><small>
+A. &amp; C. BLACK, LTD.<br />
+4, 5 &amp; 6, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.<br />
+1916<br /></small></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class='center'><small>
+<i>First published October 1912</i><br />
+<i>Reprinted January and April 1916</i><br /></small><br /><br /></p>
+
+<h4>AGENTS</h4>
+<table class='toc' summary='Publishing info'>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="small">AMERICA</span></td><td>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td><td>64 &amp; 66 <span class="smcap">Fifth Avenue</span>, NEW YORK</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="small">AUSTRALASIA</span></td><td>OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td><td>205 <span class="smcap">Flinders Lane</span>, MELBOURNE</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="small">CANADA</span></td><td>THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD.</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td><td><span class="smcap">St. Martin's House, 70 Bond Street</span>, TORONTO</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td><span class="small">INDIA</span></td><td>MACMILLAN &amp; COMPANY, LTD.</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td><td><span class="smcap">Macmillan Building</span>, BOMBAY</td></tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td><td><span class="smcap">309 Bow Bazaar Street</span>, CALCUTTA</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='center'><small><i>Printed in Great Britain.</i></small><br /><br /></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<table class='toc' summary='Table of Contents'>
+<tr>
+<td></td><td class ="number">PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I. A LAND OF OLD RENOWN</a></td>
+<td class='number'>1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II. A DAY IN THEBES</a></td>
+<td class='number'>6</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III. A DAY IN THEBES (<i>continued</i>)</a></td>
+<td class='number'>11</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV. PHARAOH AT HOME</a></td>
+<td class="number">17</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V. THE LIFE OF A SOLDIER</a></td>
+<td class='number'>24</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI. CHILD-LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT</a></td>
+<td class='number'>33</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII. SOME FAIRY-TALES OF LONG AGO</a></td>
+<td class='number'>41</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII. SOME FAIRY-TALES OF LONG AGO (<i>continued</i>)</a></td>
+<td class='number'>47</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX. EXPLORING THE SOUDAN</a></td>
+<td class='number'>54</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X. A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY</a></td>
+<td class='number'>59</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI. EGYPTIAN BOOKS</a></td>
+<td class='number'>66</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII. TEMPLES AND TOMBS</a></td>
+<td class='number'>72</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII. AN EGYPTIAN'S HEAVEN</a></td>
+<td class='number'>82</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+
+
+<table class='toc' summary='List of Illustrations'>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">PLATE</td><td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">*1. </td><td><a href="#plate1">AN EGYPTIAN GALLEY, 1500 B.C.</a></td><td class ="number"><i>Frontispiece</i></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td><td></td><td class ="number">FACING PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">2.</td><td><a href="#plate2">THE GODDESS ISIS DANDLING THE KING</a></td><td class ="number">9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">3.</td><td><a href="#plate3">THE GREAT GATE OF THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR, WITH OBELISK</a></td><td class ="number">16</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">*4.</td><td><a href="#plate4">RAMSES II. IN HIS WAR-CHARIOT&mdash;SARDINIAN GUARDSMEN ON FOOT</a></td><td class ="number">25</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">*5. </td><td><a href="#plate5">ZAZAMANKH AND THE LOST CORONET</a></td><td class ="number">32</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">6.</td><td><a href="#plate6">GRANITE STATUE OF RAMSES II.</a></td><td class ="number">35</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">7. </td><td><a href="#plate7">NAVE OF THE TEMPLE AT KARNAK</a></td><td class ="number">38</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">*8. </td><td><a href="#plate8">"AND THE GOOSE STOOD UP AND CACKLED"</a></td><td class ="number">41</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">*9. </td><td><a href="#plate9">AN EGYPTIAN COUNTRY HOUSE</a></td><td class ="number">48</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">10. </td><td><a href="#plate10">STATUES OF KING AMENHOTEP III.</a></td><td class ="number">51</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">11. </td><td><a href="#plate11">THE SPHINX AND THE SECOND PYRAMID</a></td><td class ="number">54</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">*12.</td><td><a href="#plate12"> A DESERT POSTMAN</a></td><td class ="number">57</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">*13.</td><td><a href="#plate13">THE BARK OF THE MOON, GUARDED BY THE DIVINE EYES</a></td><td class ="number">64</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">14.</td><td><a href="#plate14">GATEWAY OF THE TEMPLE OF EDFU</a></td><td class ="number">73</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">15.</td><td><a href="#plate15">WALL-PICTURES IN A THEBAN TOMB</a></td><td class ="number">80</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class ="number">*16.</td><td><a href="#plate16">PHARAOH ON HIS THRONE</a></td><td class ="number">20</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td><td><a href="#map"><i>Sketch-Map of Ancient Egypt on page viii</i></a></td><td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td></td><td>* These eight illustrations are in colour; the others are in black and white.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<a name="map" id="map"></a><a href="images/map.jpg"><img src="images/map_t.jpg" width="500" height="788" alt="SKETCH-MAP OF ANCIENT EGYPT." title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">SKETCH-MAP OF ANCIENT EGYPT.</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<br /><br />
+
+"A LAND OF OLD RENOWN"</h2>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If we were asked to name the most interesting country in the world, I
+suppose that most people would say Palestine&mdash;not because there is
+anything so very wonderful in the land itself, but because of all the
+great things that have happened there, and above all because of its
+having been the home of our Lord. But after Palestine, I think that
+Egypt would come next. For one thing, it is linked very closely to
+Palestine by all those beautiful stories of the Old Testament, which
+tell us of Joseph, the slave-boy who became Viceroy of Egypt; of Moses,
+the Hebrew child who became a Prince of Pharaoh's household; and of the
+wonderful exodus of the Children of Israel.</p>
+
+<p>But besides that, it is a land which has a most strange and wonderful
+story of its own. No other country has so long a history of great Kings,
+and wise men, and brave soldiers; and in no other country can you see
+anything to compare with the great buildings, some of them most
+beautiful, all of them most wonderful, of which Egypt has so many. We
+have some old and interesting buildings in this country, and people go
+far to see cathedrals and castles that are perhaps five or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> six hundred
+years old, or even more; but in Egypt, buildings of that age are looked
+upon as almost new, and nobody pays very much attention to them. For the
+great temples and tombs of Egypt were, many of them, hundreds of years
+old before the story of our Bible, properly speaking, begins.</p>
+
+<p>The Pyramids, for instance, those huge piles that are still the wonder
+of the world, were far older than any building now standing in Europe,
+before Joseph was sold to be a slave in Potiphar's house. Hundreds upon
+hundreds of years before anyone had ever heard of the Greeks and the
+Romans, there were great Kings reigning in Egypt, sending out their
+armies to conquer Syria and the Soudan, and their ships to explore the
+unknown southern seas, and wise men were writing books which we can
+still read. When Britain was a wild, unknown island, inhabited only by
+savages as fierce and untaught as the South Sea Islanders, Egypt was a
+great and highly civilized country, full of great cities, with noble
+palaces and temples, and its people were wise and learned.</p>
+
+<p>So in this little book I want to tell you something about this wonderful
+and interesting old country, and about the kind of life that people
+lived in it in those days of long ago, before most other lands had begun
+to waken up, or to have any history at all. First of all, let us try to
+get an idea of the land itself. It is a very remarkable thing that so
+many of the countries which have played a great part in the history of
+the world have been small countries. Our own Britain is not very big,
+though it has had a great story. Palestine, which has done more than any
+other country to make the world what it is to-day, was called "the least
+of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> lands." Greece, whose influence comes, perhaps, next after that
+of Palestine, is only a little hilly corner of Southern Europe. And
+Egypt, too, is comparatively a small land.</p>
+
+<p>It looks a fair size when you see it on the map; but you have to
+remember that nearly all the land which is called Egypt on the map is
+barren sandy desert, or wild rocky hill-country, where no one can live.
+The real Egypt is just a narrow strip of land on either side of the
+great River Nile, sometimes only a mile or two broad altogether, never
+more than thirty miles broad, except near the mouth of the river, where
+it widens out into the fan-shaped plain called the Delta. Someone has
+compared Egypt to a lily with a crooked stem, and the comparison is very
+true. The long winding valley of the Nile is the crooked stem of the
+lily, and the Delta at the Nile mouth, with its wide stretch of fertile
+soil, is the flower; while, just below the flower, there is a little
+bud&mdash;a fertile valley called the Fayum.</p>
+
+<p>Long before even Egyptian history begins, there was no bloom on the
+lily. The Nile, a far bigger river then than it is now, ran into the sea
+near Cairo, the modern capital of Egypt; and the land was nothing but
+the narrow valley of the river, bordered on either side by desert hills.
+But gradually, century by century, the Nile cut its way deeper down into
+the land, leaving banks of soil on either side between itself and the
+hills, and the mud which it brought down in its waters piled up at its
+mouth and pressed the sea back, till, at last, the Delta was formed,
+much as we see it now. This was long before Egypt had any story of its
+own; but even after history begins the Delta was still partly marshy
+land, not long reclaimed from the sea, and the real Egyptians<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> of the
+valley despised the people who lived there as mere marsh-dwellers. Even
+after the Delta was formed, the whole country was only about twice as
+large as Wales, and, though there was a great number of people in it for
+its size, the population was only, at the most, about twice as great as
+that of London.</p>
+
+<p>An old Greek historian once said, "Egypt is the gift of the Nile," and
+it is perfectly true. We have seen how the great river made the country
+to begin with, cutting out the narrow valley through the hills, and
+building up the flat plain of the Delta. But the Nile has not only made
+the country; it keeps it alive. You know that Egypt has always been one
+of the most fertile lands in the world. Almost anything will grow there,
+and it produces wonderful crops of corn and vegetables, and, nowadays,
+of cotton. It was the same in old days. When Rome was the capital of the
+world, she used to get most of the corn to feed her hungry thousands
+from Egypt by the famous Alexandrian corn-ships; and you remember how,
+in the Bible story, Joseph's brethren came down from Palestine because,
+though there was famine there, there was "corn in Egypt." And yet Egypt
+is a land where rain is almost unknown. Sometimes there will come a
+heavy thunder-shower; but for month after month, year in and year out,
+there may be no rain at all.</p>
+
+<p>How can a rainless country grow anything? The secret is the Nile. Every
+year, when the rains fall in the great lake-basin of Central Africa,
+from which one branch of the great river comes, and on the Abyssinian
+hills, where the other branch rises, the Nile comes down in flood. All
+the lower lands are covered, and a fresh deposit of Nile mud is left
+upon them; and, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> the river does not rise to the higher grounds,
+the water is led into big canals, and these, again, are divided up into
+little ones, till it circulates through the whole land, as the blood
+circulates through your arteries and veins. This keeps the land fertile,
+and makes up for the lack of rain.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from its wonderful river, the country itself has no very striking
+features. It is rather a monotonous land&mdash;a long ribbon of green running
+through a great waste of yellow desert and barren hills. But the great
+charm that draws people's minds to Egypt, and gives the old land a
+never-failing interest, is its great story of the past, and all the
+relics of that story which are still to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>In no other land can you see the real people and things of the days of
+long ago as you can see them in Egypt. Think how we should prize an
+actual building that had been connected with the story of King Arthur,
+if such a thing could be found in our country, and what wonderful
+romance would belong to the weapons, the actual shields and helmets,
+swords and lances, of the Knights of the Round Table, Lancelot and
+Tristram and Galahad&mdash;if only we could find them. Out there in Egypt you
+can see buildings compared with which King Arthur's Camelot would be
+only a thing of yesterday; and you can look, not only on the weapons,
+but on the actual faces and forms of great Kings and soldiers who lived,
+and fought bravely for their country, hundreds of years before Saul and
+Jonathan and David began to fight the battles of Israel. You can see the
+pictures of how people lived in those far-away days, how their houses
+were built, how they traded and toiled, how they amused themselves, how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+they behaved in time of sorrow, how they worshipped God&mdash;all set down by
+themselves at the very time when they were doing these things. You can
+even see the games at which the children used to play, and the queer
+old-fashioned toys and dolls that they played with, and you can read the
+stories which their mothers and their nurses used to tell them.</p>
+
+<p>These are the things which make this old land of Egypt so interesting to
+us all to-day; and I want to try to tell you about some of them, so that
+you may be able to have in your mind's eye a real picture of the life of
+those long past days.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<br /><br />
+A DAY IN THEBES</h2>
+
+
+<p>If any foreigner were wanting to get an idea of our country, and to see
+how our people live, I suppose the first place that he would go to would
+be London, because it is the capital of the whole country, and its
+greatest city; and so, if we want to learn something about Egypt, and
+how people lived there in those far-off days, we must try to get to the
+capital of the country, and see what is to be seen there.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose, then, that we are no longer living in Britain in the twentieth
+century, but that somehow or other we have got away back into the past,
+far beyond the days of Jesus Christ, beyond even the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> times of Moses,
+and are living about 1,300 years before Christ. We have come from Tyre
+in a Phoenician galley, laden with costly bales of cloth dyed with
+Tyrian purple, and beautiful vessels wrought in bronze and copper, to
+sell in the markets of Thebes, the greatest city in Egypt. We have
+coasted along past Carmel and Joppa, and, after narrowly escaping being
+driven in a storm on the dangerous quicksand called the Syrtis, we have
+entered one of the mouths of the Nile. We have taken up an Egyptian
+pilot at the river mouth, and he stands on a little platform at the bow
+of the galley, and shouts his directions to the steersmen, who work the
+two big rudders, one on either side of the ship's stern. The north wind
+is blowing strongly and driving us swiftly upstream, in spite of the
+current of the great river; so our weary oarsmen have shipped their
+oars, and we drive steadily southwards under our one big swelling sail.</p>
+
+<p>At first we sail along through a broad flat plain, partly cultivated,
+and partly covered with marsh and marsh plants. By-and-by the green
+plain begins to grow narrower; we are coming to the end of the Delta,
+and entering upon the real valley of Egypt. Soon we pass a great city,
+its temples standing out clear against the deep blue sky, with their
+towering gateways, gay flags floating from tall flagstaves in front of
+them, and great obelisks pointing to the sky; and our pilot says that
+this is Memphis, one of the oldest towns in the country, and for long
+its capital. Not far from Memphis, three great pyramid-shaped masses of
+stone rise up on the river-bank, looking almost like mountains; and the
+pilot tells us that these are the tombs of some of the great Kings of
+long past days, and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> all around them lie smaller pyramids and other
+tombs of Kings and great men.</p>
+
+<p>But we are bound for a city greater even than Memphis, and so we never
+stop, but hasten always southward. Several days of steady sailing carry
+us past many towns that cluster near the river, past one ruined city,
+falling into mere heaps of stone and brick, which our pilot tells us was
+once the capital of a wicked King who tried to cast down all the old
+gods of Egypt, and to set up a new god of his own; and at last we see,
+far ahead of us, a huge cluster of buildings on both sides of the river,
+which marks a city greater than we have ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>As we sweep up the river we see that there are really two cities. On the
+east bank lies the city of the living, with its strong walls and towers,
+its enormous temples, and an endless crowd of houses of all sorts and
+sizes, from the gay palaces of the nobles to the mud huts of the poor
+people. On the west bank lies the city of the dead. It has neither
+streets nor palaces, and no hum of busy life goes up from it; but it is
+almost more striking than its neighbour across the river. The hills and
+cliffs are honeycombed with long rows of black openings, the doorways of
+the tombs where the dead of Thebes for centuries back are sleeping. Out
+on the plain, between the cliffs and the river, temple rises after
+temple in seemingly endless succession. Some of these temples are small
+and partly ruined, but some are very great and splendid; and, as the
+sunlight strikes upon them, it sends back flashes of gold and crimson
+and blue that dazzle the eyes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
+<a name="plate2" id="plate2"><img src="images/image2.jpg" width="500" height="720" alt="Plate 2
+
+THE GODDESS ISIS DANDLING THE KING. Page 18" title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">Plate 2<br />
+
+THE GODDESS ISIS DANDLING THE KING. <small><i>Page 18</i></small></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>But now our galley is drawing in towards the quay on the east side of
+the river, and in a few minutes the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+great sail comes thundering down,
+and, as the ship drifts slowly up to the quay, the mooring-ropes are
+thrown and made fast, and our long voyage is at an end. The Egyptian
+Custom-house officers come on board to examine the cargo, and collect
+the dues that have to be paid on it; and we watch them with interest,
+for they are quite different in appearance from our own hook-nosed,
+bearded sailors, with their thick many-coloured cloaks. These Egyptians
+are all clean shaven; some of them wear wigs, and some have their hair
+cut straight across their brows, while it falls thickly behind upon
+their necks in a multitude of little curls, which must have taken them
+no small trouble to get into order. Most wear nothing but a kilt of
+white linen; but the chief officer has a fine white cloak thrown over
+his shoulders; his linen kilt is stiffly starched, so that it stands out
+almost like a board where it folds over in front, and he wears a gilded
+girdle with fringed ends which hang down nearly to his knees. In his
+right hand he carries a long stick, which he is not slow to lay over the
+shoulders of his men when they do not obey his orders fast enough.</p>
+
+<p>After a good deal of hot argument, the amount of the tax is settled and
+paid, and we are free to go up into the great town. We have not gone far
+before we find that life in Thebes can be quite exciting. A great noise
+is heard from one of the narrow riverside streets, and a crowd of men
+comes rushing up with shouts and oaths. Ahead of them runs a single
+figure, whose writing-case, stuck in his girdle, marks him out as a
+scribe. He is almost at his last gasp, for he is stout and not
+accustomed to running; and he is evidently fleeing for his life, for the
+men behind him&mdash;rough, half-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>naked, ill-fed creatures of the working
+class&mdash;are chasing him with cries of anger, and a good deal of
+stone-throwing. Bruised and bleeding, he darts up to the gate of a
+handsome house whose garden-wall faces the street. He gasps out a word
+to the porter, and is quickly passed into the garden. The gate is
+slammed and bolted in the faces of his pursuers, who form a ring round
+it, shouting and shaking their fists.</p>
+
+<p>In a little while the gate is cautiously unbarred, and a fine-looking
+man, very richly dressed, and followed by half a dozen well-armed negro
+guards, steps forward, and asks the workmen why they are here, making
+such a noise, and why they have chased and beaten his secretary. He is
+Prince Paser, who has charge of the Works Department of the Theban
+Government, and the workmen are masons employed on a large job in the
+cemetery of Thebes. They all shout at once in answer to the Prince's
+question; but by-and-by they push forward a spokesman, and he begins,
+rather sheepishly at first, but warming up as he goes along, to make
+their complaint to the great man.</p>
+
+<p>He and his mates, he says, have been working for weeks. They have had no
+wages; they have not even had the corn and oil which ought to be issued
+as rations to Government workmen. So they have struck work, and now they
+have come to their lord the Prince to entreat him either to give command
+that the rations be issued, or, if his stores are exhausted, to appeal
+to Pharaoh. "We have been driven here by hunger and thirst; we have no
+clothes, we have no oil, we have no food. Write to our lord the Pharaoh,
+that he may give us something for our sustenance." When the spokesman
+has finished his complaint, the whole crowd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> volubly assents to what he
+has said, and sways to and fro in a very threatening manner.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Paser, however, is an old hand at dealing with such complaints.
+With a smiling face he promises that fifty sacks of corn shall be sent
+to the cemetery immediately, with oil to correspond. Only the workmen
+must go back to their work at once, and there must be no more chasing of
+poor Secretary Amen-nachtu. Otherwise, he can do nothing. The workmen
+grumble a little. They have been put off with promises before, and have
+got little good of them. But they have no leader bold enough to start a
+riot, and they have no weapons, and the spears and bows of the Prince's
+Nubians look dangerous. Finally they turn, and disappear, grumbling,
+down the street from which they came; and Prince Paser, with a shrug of
+his shoulders, goes indoors again. Whether the fifty sacks of corn are
+ever sent or not, is another matter. Strikes, you see, were not unknown,
+even so long ago as this.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<br /><br />
+
+A DAY IN THEBES&mdash;<i>Continued</i></h2>
+
+
+<p>Having seen the settlement of the masons' strike, we wander up into the
+heart of the town. The streets are generally narrow and winding, and
+here and there the houses actually meet overhead, so that we pass out of
+the blinding sunlight into a sort of dark tunnel. Some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> of the houses
+are large and high; but even the largest make no display towards the
+street. They will be fine enough inside, with bright courts surrounded
+with trees, in the midst of which lies a cool pond of water, and with
+fine rooms decorated with gay hangings; but their outer walls are almost
+absolutely blank, with nothing but a heavy door breaking the dead line.
+We pass by some quarters where there is nothing but a crowd of mud huts,
+packed so closely together that there is only room for a single
+foot-passenger to thread his way through the narrow alleys between them.
+These are the workmen's quarters, and the heat and smell in them are so
+overpowering that one wonders how people can live in such places.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by we come out into a more open space&mdash;one of the bazaars of the
+city&mdash;where business is in full swing. The shops are little shallow
+booths quite open to the front; and all the goods are spread out round
+the shopkeeper, who squats cross-legged in the middle of his property,
+ready to serve his customers, and invites the attention of the
+passers-by by loud explanations of the goodness and cheapness of his
+wares. All sorts of people are coming and going, for a Theban crowd
+holds representatives of nearly every nation known. Here are the
+townsfolk, men and women, out to buy supplies for their houses, or to
+exchange the news of the day; peasants from the villages round about,
+bringing in vegetables and cattle to barter for the goods which can only
+be got in the town; fine ladies and gentlemen, dressed elaborately in
+the latest Court fashion, with carefully curled wigs, long pleated robes
+of fine transparent linen, and dainty, brightly-coloured sandals turned
+up at the toes. At one moment you rub<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> shoulders with a Hittite from
+Kadesh, a conspicuous figure, with his high-peaked cap, pale complexion,
+and heavy, pointed boots. He looks round him curiously, as if thinking
+that Thebes would be a splendid town to plunder. Then a priest of high
+rank goes by, with shaven head, a panther skin slung across his shoulder
+over his white robe, and a roll of papyrus in his hand. A Sardinian of
+the bodyguard swaggers along behind him, the ball and horns on his
+helmet flashing in the sunlight, his big sword swinging in its sheath as
+he walks; and a Libyan bowman, with two bright feathers in his leather
+skull-cap, looks disdainfully at him as he shoulders his way through the
+crowd.</p>
+
+<p>All around us people are buying and selling. Money, as we know it, has
+not yet been invented, and nearly all the trade is done by means of
+exchange. When it comes to be a question of how many fish have to be
+given for a bed, or whether a load of onions is good value for a chair,
+you can imagine that there has to be a good deal of argument. Besides,
+the Egyptian dearly loves bargaining for the mere excitement of the
+thing, and so the clatter of tongues is deafening. Here and there one or
+two traders have advanced a little beyond the old-fashioned way of
+barter, and offer, instead of goods, so many rings of copper, silver, or
+gold wire. A peasant who has brought in a bullock to sell is offered 90
+copper "uten" (as the rings are called) for it; but he loudly protests
+that this is robbery, and after a long argument he screws the merchant
+up to 111 "uten," with 8 more as a luck-penny, and the bargain is
+clinched. Even then the rings have still to be weighed that he may be
+sure he is not being cheated. So a big pair of balances is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> brought out;
+the "uten" are heaped into one scale, and in the other are piled weights
+in the shape of bulls' heads. Finally, he is satisfied, and picks up his
+bag of rings; but the wily merchant is not done with him yet. He spreads
+out various tempting bargains before the eyes of the countryman, and,
+before the latter leaves the shop, most of the copper rings have found
+their way back again to the merchant's sack.</p>
+
+<p>A little farther on, the Tyrian traders, to whom the cargo of our galley
+is consigned, have their shop. Screens, made of woven grass, shelter it
+from the sun, and under their shade all sorts of gorgeous stuffs are
+displayed, glowing with the deep rich colours, of which the Tyrians
+alone have the secret since the sack of Knossos destroyed the trade of
+Crete. Beyond the Tyrian booth, a goldsmith is busily employed in his
+shop. Necklets and bracelets of gold and silver, beautifully inlaid with
+all kinds of rich colours, hang round him; and he is hard at work, with
+his little furnace and blowpipe, putting the last touches to the welding
+of a bracelet, for which a lady is patiently waiting.</p>
+
+<p>In one corner of the bazaar stands a house which makes no display of
+wares, but, nevertheless, seems to secure a constant stream of
+customers. Workmen slink in at the door, as though half ashamed of
+themselves, and reappear, after a little, wiping their mouths, and not
+quite steady in their gait. A young man, with pale and haggard face,
+swaggers past and goes in, and, as he enters the door, one bystander
+nudges another and remarks: "Pentuere is going to have a good day again;
+he will come to a bad end, that young man."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By-and-by the door opens again, and Pentuere comes out staggering. He
+looks vacantly round, and tries to walk away; but his legs refuse to
+carry him, and, after a stumble or two, he falls in a heap and lies in
+the road, a pitiful sight. The passers-by jeer and laugh at him as he
+lies helpless; but one decent-looking man points him out to his young
+son, and says: "See this fellow, my son, and learn not to drink beer to
+excess. Thou dost fall and break thy limbs, and bespatter thyself with
+mud, like a crocodile, and no one reaches out a hand to thee. Thy
+comrades go on drinking, and say, 'Away with this fellow, who is drunk.'
+If anyone should seek thee on business, thou art found lying in the dust
+like a little child."</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of much wise advice, the Egyptian, though generally
+temperate, is only too fond of making "a good day," as he calls it, at
+the beerhouse. Even fine ladies sometimes drink too much at their great
+parties, and have to be carried away very sick and miserable. Worst of
+all, the very judges of the High Court have been known to take a day off
+during the hearing of a long case, in order to have a revel with the
+criminals whom they were trying; and it is not so long since two of them
+had their noses cut off, as a warning to the rest against such shameful
+conduct.</p>
+
+<p>Sauntering onwards, we gradually get near to the sacred quarter of the
+town, and can see the towering gateways and obelisks of the great
+temples over the roofs of the houses. Soon a great crowd comes towards
+us, and the sounds of trumpets and flutes are heard coming from the
+midst of it. Inquiring what is the meaning of the bustle, we are told
+that one of the images of Amen, the great god of Thebes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> is being
+carried in procession as a preliminary to an important service which is
+to take place in the afternoon, and at which the King is going to
+preside. Stepping back under the doorway of a house, we watch the
+procession go past. After a group of musicians and singers, and a number
+of women who are dancing as they go, and shaking curious metal rattles,
+there comes a group of six men, who form the centre of the whole crowd,
+and on whom the eyes of all are fixed.</p>
+
+<p>They are tall, spare, keen-looking men, their heads clean shaven, their
+bodies wrapped in pure white robes of the beautiful Egyptian linen. On
+their shoulders they carry, by means of two long poles, a model of a
+Nile boat, in the midst of which rises a little shrine. The shrine is
+carefully draped round with a veil, so as to hide the god from curious
+eyes. But just in front of the doorway where we are standing a small
+stone pillar rises from the roadway, and when the bearers come to this
+point, the bark of the god is rested on the top of the pillar. Two
+censer-bearers come forward, and swing their censers, wafting clouds of
+incense round the shrine; a priest lifts up his voice, loudly intoning a
+hymn of praise to the great god who creates and sustains all things; and
+a few of the by-standers lay before the bark offerings of flowers,
+fruit, and eatables of various kinds. Then comes the solemn moment. Amid
+breathless silence, the veil of the shrine is slowly drawn aside, and
+the faithful can see a little wooden image, about 18 inches high,
+adorned with tall plumes, carefully dressed, and painted with green and
+black. The revelation of this little doll, to a Theban crowd the most
+sacred object in all the world, is hailed with shouts of wonder and
+reverence. Then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> the veil is drawn again, the procession passes on,
+and the streets are left quiet for awhile.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 404px;">
+<a name="plate3" id="plate3"><img src="images/image3.jpg" width="404" height="600" alt="Plate 3
+
+THE GREAT GATE OF THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR, WITH OBELISK. Pages 74, 75" title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">Plate 3<br />
+
+THE GREAT GATE OF THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR, WITH OBELISK. <small><i> Pages 74, 75</i></small></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>We are reminded that, if we wish to get a meal before starting out to
+see Pharaoh passing in procession to the temple, we had better lose no
+time, and so we turn our faces riverwards again, and wander down through
+the endless maze of streets to where our galley is moored at the quay.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<br /><br />
+
+PHARAOH AT HOME</h2>
+
+
+<p>The time is coming on now for the King to go in state to the great
+temple at Karnak to offer sacrifice, and as we go up to the palace to
+see him come forth in all his glory, let me tell you a little about him
+and the kind of life he leads. Pharaoh, of course, is not his real name;
+it is not even his official title; it is just a word which is used to
+describe a person who is so great that people scarcely venture to call
+him by his proper name. Just as the Turks nowadays speak of the "Sublime
+Porte," when they mean the Sultan and his Government, so the Egyptians
+speak of "Per-o," or Pharaoh, as we call it, which really signifies
+"Great House," when they mean the King.</p>
+
+<p>For the King of Egypt is a very great man indeed; in fact, his people
+look upon him, and he looks upon himself, as something more than a man.
+There are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> many gods in Egypt; but the god whom the people know best,
+and to whom they pay the most reverence, is their King. Ever since there
+have been Kings in the country, and that is a very long time now, the
+reigning monarch has been looked upon as a kind of god manifest in the
+flesh. He calls himself "Son of the Sun"; in the temples you will see
+pictures of his childhood, where great goddesses dandle the young god
+upon their knees (Plate 2). Divine honours are paid, and sacrifices
+offered to him; and when he dies, and goes to join his brother-gods in
+heaven, a great temple rises to his memory, and hosts of priests are
+employed in his worship. There is just one distinction made between him
+and the other gods. Amen at Thebes, Ptah at Memphis, and all the rest of
+the crowd of divinities, are called "the great gods." Pharaoh takes a
+different title. He is called "the good god."</p>
+
+<p>At present "the good god" is Ramses II. Of course, that is only one part
+of his name; for, like all the other Pharaohs, he has a list of titles
+that would fill a page. His subjects in Thebes have not seen very much
+of him for a long time, for there has been so much to do away in Syria,
+that he has built another capital at Tanis, which the Hebrews call Zoan,
+down between the Delta and the eastern frontier, and spends most of his
+time there. People who have been down the river tell us great wonders
+about the beauty of the new town, its great temple, and the huge statue
+of the King, 90 feet high, which stands before the temple gate. But
+Thebes is still the centre of the nation's life, and now, when it is
+growing almost certain that there will be another war with those vile
+Hittites in the North of Syria, he has come up to the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> city to
+take counsel with his brother-god, Amen, and to make arrangements for
+gathering his army. The royal palace is in a constant bustle, with
+envoys coming and going, and counsellors and generals continually
+passing in and out with reports and orders.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, the palace is not so very imposing. The Egyptians built their
+temples to last for ever; but the palaces of their Kings were meant to
+serve only for a short time. The new King might not care for the old
+King's home, and so each Pharaoh builds his house according to his own
+taste, of light materials. It will serve his turn, and his successor may
+build another for himself. A high wall, with battlements, towers, and
+heavy gates, surrounds it; for, though Pharaoh is a god, his subjects
+are sometimes rather difficult to keep in order. Plots against the King
+have not been unknown in the past; and on at least one occasion, a great
+Pharaoh of bygone days had to spring from his couch and fight
+single-handed for his life against a crowd of conspirators who had
+forced an entrance into the palace while he was enjoying his siesta. So
+since then Pharaoh has found it better to trust in his strong walls, and
+in the big broadswords of his faithful Sardinian guardsmen, than in any
+divinity that may belong to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Within the great boundary wall lie pleasant gardens, gay with all sorts
+of flowers, and an artificial lake shows its gleaming water here and
+there through the trees and shrubs. The palace itself is all glittering
+white stucco on the outside. A high central door leads into a great
+audience hall, glowing with colour, its roof supported by painted
+pillars in the form of lotus-stalks; and on either side of this lie two
+smaller halls. Behind the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> audience chamber are two immense
+dining-rooms, and behind these come the sleeping apartments of the
+numerous household. Ramses has a multitude of wives, and a whole army of
+sons and daughters, and it takes no small space to house them all. The
+bedroom of the great King himself stands apart from the other rooms, and
+is surrounded by banks of flowers in full bloom.</p>
+
+<p>The Son of the Sun has had a busy day already. He has had many letters
+and despatches to read and consider. Some of the Syrian vassal-princes
+have sent clay tablets, covered with their curious arrow-headed writing,
+giving news of the advance of the Hittites, and imploring the help of
+the Egyptian army; and now the King is about to give audience, and to
+consider these with his great nobles and Generals. At one end of the
+reception hall stands a low balcony, supported on gaily-painted wooden
+pillars which end in capitals of lotus-flowers. The front of this
+balcony is overlaid with gold, and richly decorated with turquoise and
+lapis lazuli. Here the King will show himself to his subjects,
+accompanied by his favourite wife, Queen Nefertari, and some of the
+young Princes and Princesses. The folding doors of the audience chamber
+are thrown open, and the barons, the provincial governors, and the high
+officers of the army and the State throng in to do homage to their
+master.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 368px;">
+<a name="plate16" id="plate16"><img src="images/image16.jpg" width="368" height="600" alt="" title="" />
+</a></div>
+
+<p>In a few moments the glittering crowd is duly arranged, a door opens at
+the back of the balcony, and the King of the Two Lands, Lord of the
+Vulture and the Snake, steps forth with his Queen and family. In earlier
+times, whenever the King appeared, the assembled nobles were expected to
+fall on their faces and kiss the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> ground before him. Fashion has
+changed, however, and now the great folks, at all events, are no longer
+required to "smell the earth." As Pharaoh enters the balcony, the nobles
+bow profoundly, and raise their arms as if in prayer to "the good god."
+Then, in silent reverence, they wait until it shall please their lord to
+speak.</p>
+
+<p>Ramses sweeps his glance over the crowd, singles out the General in
+command of the Theban troops, and puts a question to him as to the
+readiness of his division&mdash;the picked division of the army. The soldier
+steps forward with a deep bow; but it is not Court manners for him to
+answer his lord's question directly. Instead, he begins by reciting a
+little psalm of praise, which tells of the King's greatness, his valour
+and skill in war, and asserts that wherever his horses tread his enemies
+flee before him and perish. This little piece of flattery over, the
+General begins, "O King, my master," and in a few sensible words gives
+the information required. So the audience goes on, counsellor after
+counsellor coming forward at the royal command, reciting his little
+hymn, and then giving his opinion on such matters as his master suggests
+to him. At last the council is over, the King gives orders to his
+equerry to prepare his chariot for the procession to the temple, and, as
+he turns to leave the audience chamber, the assembled nobles once more
+bow profoundly, and raise their arms in adoration.</p>
+
+<p>After a short delay, the great gates of the boundary wall of the palace
+are opened; a company of spearmen, in quilted leather kilts and leather
+skull-caps, marches out, and takes position a short distance from the
+gateway. Behind them comes a company of the Sardinians<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> of the guard,
+heavily armed, with bright helmets, broad round shields, quilted
+corselets, and long, heavy, two-edged swords. They range themselves on
+either side of the roadway, and stand like statues, waiting for the
+appearance of Pharaoh. There is a whir of chariot-wheels, and the royal
+chariot sweeps through the gateway, and sets off at a good round pace
+towards the temple. The spearmen in front start at the double, and the
+guardsmen, in spite of their heavy equipment, keep pace with their royal
+master on either side.</p>
+
+<p>The waiting crowd bows to the dust as the sovereign passes; but Pharaoh
+looks neither to the right hand nor to the left. He stands erect and
+impassive in the swaying chariot, holding the crook and whip which are
+the Egyptian royal emblems. On his head he wears the royal war helmet,
+in the front of which a golden cobra rears its crest from its coils, as
+if to threaten the enemies of Egypt. His finely-shaped, swarthy features
+are adorned, or disfigured, by an artificial beard, which is fastened on
+by a strap passing up in front of the ears. His tall slender body is
+covered, above his corselet, with a robe of fine white linen, a perfect
+wonder of pleating; and round his waist passes a girdle of gold and
+green enamel, whose ends cross and hang down almost to his knees,
+terminating in two threatening cobra heads (Plate 4 and Cover Picture).
+On either side of him run the fan-bearers, who manage, by a miracle of
+skill and activity, to keep their great gaily-coloured fans of perfumed
+ostrich feathers waving round the royal head even as they run.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the King comes a long train of other chariots, only less splendid
+than that of Ramses. In the first stands Queen Nefertari, languidly
+sniffing at a lotus-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>flower as she passes on. The others are filled by
+some of the Princes of the blood, who are going to take part in the
+ceremony at the temple, chief among them the wizard Prince Khaemuas, the
+greatest magician in Egypt, who has spells that can bring the dead from
+their graves. Some in the crowd shrink from his keen eye, and mutter
+that the papyrus roll which he holds so close to his breast was taken
+from the grave of another magician Prince of ancient days, and that
+Khaemuas will know no peace till it is restored. In a few minutes the
+whole brilliant train has passed, dazzling the eyes with a blaze of gold
+and white and scarlet; and crowds of courtiers stream after their
+master, as fast as their feet can carry them, towards Karnak. You have
+seen, if only for a moment, the greatest man on earth&mdash;the Great
+Oppressor of Hebrew story. Very mighty and very proud he is; and he does
+not dream that the little Hebrew boy whom his daughter has adopted, and
+who is being trained in the priestly college at Heliopolis, will one day
+humble all the pride of Egypt, and that the very name of Ramses shall be
+best remembered because it is linked with that of Moses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<br /><br />
+
+THE LIFE OF A SOLDIER</h2>
+
+
+<p>When you read about the Egyptians in the Bible, it seems as though they
+were nearly always fighting; and, indeed, they did a good deal of
+fighting in their time, as nearly every nation did in those old days.
+But in reality they were not a great soldier people, like their rivals
+the Assyrians, or the Babylonians. We, who have had so much to do with
+their descendants, the modern Egyptians, and have fought both against
+them and with them, know that the "Gippy" is not fond of soldiering in
+his heart. He makes a very good, patient, hardworking soldier when he
+has good officers; but he is not like the Soudanese, who love fighting
+for fighting's sake. He much prefers to live quietly in his own native
+village, and cultivate his own bit of ground. And his forefathers, in
+these long-past days, were very much of the same mind. Often, of course,
+they had to fight, when Pharaoh ordered them out for a campaign in the
+Soudan or in Syria, and then they fought wonderfully well; but all the
+time their hearts were at home, and they were glad to get back to their
+farm-work and their simple pleasures. They were a peaceful, kindly,
+pleasant race, with little of the cruelty and fierceness that you find
+continually among the Assyrians.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 479px;">
+<a name="plate4" id="plate4"><img src="images/image4.jpg" width="479" height="700" alt="PLATE 4.
+
+RAMSES II. IN HIS WAR CHARIOT: SARDINIAN GUARDSMEN ON FOOT." title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">PLATE 4.<br />
+
+RAMSES II. IN HIS WAR CHARIOT: SARDINIAN GUARDSMEN ON FOOT.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In fact, the old Egyptian rather despised soldiering as a profession. He
+thought it was rather a miserable, muddled kind of a job, in which,
+unless you were a great officer, you got all the hard knocks and none
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> the honours; and I am not sure that he was far wrong. His great
+idea of a happy life was to get employment as a scribe, or, as we should
+say, a clerk, to some big man or to the Government, to keep accounts and
+write reports. Of course the people could not all be scribes; but an
+Egyptian who had sons was never so proud as when he could get one of
+them into a scribe's position, even though the young man might look down
+upon his old father and his brothers, toiling on the land or serving in
+the army.</p>
+
+<p>A curious old book has come down to us from these ancient days, in which
+the writer, who had been both a soldier and a high officer under
+Government in what we should call the diplomatic service, has told a
+young friend his opinion of soldiering as a profession. The young man
+had evidently been dazzled with the idea of being in the cavalry, or,
+rather, the chariotry, for the Egyptian soldiers did not ride on horses
+like our cavalry, but drove them in chariots, in each of which there
+were two men&mdash;the charioteer, to drive the two horses, and the soldier,
+who stood beside the driver and fought with the bow, and sometimes with
+the lance or sword.</p>
+
+<p>But this wise old friend tells him that even to be in the chariotry is
+not by any means a pleasant job. Of course it seems very nice at first.
+The young man gets his new equipment, and thinks all the world of
+himself as he goes home to show off his fine feathers.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">"He receives beautiful horses,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And rejoices and exults,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And returns with them to his town."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But then comes the inspection, and if he has not everything in perfect
+order he has a bad time of it, for he is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> thrown down on the ground, and
+beaten with sticks till he is sore all over.</p>
+
+<p>But if the lot of the cavalry soldier is hard, that of the infantry-man
+is harder. In the barracks he is flogged for every mistake or offence.
+Then war breaks out, and he has to march with his battalion to Syria.
+Day after day he has to tramp on foot through the wild hill-country, so
+different from the flat, fertile homeland that he loves. He has to carry
+all his heavy equipment and his rations, so that he is laden like a
+donkey; and often he has to drink dirty water, which makes him ill.
+Then, when the battle comes, he gets all the danger and the wounds,
+while the Generals get all the credit. When the war is over, he comes
+home riding on a donkey, a broken-down man, sick and wounded, his very
+clothes stolen by the rascals who should have attended on him. Far
+better, the wise man says, to be a scribe, and to remain comfortably at
+home. I dare say it was all quite true, just as perhaps it would not be
+very far from the truth at the present time; but, in spite of it all,
+Pharaoh had his battles to fight, and he got his soldiers all right when
+they were needed.</p>
+
+<p>The Egyptian army was not generally a very big one. It was nothing like
+the great hosts that we hear of nowadays, or read of in some of the old
+histories. The armies that the Pharaohs led into Syria were not often
+much bigger than what we should call an army corps nowadays&mdash;probably
+about 20,000 men altogether, rarely more than 25,000. But in that number
+you could find almost as many different sorts of men as in our own
+Indian army. There would be first the native Egyptian spearmen and
+bowmen&mdash;the spearmen with leather caps and quilted leather tunics,
+carrying a shield<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> and spear, and sometimes an axe, or a dagger, or
+short sword&mdash;the bowmen, more lightly equipped, but probably more
+dangerous enemies, for the Egyptian archers were almost as famous as the
+old English bowmen, and won many a battle for their King. Then came the
+chariot brigade, also of native Egyptians, men probably of higher rank
+than the foot-soldiers. The chariots were very light, and it must have
+been exceedingly difficult for the bowman to balance himself in the
+narrow car, as it bumped and clattered over rough ground. The two horses
+were gaily decorated, and often wore plumes on their heads. The
+charioteer sometimes twisted the reins round his waist, and could take a
+hand in the fighting if his companion was hard pressed, guiding his
+horses by swaying his body to one side or the other.</p>
+
+<p>Round the Pharaoh himself, as he stood in his beautiful chariot, marched
+the royal bodyguard. It was made up of men whom the Egyptians called
+"Sherden"&mdash;Sardinians, probably, who had come over the sea to serve for
+hire in the army of the great King. They wore metal helmets, with a
+round ball on the top and horns at the sides, carried round bossed
+shields, and were armed with great heavy swords of much the same shape
+as those which the Norman knights used to carry. Behind the native
+troops and the bodyguard marched the other mercenaries&mdash;regiments of
+black Soudanese, with wild-beast skins thrown over their ebony
+shoulders; and light-coloured Libyans from the West, each with a couple
+of feathers stuck in his leather skull-cap.</p>
+
+<p>Scouts went on ahead to scour the country, and bring to the King reports
+of the enemy's whereabouts. Be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>side the royal chariot there padded along
+a strange, but very useful soldier&mdash;a great tame lion, which had been
+trained to guard his master and fight with teeth and claws against his
+enemies. Last of all came the transport train, with the baggage carried
+on the backs of a long line of donkeys, and protected by a
+baggage-guard. The Egyptians were good marchers, and even in the hot
+Syrian sunshine, and across a rough country where roads were almost
+unknown, they could keep up a steady fifteen miles a day for a week on
+end without being fagged out.</p>
+
+<p>Let us follow the fortunes of an Egyptian soldier through one of the
+great battles of the nation's history. Menna was one of the most skilful
+charioteers of the whole Egyptian army&mdash;so skilful that, though he was
+still quite young, he was promoted to be driver of the royal war-chariot
+when King Ramses II. marched out from Zaru, the frontier garrison town
+of Egypt, to fight with the Hittites in Northern Syria. During all the
+long march across the desert, through Palestine, and over the northern
+mountain passes, no enemy was seen at all, and, though Menna was kept
+busy enough attending to his horses and seeing that the chariot was in
+perfect order, he was in no danger. But as the army began to wind down
+the long valley of the Orontes towards the town of Kadesh, the scouts
+were kept out in every direction, and the whole host was anxiously on
+the lookout for the Hittite troops.</p>
+
+<p>Kadesh came in sight at last. Far on the horizon its towers could be
+seen, and the sun's rays sparkled on the river and on the broad moat
+which surrounded the walls; but still no enemy was to be seen. The
+scouts came in with the report that the Hittites had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> retreated
+northwards in terror, and King Ramses imagined that Kadesh was going to
+fall into his hands without a battle. His army was divided into four
+brigades, and he himself hurried on rather rashly with the first
+brigade, leaving the other three to straggle on behind him, widely
+separated from one another (Plate 4).</p>
+
+<p>The first brigade reached its camping-ground to the north-west of
+Kadesh; the tired troops pitched camp; the baggage was unloaded; and the
+donkeys, released from their burdens, rolled on the ground in delight.
+Just at that moment some of the Egyptian scouts came in, bringing with
+them two Arabs whom they had caught, and suspected to belong to the
+enemy. King Ramses ordered the Arabs to be soundly beaten with sticks,
+and the poor creatures confessed that the Hittite King, with a great
+army, was concealed on the other side of Kadesh, watching for an
+opportunity to attack the Egyptian army. In great haste Ramses, scolding
+his scouts the while for not keeping a better lookout, began to get his
+soldiers under arms again, while Menna ran and yoked to the royal
+chariot the two noble horses which had been kept fresh for the day of
+battle.</p>
+
+<p>But before Pharaoh could leap into his chariot a wild uproar broke out
+at the gate of the camp, and the scattered fragments of the second
+brigade came pouring in headlong flight into the enclosure. Behind them
+the whole Hittite chariot force, 2,500 chariots strong, each chariot
+with three men in it, came clattering and leaping upon the heels of the
+fugitives. The Hittite King had waited till he saw the first brigade
+busy pitching camp, and then, as the second came straggling up, he had
+launched his chariots upon the flank of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> weary soldiers, who were
+swept away in a moment as if by a flood.</p>
+
+<p>The rush of terrified men carried off the first brigade along with it in
+hopeless rout. Ramses and Menna were left with only a few picked
+chariots of the household troops, and the whole Hittite army was coming
+on. But though King Ramses had made a terrible bungle of his
+generalship, he was at least a brave man. Leaping into his chariot, and
+calling to the handful of faithful soldiers to follow him, he bade Menna
+lash his horses and charge the advancing Hittites. Menna was no coward,
+but when he saw the thin line of Egyptian troops, and looked at the
+dense mass of Hittite chariots, his heart almost failed him. He never
+thought of disobedience, but, as he stooped over his plunging horses, he
+panted to the King: "O mighty strength of Egypt in the day of battle, we
+are alone in the midst of the enemy. O, save us, Ramses, my good lord!"
+"Steady, steady, my charioteer," said Ramses, "I am going among them
+like a hawk!"</p>
+
+<p>In a moment the fiery horses were whirling the King and his charioteer
+between the files of the Hittite chariots, which drew aside as if
+terrified at the glittering figures that dashed upon them so fearlessly.
+As they swept through, Menna had enough to do to manage his steeds,
+which were wild with excitement; but Ramses' bow was bent again and
+again, and at every twang of the bowstring a Hittite champion fell from
+his chariot. Behind the King came his household troops, and all together
+they burst through the chariot brigade of the enemy, leaving a long
+trail marked by dead and wounded men, overturned chariots, and maddened
+horses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Still King Ramses had only gained a breathing-space. The Hittites far
+outnumbered his little force, and, though his orderlies were madly
+galloping to bring up the third and fourth brigades, it must be some
+time yet before even the nearest could come into action. Besides, on the
+other bank of the river there hung a great cloud of 8,000 Hittite
+spearmen, under the command of the Hittite King himself. If these got
+time to cross the river, the Egyptian position, bad enough as it was,
+would be hopeless. There was nothing for it but to charge again and
+again, and, if possible, drive back the Hittite chariots on the river,
+so as to hinder the spearmen from crossing.</p>
+
+<p>So Menna whipped up his horses again, and, with arrow on string, the
+Pharaoh dashed upon his enemies once more. Again they burst through the
+opposing ranks, scattering death on either side as they passed. Now some
+of the fragments of the first and second brigades were beginning to
+rally and come back to the field, and the struggle was becoming less
+unequal. The Egyptian quivers were nearly all empty now; but lance and
+sword still remained, and inch by inch the Hittites were forced back
+upon the river. Their King stood ingloriously on the opposite bank,
+unable to do anything. It was too late for him to try to move his
+spearmen across&mdash;they would only have been trampled down by the
+retreating chariots. At last a great shout from the rear announced the
+arrival of the third Egyptian brigade, and, the little knot of brave men
+who had saved the day still leading, the army swept the broken Hittites
+down the bank of the Orontes into the river.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the confusion and the slaughter. As the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> chariots struggled
+through the ford, the Egyptian bowmen, spread out along the bank, picked
+off the chiefs. The two brothers of the Hittite King, the chief of his
+bodyguard, his shield-bearer, and his chief scribe, were all killed. The
+King of Aleppo missed the ford, and was swept down the river; but some
+of his soldiers dashed into the water, rescued him, and, in rough first
+aid, held the half-drowned leader up by the heels, to let the water
+drain out of him. The Hittite King picked up his broken fugitives,
+covered them with his mass of spearmen, and moved reluctantly off the
+field where so splendid a chance of victory had been missed, and turned
+into defeat. The Egyptians were too few and too weary to attempt to
+cross the river in pursuit, and they retired to the camp of the first
+brigade.</p>
+
+<p>Then Pharaoh called his Captains before him. The troops stood around,
+leaning on their spears, ashamed of their conduct in the earlier part of
+the day, and wondering at the grim signs of conflict that lay on every
+side. King Ramses called Menna to him, and, handing the reins to a
+groom, the young charioteer came bowing before his master. Pharaoh
+stripped from his own royal neck a collar of gold, and fastened it round
+the neck of his faithful squire; and, while the Generals and Captains
+hung their heads for shame, the King told them how shamefully they had
+left him to fight his battle alone, and how none had stood by him but
+the young charioteer. "As for my two horses," he said, "they shall be
+fed before me every day in the royal palace."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 479px;">
+<a name="plate5" id="plate5"><img src="images/image5.jpg" width="479" height="700" alt="PLATE 5.
+
+ZAZAMANKH AND THE LOST CORONET." title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">PLATE 5.<br />
+
+ZAZAMANKH AND THE LOST CORONET.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Both armies had suffered too much loss for any further strife to be
+possible, and a truce was agreed upon. The Hittites drew off to the
+north, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> Egyptians marched back again to Egypt, well aware that
+they had gained little or nothing by all their efforts, but thankful
+that they had been saved from the total destruction which had seemed so
+near.</p>
+
+<p>A proud man was Menna when he drove the royal chariot up to the bridge
+of Zaru. As the troops passed the frontier canal the road was lined on
+either side with crowds of nobles, priests, and scribes, strewing
+flowers in the way, and bowing before the King. And after the Pharaoh
+himself, whose bravery had saved the day, there was no one so honoured
+as the young squire who had stood so manfully by his master in the hour
+of danger.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<br /><br />
+
+CHILD-LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT</h2>
+
+
+<p>How did the boys and girls live in this quaint old land so many hundreds
+of years ago? How were they dressed, what sort of games did they play
+at, what sort of lessons did they learn, and what kind of school did
+they go to? If you could have lived in Egypt in those far-off days, you
+would have found many differences between your life of to-day and the
+life that the Egyptian children led; but you would also have found that
+there were very many things much the same then as they are now. Boys and
+girls were boys and girls three thousand years ago, just as they are
+now; and you would find that they did very much the same things,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> and
+even played very much the same games as you do to-day.</p>
+
+<p>When you read in your fairy-stories about a little boy or girl, you
+often hear that they had fairy godmothers who came to their cradles, and
+gave them gifts, and foretold what was going to happen to the little
+babies in after years. Well, when little Tahuti or little Sen-senb was
+born in Thebes fifteen hundred years before Christ, there were fairy
+godmothers too, who presided over the great event; and there were others
+called the Hathors, who foretold all that was going to happen to the
+little boy or girl as the years went on. The baby was kept a baby much
+longer in those days than our little ones are kept. The happy mother
+nursed the little thing carefully for three years at all events,
+carrying it about with her wherever she went, either on her shoulder, or
+astride upon her hip.</p>
+
+<p>If baby took ill, and the doctor was called in, the medicines that were
+given were not in the least like the sugar-coated pills and capsules
+that make medicine-taking easy nowadays. The Egyptian doctor did not
+know a very great deal about medicine and sickness, but he made up for
+his ignorance by the nastiness of the doses which he gave to his
+patients. I don't think you would like to take pills made up of the
+moisture scraped from pig's ears, lizard's blood, bad meat, and decaying
+fat, to say nothing of still nastier things. Often the doctor would look
+very grave, and say, "The child is not ill; he is bewitched"; and then
+he would sit down and write out a prescription something like this:
+"Remedy to drive away bewitchment. Take a great beetle; cut off his head
+and his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> wings, boil him, put him in oil, and lay him out. Then cook
+his head and his wings; put them in snake-fat, boil, and let the patient
+drink the mixture." I think you would almost rather take the risk of
+being bewitched than drink a dose like that!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 480px;">
+<a name="plate6" id="plate6"><img src="images/image6.jpg" width="480" height="700" alt="Plate 6
+
+GRANITE STATUE OF RAMSES II. Page 75
+
+Note the hieroglyphics on base of statue. Pages 68, 69" title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">Plate 6<br />
+
+GRANITE STATUE OF RAMSES II.  <small><i>Page 75</i></small><br />
+
+Note the hieroglyphics on base of statue.<small><i> Pages 68, 69</i></small></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Sometimes the doctor gave no medicines at all, but wrote a few magic
+words on a scrap of old paper, and tied it round the part where the pain
+was. I daresay it did as much good as his pills. Very often the mother
+believed that it was not really sickness that was troubling her child,
+but that a ghost was coming and hurting him; so when his cries showed
+that the ghost was in the room, the mother would rise up, shaking all
+over, I daresay, and would repeat the verse that she had been taught
+would drive ghosts away:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">"Comest thou to kiss this child? I suffer thee not to kiss him;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Comest thou to quiet him? I suffer thee not to quiet him;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Comest thou to harm him? I suffer thee not to harm him;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Comest thou to take him away? I suffer thee not to take him away."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>When little Tahuti has got over his baby aches, and escaped the ghosts,
+he begins to run about and play. He and his sister are not bothered to
+any great extent with dressing in the mornings. They are very particular
+about washing, but as Egypt is so hot, clothes are not needed very much,
+and so the little boy and girl play about with nothing at all on their
+little brown bodies except, perhaps, a narrow girdle, or even a single
+thread tied round the waist. They have their toys just like you. Tahuti
+has got a wonderful man, who, when you pull a string, works a roller up
+and down upon a board, just like a baker rolling out dough, and besides
+he has a crocodile that moves its jaws. His sister has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> dolls: a fine
+Egyptian lady and a frizzy-haired, black-faced Nubian girl. Sometimes
+they play together at ninepins, rolling the ball through a little gate.</p>
+
+<p>For about four years this would go on, as long as Tahuti was what the
+Egyptians called "a wise little one." Then, when he was four years old,
+the time came when he had to become "a writer in the house of books,"
+which is what the Egyptians called a school-boy; so little Tahuti set
+off for school, still wearing no more clothes than the thread tied round
+his waist, and with his black hair plaited up into a long thick lock,
+which hung down over his right ear. The first thing that he had to learn
+was how to read and write, and this was no easy task, for Egyptian
+writing, though it is very beautiful when well done, is rather difficult
+to master, all the more as there were two different styles which had to
+be learned if a boy was going to become a man of learning. I don't
+suppose that you think your old copy-books of much importance when you
+are done with them; but the curious thing is that among all the books
+that have come down to us from ancient Egypt, there are far more old
+copy-books than any others, and these books, with the teachers'
+corrections written on the margins, and rough sketches scratched in here
+and there among the writing, have proved most valuable in telling us
+what the Egyptians learned, and what they liked to read; for a great
+deal of the writing consisted in the copying out of wise words of the
+men of former days, and sometimes of stories of old times.</p>
+
+<p>These old copy-books can speak to us in one way, but if they could speak
+in another, I daresay they would tell us of many weary hours in school,
+and of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> many floggings and tears; for the Egyptian school-master
+believed with all his heart in the cane, and used it with great vigour
+and as often as he could. Little Tahuti used to look forward to his
+daily flogging, much as he did to his lunch in the middle of the day,
+when his careful mother regularly brought him three rolls of bread and
+two jugs of beer. "A boy's ears," his master used to say, "are on his
+back, and he hears when he is beaten." One of the former pupils at his
+school writing to his teacher, and recalling his school-days, says: "I
+was with thee since I was brought up as a child; thou didst beat my
+back, and thine instructions went into my ear." Sometimes the boys, if
+they were stubborn, got punishments even worse than the cane. Another
+boy, in a letter to his old master, says: "Thou hast made me buckle to
+since the time that I was one of thy pupils. I spent my time in the
+lock-up, and was sentenced to three months, and bound in the temple." I
+am afraid our schoolboys would think the old Egyptian teachers rather
+more severe than the masters with whom they have to do nowadays.</p>
+
+<p>Lesson-time occupied about half the day, and when it came to an end the
+boys all ran out of the school, shouting for joy. That custom has not
+changed much, anyway, in all these hundreds of years. I don't think they
+had any home lessons to do, and so, perhaps, their school-time was not
+quite so bad as we might imagine from the rough punishments they used to
+get.</p>
+
+<p>When Tahuti grew a little older, and had fairly mastered the rudiments
+of writing, his teacher set him to write out copies of different
+passages from the best known Egyptian books, partly to keep up his
+hand-writing, and partly to teach him to know good Egyptian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> and to use
+correct language. Sometimes it was a piece of a religious book that he
+was set to copy, sometimes a poem, sometimes a fairy-tale. For the
+Egyptians were very fond of fairy-tales, and later on, perhaps, we may
+hear some of their stories, the oldest fairy-stories in the world. But
+generally the piece that was chosen was one which would not only
+exercise the boy's hand, and teach him a good style, but would also help
+to teach him good manners, and fill his mind with right ideas. Very
+often Tahuti's teacher would dictate to him a passage from the wise
+advice which a great King of long ago left to his son, the Crown Prince,
+or from some other book of the same kind. And sometimes the exercises
+would be in the form of letters which the master and his pupils wrote as
+though they had been friends far away from one another. Tahuti's
+letters, you may be sure, were full of wisdom and of good resolutions,
+and I dare say he was just about as fond of writing them as you are of
+writing the letters that your teacher sometimes sets as a task for you.</p>
+
+<p>When it came to Arithmetic, Tahuti was so far lucky that the number of
+rules he had to learn was very few. His master taught him addition and
+subtraction, and a very slow and clumsy form of multiplication; but he
+could not teach him division, for the very simple reason that he did not
+properly understand it himself. Enough of mensuration was taught him to
+enable him to find out, though rather roughly, what was the size of a
+field, and how much corn would go into a granary of any particular size.
+And when he had learned these things, his elementary education was
+pretty well over.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 467px;">
+<a name="plate7" id="plate7"><img src="images/image7.jpg" width="467" height="700" alt="Plate 7
+
+NAVE OF THE TEMPLE AT KARNAK. Pages 75, 76" title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">Plate 7<br />
+
+NAVE OF THE TEMPLE AT KARNAK.<small><i> Pages 75, 76</i></small></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Of course a great deal would depend on the profession he was going to
+follow. If he was going to be only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> a common scribe, his education
+would go no farther; for the work he would have to do would need no
+greater learning than reading, writing, and arithmetic. If he was going
+to be an officer in the army, he entered as a cadet in a military school
+which was attached to the royal stables. But if he was going to be a
+priest, he had to join one of the colleges which belonged to the
+different temples of the gods, and there, like Moses, he was instructed
+in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was taught all the strange ideas
+which they had about the gods, and the life after death, and the
+wonderful worlds, above and below, where the souls of men lived after
+they had finished their lives on earth.</p>
+
+<p>But, whether his schooling was carried on to what we should call a
+University training or not, there was one thing that Tahuti was taught
+with the utmost care, and that was to be very respectful to those who
+were older than himself, never to sit down while an older person was
+standing in the room, and always to be very careful in his manners.
+Chief of the older people to whom he had to show respect were his
+parents, and above all, his mother, for the Egyptians reverenced their
+mothers more than anyone else in the world. Here is a little scrap of
+advice that a wise old Egyptian once left to his son: "Thou shalt never
+forget what thy mother has done for thee. She bare thee, and nourished
+thee in all manner of ways. She nursed thee for three years. She brought
+thee up, and when thou didst enter the school, and wast instructed in
+the writings, she came daily to thy master with bread and beer from her
+house. If thou forgettest her, she might blame thee; she might lift up
+her hands to God, and He would hear her complaint." Children nowadays
+might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> do a great deal worse than remember these wise words of the
+oldest book in the world.</p>
+
+<p>But you are not to think that the Egyptian children's life was all
+teaching and prim behaviour. When Tahuti got his holidays, he would
+sometimes go out with his father and mother and sister on a fishing or
+fowling expedition. If they were going fishing, the little papyrus skiff
+was launched, and the party paddled away, armed with long thin spears,
+which had two prongs at the point. Drifting over the quiet shallow
+waters of the marshy lakes, they could see the fish swimming beneath
+them, and launch their spears at them. Sometimes, if he was lucky,
+Tahuti's father would pierce a fish with either prong of the spear, and
+then there was great excitement.</p>
+
+<p>But still more interesting was the fowling among the marshes. The spears
+were laid aside on this kind of expedition, and instead, Tahuti and his
+father were armed with curved throw-sticks, shaped something like an
+Australian boomerang. But, besides the throw-sticks, they had with them
+a rather unusual helper. When people go shooting nowadays, they take
+dogs with them to retrieve the game. Well, the Egyptians had different
+kinds of dogs, too, which they used for hunting; but when they went
+fowling they took with them a cat which was trained to catch the wounded
+birds and bring them to her master. The little skiff was paddled
+cautiously across the marsh, and in among the reeds where the wild ducks
+and other waterfowl lived, Sen-senb and her mother holding on to the
+tall papyrus plants and pulling them aside to make room for the boat, or
+plucking the beautiful lotus-lilies, of which the Egyptians were so
+fond. When the birds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> rose, Tahuti and his father let fly their
+throw-sticks, and when a bird was knocked down, the cat, which had been
+sitting quietly in the bow of the boat, dashed forward among the reeds
+and secured the fluttering creature before it could escape.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 478px;">
+<a name="plate8" id="plate8"><img src="images/image8.jpg" width="478" height="700" alt="PLATE 8.
+
+&quot;AND THE GOOSE STOOD UP AND CACKLED.&quot;" title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">PLATE 8.<br />
+
+&quot;AND THE GOOSE STOOD UP AND CACKLED.&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Altogether, it was great fun for the brother and sister, as well as for
+the grown folks, and Tahuti and Sen-senb liked nothing so well as when
+the gaily-painted little skiff was launched for a day on the marshes. I
+think that, on the whole, they had a very bright and happy life in these
+old days, and that, though they had not many of the advantages that you
+have to-day, the boys and girls of three thousand years ago managed to
+enjoy themselves in their own simple way quite as well as you do now.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<br /><br />
+
+SOME FAIRY-TALES OF LONG AGO</h2>
+
+
+<p>The little brown boys and girls who lived in Egypt three thousand years
+ago were just as fond as you are of hearing wonderful stories that begin
+with "Once upon a time;" and I want in this chapter to tell you some of
+the tales that Tahuti and Sen-senb used to listen to in the evening when
+school was over and play was done&mdash;the oldest of all wonder-tales,
+stories that were old and had long been forgotten, ages before The
+Sleeping Beauty and Jack and the Beanstalk were first thought of.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One day, when King Khufu, the great King who built the biggest of the
+Pyramids, had nothing else to do, he called his sons and his wise men
+together, and said, "Is there anyone among you who can tell me the tales
+of the old magicians?" Then the King's son, Prince Baufra, stood up and
+said, "Your Majesty, I can tell you of a wonder that happened in the
+days of your father, King Seneferu. It fell on a day that the King grew
+weary of everything, and sought through all his palace for something to
+please him, but found nothing. Then he said to his officers, 'Bring to
+me the magician Zazamankh.' And when the magician came, the King said to
+him, 'O Zazamankh, I have sought through all my palace for some delight,
+and I have found none.' Then said Zazamankh, 'Let thy Majesty go in thy
+boat upon the lake of the palace, and let twenty beautiful girls be
+brought to row thee, and let their oars be of ebony, inlaid with gold
+and silver. And I myself will go with thee; and the sight of the
+water-birds, and the fair shores, and the green grass will cheer thy
+heart.' So the King and the wizard went down to the lake, and the twenty
+maidens rowed them about in the King's pleasure-galley. Nine rowed on
+this side, and nine on that, and the two fairest stood by the two
+rudders at the stern, and set the rowing song, each for her own side.
+And the King's heart grew glad and light, as the boat sped hither and
+thither, and the oars flashed in the sunshine to the song of the rowers.</p>
+
+<p>"But as the boat turned, the top of the steering-oar struck the hair of
+one of the maidens who steered, and knocked her coronet of turquoise
+into the water; and she stopped her song, and all the rowers on her
+side<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> stopped rowing. Then his Majesty said, 'Why have you stopped
+rowing, little one?' And the maiden answered, 'It is because my jewel of
+turquoise has fallen into the water.' 'Row on,' said the King, 'and I
+will give you another.' But the girl answered, 'I want my own one back,
+as I had it before.' So King Seneferu called Zazamankh to come to him,
+and said, 'Now, Zazamankh, I have done as you advised, and my heart is
+light; but, behold, the coronet of this little one has fallen into the
+water, and she has stopped singing, and spoiled the rowing of her side;
+and she will not have a new jewel, but wants the old one back again.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then Zazamankh the wizard stood up in the King's boat, and spoke
+wonderful words. And, lo! the water of one half of the lake rose up, and
+heaped itself upon the top of the water of the other half, so that it
+was twice as deep as it was before. And the King's bark rode upon the
+top of the piled-up waters; but beyond it the bottom of the lake lay
+bare, with the shells and pebbles shining in the sunlight. And there,
+upon a broken shell, lay the little rower's coronet. Then Zazamankh
+leaped down and picked it up, and brought it to the King. And he spake
+wonderful words again, and the water sank down, and covered the whole
+bed of the lake, as it had done at first. So his Majesty spent a joyful
+day, and gave great rewards to the wizard Zazamankh."</p>
+
+<p>When King Khufu heard that story, he praised the men of olden times. But
+another of his sons, Prince Hordadef, stood up, and said, "O King, that
+is only a story of bygone days, and no one knows whether it is true or a
+lie; but I will show thee a magician of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> to-day." "Who is he, Hordadef?"
+said King Khufu. And Hordadef answered, "His name is Dedi. He is a
+hundred and ten years old, and every day he eats five hundred loaves of
+bread, and a side of beef, and drinks a hundred jugs of beer. He knows
+how to fasten on a head that has been cut off. He knows how to make a
+lion of the desert follow him, and he knows the plan of the house of God
+that you have wanted to know for so long."</p>
+
+<p>Then King Khufu sent Prince Hordadef to bring Dedi to him, and he
+brought Dedi back in the royal boat. The King came out, and sat in the
+colonnade of the palace, and Dedi was led before him. Then said his
+Majesty, "Why have I never seen you before, Dedi?" And Dedi answered,
+"Life, health, strength to your Majesty! A man can only come when he is
+called." "Is it true, Dedi, that you can fasten on a head which has been
+cut off?" "Certainly I can, your Majesty." Then said the King, "Let a
+prisoner be brought from the prison, and let his head be struck off."
+But Dedi said, "Long life to your Majesty; do not try it on a man. Let
+us try a bird or an animal."</p>
+
+<p>So a goose was brought; its head was cut off; and the head was laid at
+the east side of the hall, and the body at the west. Then Dedi rose, and
+spoke wonderful words. And, behold! the body of the goose waddled to
+meet the head, and the head came to meet the body. They joined together
+before his Majesty's throne, and the goose stood up and cackled (Plate
+8).</p>
+
+<p>Then, when Dedi had joined to its body again the head that had been
+struck off from an ox, and the ox followed him lowing, King Khufu said
+to him, "Is it true, O Dedi, that you know the plans of the house of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+God?" "It is true, your Majesty; but it is not I who shall give them to
+you." "Who, then?" said the King. "It is the eldest of three sons who
+shall be born to the lady Rud-didet, wife of the priest of Ra, the
+Sun-God. And Ra has promised that these three sons shall reign over this
+kingdom of thine." When King Khufu heard that word, his heart was
+troubled; but Dedi said, "Let not your Majesty's heart be troubled. Thy
+son shall reign first, then thy son's son, and then one of these." So
+the King commanded that Dedi should live in the house of Prince
+Hordadef; and that every day there should be given to him a thousand
+loaves, a hundred jugs of beer, an ox, and a hundred bunches of onions!</p>
+
+<p>When the three sons of Rud-didet were born, Ra sent four goddesses to be
+their godmothers. They came attired like travelling dancing-girls; and
+one of the gods came with them, dressed like a porter. And when they had
+nursed the three children awhile, Rud-didet's husband said to them, "My
+ladies, what wages shall I give you?" So he gave them a bushel of
+barley, and they went away with their wages. But when they had gone a
+little way, Isis, the chief of them, said, "Why have we not done a
+wonder for these children?" So they stopped, and made crowns, the red
+crown and the white crown of Egypt, and hid them in the bushel of
+barley, and sealed the sack, and put it in Rud-didet's store-chamber,
+and went away again.</p>
+
+<p>A fortnight later, when Rud-didet was going to brew the household beer,
+there was no barley. And her maidservant said, "There is a bushel, but
+it was given to the dancing-girls, and lies in the store-room, sealed
+with their seal." So the lady said to her maid,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> "Go down and fetch it,
+and we shall give them more when they need it." The maid went down, but
+when she came to the store-room, lo! from within there came a sound of
+singing and dancing, and all such music as should be heard in a King's
+Court. So in fear she crept back to her mistress and told her, and
+Rud-didet went down and heard the royal music, and she told her husband
+when he came home at night, and their hearts were glad because their
+sons were to be Kings.</p>
+
+<p>But after a time the lady Rud-didet quarrelled with her maid, and gave
+her a beating, as ladies sometimes did in those days; and the weeping
+maid said to her fellow-servants, "Shall she do this to me? She has
+borne three Kings, and I will go and tell it to his Majesty, King
+Khufu." So she stole away first to her uncle, and told him of her plot;
+but he was angry because she wished to betray the children to King
+Khufu, and he beat her with a scourge of flax. And as she went away by
+the side of the river a great crocodile came out of the water, and
+carried her off.... But here, alas! our story breaks off; the rest of
+the book is lost, and we cannot tell whether King Khufu tried to kill
+the three royal babies or not. Only we do know that the first three
+Kings of the race which succeeded the race of Khufu bore the same names
+as Rud-didet's three babies, and were called, like all the Kings of
+Egypt after them, "Sons of the Sun."</p>
+
+<p>These, then, are absolutely the oldest fairy-stories in the world, and
+if they do not seem very wonderful to you, you must remember that
+everything has to have a beginning, and that the people who made these
+tales hadn't had very much practice in the art of story-telling.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br /><br />
+
+SOME FAIRY-TALES OF LONG AGO (<i>Continued</i>)</h2>
+
+
+<p>Our next story belongs to a time several hundred years later, and I dare
+say it seemed as wonderful to the little Egyptians as the story of
+Sindbad the Sailor does to you. It is called "The Story of the
+Shipwrecked Sailor," and the sailor himself tells it to a noble
+Egyptian.</p>
+
+<p>"I was going," he says, "to the mines of Pharaoh, and we set sail in a
+ship of 150 cubits long and 40 cubits wide (225 feet by 60 feet&mdash;quite a
+big ship for the time). We had a crew of 150 of the best sailors of
+Egypt, men whose hearts were as bold as lions. They all foretold a happy
+voyage, but as we came near the shore a great storm blew, the sea rose
+in terrible waves, and our ship was fairly overwhelmed. Clinging to a
+piece of wood, I was washed about for three days, and at last tossed up
+on an island; but not one was left of all my shipmates&mdash;all perished in
+the waves.</p>
+
+<p>"I lay down in the shade of some bushes, and when I had recovered a
+little, I looked about me for food. There was plenty on every hand&mdash;figs
+and grapes, berries and corn, with all manner of birds. When my hunger
+was satisfied, I lit a fire, and made an offering to the gods who had
+saved me. Suddenly I heard a noise like thunder; the trees shook, and
+the earth quaked. Looking round, I saw a great serpent approaching me.
+He was nearly 50 feet long, and had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> a beard 3 feet in length. His body
+shone in the sun like gold, and when he reared himself up from his coils
+before me I fell upon my face.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the serpent began to speak: 'What has brought thee, little one,
+what has brought thee? If thou dost not tell me quickly what has brought
+thee to this isle, I shall make thee vanish like a flame.' So saying, he
+took me up in his mouth, carried me gently to his lair, and laid me down
+unhurt; and again he said, 'What has brought thee, little one, what has
+brought thee to this isle of the sea?' So I told him the story of our
+shipwreck, and how I alone had escaped from the fury of the waves. Then
+said he to me: 'Fear not, little one, and let not thy face be sad. If
+thou hast come to me, it is God who has brought thee to this isle, which
+is filled with all good things. And now, see: thou shalt dwell for four
+months in this isle, and then a ship of thine own land shall come, and
+thou shalt go home to thy country, and die in thine own town. As for me,
+I am here with my brethren and my children. There are seventy-five of us
+in all, besides a young girl, who came here by chance, and was burned by
+fire from heaven. But if thou art strong and patient, thou shalt yet
+embrace thy children and thy wife, and return to thy home.'</p>
+
+<p>"Then I bowed low before him, and promised to tell of him to Pharaoh,
+and to bring him ships full of all the treasures of Egypt; but he smiled
+at my speech, and said, 'Thou hast nothing that I need, for I am Prince
+of the Land of Punt, and all its perfumes are mine. Moreover, when thou
+departest, thou shalt never again see this isle, for it shall be changed
+into waves.'</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 493px;">
+<a name="plate9" id="plate9"><img src="images/image9.jpg" width="493" height="700" alt="PLATE 9.
+
+AN EGYPTIAN COUNTRY HOUSE." title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">PLATE 9.<br />
+
+AN EGYPTIAN COUNTRY HOUSE.</span></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Now, behold! when the time was come, as he had foretold, the ship drew
+near. And the good serpent said to me, 'Farewell, farewell! go to thy
+home, little one, see again thy children, and let thy name be good in
+thy town; these are my wishes for thee.' So I bowed low before him, and
+he loaded me with precious gifts of perfume, cassia, sweet woods, ivory,
+baboons, and all kinds of precious things, and I embarked in the ship.
+And now, after a voyage of two months, we are coming to the house of
+Pharaoh, and I shall go in before Pharaoh, and offer the gifts which I
+have brought from this isle into Egypt, and Pharaoh shall thank me
+before the great ones of the land."</p>
+
+<p>Our last story belongs to a later age than that of the Shipwrecked
+Sailor. About 1,500 years before Christ there arose in Egypt a race of
+mighty soldier-Kings, who founded a great empire, which stretched from
+the Soudan right through Syria and Mesopotamia as far as the great River
+Euphrates. Mesopotamia, or Naharaina, as the Egyptians called it, had
+been an unknown land to them before this time; but now it became to them
+what America was to the men of Queen Elizabeth's time, or the heart of
+Africa to your grandfathers&mdash;the wonderful land of romance, where all
+kinds of strange things might happen. And this story of the Doomed
+Prince, which I have to tell you, belongs partly to Naharaina, and, as
+you will see, some of our own fairy-stories have been made out of very
+much the same materials as are used in it.</p>
+
+<p>Once upon a time there was a King in Egypt who had no child. His heart
+was grieved because he had no child, and he prayed to the gods for a
+son; so in course of time a son was born to him, and the Fates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> (like
+fairy godmothers) came to his cradle to foretell what should happen to
+him. And when they saw him, they said, "His doom is to die either by the
+crocodile, or by the serpent, or by the dog." When the King heard this,
+his heart was sore for his little son, and he resolved that he would put
+the boy where no harm could come to him; so he built for him a beautiful
+house away in the desert, and furnished it with all kinds of fine
+things, and sent the boy there, with faithful servants to guard him, and
+to see that he came to no hurt. So the boy grew up quietly and safely in
+his house in the desert.</p>
+
+<p>But it fell on a day that the young Prince looked out from the roof of
+his house, and he saw a man walking across the desert, with a dog
+following him. So he said to the servant who was with him, "What is this
+that walks behind the man who is coming along the road?" "It is a dog,"
+said the page. Then the boy said, "You must bring me one like him," and
+the page went and told His Majesty. Then the King said, "Get a little
+puppy, and take it to him, lest his heart be sad." So they brought him a
+little dog, and it grew up along with him.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it happened that, when the boy had grown to be a strong young man,
+he grew weary of being always shut up in his fine house. Therefore he
+sent a message to his father, saying, "Why am I always to be shut up
+here? Since I am doomed to three evil Fates, let me have my desire, and
+let God do what is in His heart." So the King agreed, and they gave the
+young Prince arms, and sent him away to the eastern frontier, and his
+dog went with him, and they said to him, "Go wherever you will." So he
+went northward through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> the desert, he and his dog, until he came to
+the land of Naharaina.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="plate10" id="plate10"><img src="images/image10.jpg" width="600" height="402"
+alt="Plate 10 STATUES OF KING AMENHOTEP III." title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">Plate 10<br />
+STATUES OF KING AMENHOTEP III.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Now, the chief of the land of Naharaina had no children, save one
+beautiful daughter, and for her he had built a wonderful house. It had
+seventy windows, and it stood on a great rock more than 100 feet high.
+And the chief summoned the sons of all the chiefs of the country round
+about, and said to them, "The Prince who can climb to my daughter's
+window shall have her for his wife." So all the young Princes of the
+land camped around the house, and tried every day to climb to the window
+of the beautiful Princess; but none of them succeeded, for the rock was
+very steep and high.</p>
+
+<p>Then, one day when they were climbing as they were wont, the young
+Prince of Egypt rode by with his dog; and the Princes welcomed him,
+bathed him, and fed his horse, and said to him, "Whence comest thou,
+thou goodly youth?" He did not wish to tell them that he was the son of
+Pharaoh, so he answered, "I am the son of an Egyptian officer. My father
+married a second wife, and, when she had children, she hated me, and
+drove me away from my home." So they took him into their company, and he
+stayed with them many days.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it fell on a day that he asked them, "Why do you stay here, trying
+always to climb this rock?" And they told him of the beautiful Princess
+who lived in the house on the top of the rock, and how the man who could
+climb to her window should marry her. Therefore the young Prince of
+Egypt climbed along with them, and it came to pass that at last he
+climbed to the window of the Princess; and when she saw him, she fell in
+love with him, and kissed him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then was word sent to the Chief of Naharaina that one of the young men
+had climbed to his daughter's window, and he asked which of the Princes
+it was, and the messenger said, "It is not a Prince, but the son of an
+Egyptian officer, who has been driven away from Egypt by his
+stepmother." Then the Chief of Naharaina was very angry, and said,
+"Shall I give my daughter to an Egyptian fugitive? Let him go back to
+Egypt." But, when the messengers came to tell the young man to go away,
+the Princess seized his hand, and said, "If you take him from me, I will
+not eat; I will not drink; I shall die in that same hour." Then the
+chief sent men to kill the youth where he was in the house. But the
+Princess said, "If you kill him, I shall be dead before the sun goes
+down. I will not live an hour if I am parted from him." So the chief was
+obliged to agree to the marriage; and the young Prince was married to
+the Princess, and her father gave them a house, and slaves, and fields,
+and all sorts of good things.</p>
+
+<p>But after a time the young Prince said to his wife, "I am doomed to die,
+either by a crocodile, or by a serpent, or by a dog." And his wife
+answered, "Why, then, do you keep this dog always with you? Let him be
+killed." "Nay," said he, "I am not going to kill my faithful dog, which
+I have brought up since the time that he was a puppy." So the Princess
+feared greatly for her husband, and would never let him go out of her
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it happened in course of time that the Prince went back to the land
+of Egypt; and his wife went with him, and his dog, and he dwelt in
+Egypt. And one day, when the evening came, he grew drowsy, and fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+asleep; and his wife filled a bowl with milk, and placed it by his side,
+and sat to watch him as he slept. Then a great serpent came out of his
+hole to bite the youth. But his wife was watching, and she made the
+servants give the milk to the serpent, and he drank till he could not
+move. Then the Princess killed the serpent with blows of her dagger. So
+she woke her husband, and he was astonished to see the serpent lying
+dead, and his faithful wife said to him, "Behold, God has given one of
+thy dooms into thy hand; He will also give the others." And the Prince
+made sacrifice to God, and praised Him.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it fell on a day that the Prince went out to walk in his estate,
+and his dog went with him. And as they walked, the dog ran after some
+game, and the Prince followed the dog. They came to the River Nile, and
+the dog went into the river, and the Prince followed him. Then a great
+crocodile rose in the river, and laid hold on the youth, and said, "I am
+thy doom, following after thee." ...</p>
+
+<p>But just here the old papyrus roll on which the story is written is torn
+away, and we do not know what happened to the Doomed Prince. I fancy
+that, in some way or other, his dog would save him from the crocodile,
+and that later, by some accident, the poor faithful dog would be the
+cause of his master's death. At least, it looks as if the end of the
+story must have been something like that; for the Egyptians believed
+that no one could escape from the doom that was laid upon him, but had
+to suffer it sooner or later. Perhaps, some day, one of the explorers
+who are searching the land of Egypt for relics of the past may come on
+another papyrus roll with the end of the story, and then we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> shall find
+out whether the dog did kill the Prince, or whether God gave all his
+dooms into his hand, as his wife hoped.</p>
+
+<p>These are some of the stories that little Tahuti and Sen-senb used to
+listen to in the long evenings when they were tired of play. Perhaps
+they seem very simple and clumsy to you; but I have no doubt that, when
+they were told in those old days, the black eyes of the little Egyptian
+boys and girls used to grow very big and round, and the wizard who could
+fasten on heads which had been cut off seemed a very wonderful person,
+and the talking serpents and crocodiles seemed very real and very
+dreadful.</p>
+
+<p>Anyhow, you have heard the oldest stories in all the world&mdash;the fathers
+and mothers, so to speak, of all the great family of wonder-tales that
+have delighted and terrified children ever since.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX<br /><br />
+
+EXPLORING THE SOUDAN</h2>
+
+
+<p>There is no more wonderful or interesting story than that which tells
+how bit by bit the great dark continent of Africa has been explored, and
+made to yield up its secrets. But did you ever think what a long story
+it is, and how very early it begins? It is in Egypt that we find the
+first chapters of the story; and they can still be read, written in the
+quaint old picture writing which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> the Egyptians used, on the rock
+tombs of a place in the south of Egypt, called Elephantine.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 415px;">
+<a name="plate11" id="plate11"><img src="images/image11.jpg" width="415" height="600" alt="Plate 11
+THE SPHINX AND THE SECOND PYRAMID. Page 79" title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">Plate 11<br />
+THE SPHINX AND THE SECOND PYRAMID. <small><i>Page 79</i></small></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In early days the land of Egypt used to end at what was called the First
+Cataract of the Nile, a place where the river came down in a series of
+rapids among a lot of rocky islets. The First Cataract has disappeared
+now, for British engineers have made a great dam across the Nile just at
+this point, and turned the whole country, for miles above the dam, into
+a lake. But in those days the Egyptians used to believe that the Nile,
+to which they owed so much, began at the First Cataract. Yet they knew
+of the wild country of Nubia beyond and, in very early times indeed,
+about 5,000 years ago, they used to send exploring expeditions into that
+half-desert land which we have come to know as the Soudan.</p>
+
+<p>Near the First Cataract there lies the island of Elephantine, and when
+the Egyptian kingdom was young the great barons who owned this island
+were the Lords of the Egyptian Marches, just as the Percies and the
+Douglases were the Lords of the Marches in England and Scotland. It was
+their duty to keep in order the wild Nubian tribes south of the
+Cataract, to see that they allowed the trading caravans to pass safely,
+and sometimes to lead these caravans through the desert themselves. A
+caravan was a very different thing then from the long train of camels
+that we think of now when we hear the name. For, though there are some
+very old pictures which show that, before Egyptian history begins at
+all, the camel was known in Egypt, somehow that useful animal seems to
+have disappeared from the land for many hundreds of years. The Pharaohs
+and their adventurous barons never used the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> queer, ungainly creature
+that carries the desert postman in our picture (Plate 12), and the
+ivory, gold-dust, and ebony that came from the Soudan had to be carried
+on the backs of hundreds of asses.</p>
+
+<p>The barons of Elephantine bore the proud title of "Keepers of the Door
+of the South," and, in addition, they display, seemingly just as
+proudly, the title "Caravan Conductors." In those days it was no easy
+task to lead a caravan through the Soudan, and bring it back safe with
+its precious load through all the wild and savage tribes who inhabited
+the land of Nubia. More than one of the barons of Elephantine set out
+with a caravan never to return, but to leave his bones, and those of his
+companions, to whiten among the desert sands; and one of them has told
+us how, hearing that his father had been killed on one of these
+adventurous journeys, he mustered his retainers, marched south with a
+train of a hundred asses, punished the tribe which had been guilty of
+the deed, and brought his father's body home, to be buried with all due
+honours.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the records of these early journeys, the first attempts to
+explore the interior of Africa, may still be read, carved on the walls
+of the tombs where the brave explorers sleep. One baron, called Herkhuf,
+has told us of no fewer than four separate expeditions which he made
+into the Soudan. On his first journey, as he was still young, he went in
+company with his father, and was away for seven months. The next time he
+was allowed to go alone, and brought back his caravan safely after an
+absence of eight months.</p>
+
+<p>On his third journey he went farther than before, and gathered so large
+a quantity of ivory and gold-dust that three hundred asses were required
+to bring his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> treasure home. So rich a caravan was a tempting prize
+for the wild tribes on the way; but Herkhuf persuaded one of the
+Soudanese chiefs to furnish him with a large escort, and the caravan was
+so strongly guarded that the other tribes did not venture to attack it,
+but were glad to help its leader with guides and gifts of cattle.
+Herkhuf brought his treasures safely back to Egypt, and the King was so
+pleased with his success that he sent a special messenger with a boat
+full of delicacies to refresh the weary traveller.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 487px;">
+<a name="plate12" id="plate12"><img src="images/image12.jpg" width="487" height="700" alt="PLATE 12.
+
+A DESERT POSTMAN." title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">PLATE 12.<br />
+
+A DESERT POSTMAN.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>But the most successful of all his expeditions was the fourth. The King
+who had sent him on the other journeys had died, and was succeeded by a
+little boy called Pepy, who was only about six years old when he came to
+the throne, and who reigned for more than ninety years&mdash;the longest
+reign in the world's history. In the second year of Pepy's reign, the
+bold Herkhuf set out again for the Soudan, and this time, along with
+other treasures, he brought back something that his boy-King valued far
+more than gold or ivory.</p>
+
+<p>You know how, when Stanley went in search of Emin Pasha, he discovered
+in the Central African forests a strange race of dwarfs, living by
+themselves, and very shy of strangers. Well, for all these thousands of
+years, the forefathers of these little dwarfs must have been living in
+the heart of the Dark Continent. In early days they evidently lived not
+so far away from Egypt as when Stanley found them, for, on at least one
+occasion, one of Pharaoh's servants had been able to capture one of the
+little men, and bring him down as a present to his master, greatly to
+the delight of the King and Court. Herkhuf was equally fortunate. He
+managed to secure a dwarf from one of these pigmy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> tribes, and brought
+him back with his caravan, that he might please the young King with his
+quaint antics and his curious dances.</p>
+
+<p>When the King heard of the present which his brave servant was bringing
+back for him, he was wild with delight. The thought of this new toy was
+far more to the little eight-year-old, King though he was, than all the
+rest of the treasure which Herkhuf had gathered; and he caused a letter
+to be written to the explorer, telling him of his delight, and giving
+him all kinds of advice as to how careful he should be that the dwarf
+should come to no harm on the way to Court.</p>
+
+<p>The letter, through all its curious old phrases, is very much the kind
+of letter that any boy might send on hearing of some new toy that was
+coming to him. "My Majesty," says the little eight-year-old Pharaoh,
+"wisheth to see this pigmy more than all the tribute of Punt. And if
+thou comest to Court having this pigmy with thee sound and whole, My
+Majesty will do for thee more than King Assa did for the Chancellor
+Baurded." (This was the man who had brought back the other dwarf in
+earlier days.) Little King Pepy then gives careful directions that
+Herkhuf is to provide proper people to see that the precious dwarf does
+not fall into the Nile on his way down the river; and these guards are
+to watch behind the place where he sleeps, and look into his bed ten
+times each night, that they may be sure that nothing has gone wrong.</p>
+
+<p>The poor little dwarf must have had rather an uncomfortable time of it,
+one fancies, if his sleep was to be broken so often. Perhaps there was
+more danger of killing him with kindness and care, than if they had left
+him more to himself; but Pepy's anxiety was very<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> like a boy. However,
+Herkhuf evidently succeeded in bringing his dwarf safe and sound to the
+King's Court, and no doubt the quaint little savage proved a splendid
+toy for the young King. One wonders what he thought of the great cities
+and the magnificent Court of Egypt, and whether his heart did not weary
+sometimes for the wild freedom of his lost home.</p>
+
+<p>Herkhuf was so proud of the King's letter that he caused it to be
+engraved, word for word, on the walls of the tomb which he hewed out for
+himself at Elephantine, and there to this day the words can be read
+which tell us how old is the story of African exploration, and how a boy
+was always just a boy, even though he lived five thousand years ago, and
+reigned over a great kingdom.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X<br /><br />
+
+A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY</h2>
+
+
+<p>About 3,500 years ago, there reigned a great Queen in Egypt. It was not
+usual for the Egyptian throne to be occupied by a woman, though great
+respect was always shown to women in Egypt, and the rank of a King's
+mother was considered quite as important as that of his father. But once
+at least in her history Egypt had a great Queen, whose fame deserves to
+be remembered, and who takes honourable rank among the great women, like
+Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, who have ruled kingdoms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>During part of her life Queen Hatshepsut was only joint sovereign along
+with her husband, and in the latter part of her reign she was joint
+sovereign with her half-brother or nephew, who succeeded her; but for at
+least twenty years she was really the sole ruler of Egypt, and governed
+the land wisely and well.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most interesting thing that happened in her reign was the
+voyage of discovery which she caused to be made by some ships of her
+fleet. Centuries before her time, when the world was young, the
+Egyptians had made expeditions down the Red Sea to a land which they
+sometimes called Punt, and sometimes "The Divine Land." Probably it was
+part of the country that we now know as Somaliland. But for a very long
+time these voyages had ceased, and people only knew by hearsay, and by
+the stories of ancient days, of this wonderful country that lay away by
+the Southern Sea.</p>
+
+<p>One day, the Queen tells us, she was at prayers in the temple of the god
+Amen at Thebes, when she felt a sudden inspiration. The god was giving
+her a command to send an expedition to this almost forgotten land. "A
+command was heard in the sanctuary, a behest of the god himself, that
+the ways which lead to Punt should be explored, and that the roads to
+the Ladders of Incense should be trodden." In obedience to this command,
+the Queen at once equipped a little fleet of the quaint old galleys that
+the Egyptians then used (Plate 1), and sent them out, with picked crews,
+and a royal envoy in command, to sail down the Red Sea, in search of the
+Divine Land. The ships were laden with all kinds of goods to barter with
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> Punites, and a guard of Egyptian soldiers was placed on board.</p>
+
+<p>We do not know how long it took the little squadron to reach its
+destination. Sea voyages in those days were slow and dangerous. But at
+last the ships safely reached the mouth of the Elephant River in
+Somaliland, and went up the river with the tide till they came to the
+village of the natives. They found that the Punites lived in curious
+beehive-shaped houses, some of them made of wicker-work, and placed on
+piles, so that they had to climb into them by ladders. The men were not
+negroes, though some negroes lived among them; they were very much like
+the Egyptians in appearance, wore pointed beards, and were dressed only
+in loincloths, while the women wore a yellow sleeveless dress, which
+reached halfway between the knee and ankle.</p>
+
+<p>Nehsi, the royal envoy, landed with an officer and eight soldiers, and,
+to show that he came in peace, he spread out on a table some presents
+for the chief of the Punites&mdash;five bracelets, two gold necklaces, a
+dagger, with belt and sheath, a battle-axe, and eleven strings of glass
+beads&mdash;much such a present as a European explorer might give to-day to
+an African chief. The natives came down in great excitement to see the
+strangers who had brought such treasures, and were astonished at the
+arrival of such a fleet. "How is it," they said, "that you have reached
+this country, hitherto unknown to men? Have you come by way of the sky,
+or have you sailed on the waters of the Divine Sea?" The chief, who was
+called Parihu, came down with his wife Aty, and his daughter. Aty rode
+down on a donkey, but dismounted to see the strangers, and,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> indeed, the
+poor donkey must have been greatly relieved, for the chieftainess was an
+exceedingly fat lady, and her daughter, though so young, showed every
+intention of being as fat as her mother.</p>
+
+<p>After the envoy and the chief had exchanged compliments, business began.
+The Egyptians pitched a tent in which they stored their goods for
+barter, and to put temptation out of the way of the natives, they drew a
+guard of soldiers round the tent. For several days the market remained
+open, and the country people brought down their treasures, till the
+ships were laden as deeply as was safe. The cargo was a varied and
+valuable one. Elephants' tusks, gold, ebony, apes, greyhounds, leopard
+skins, all were crowded into the galleys, the apes sitting gravely on
+the top of the bales of goods, and looking longingly at the land which
+they were leaving.</p>
+
+<p>But the most important part of the cargo was the incense, and the
+incense-trees. Great quantities of the gum from which the incense was
+made were placed on board, and also thirty-one of the incense sycamores,
+their roots carefully surrounded with a large ball of earth, and
+protected by baskets. Several young chiefs of the Punites accompanied
+the expedition back to Thebes, to see what life was like in the strange
+new world which had been revealed to them. Altogether the voyage home
+must have been no easy undertaking, for the ships, with their heavy
+cargoes, must have been very difficult to handle.</p>
+
+<p>The arrival of the squadron at Thebes, which they must have reached by a
+canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea, was made the occasion of a
+great holiday festival. Long lines of troops in gala attire came out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> to
+meet the brave explorers, and an escort of the royal fleet accompanied
+the exploring squadron up to the temple quay where the ships were to
+moor. Then the Thebans feasted their eyes on the wonderful treasures
+that had come from Punt, wondering at the natives, the incense, the
+ivory, and, above all, at a giraffe which had been brought home. How the
+poor creature was stowed away on the little Egyptian ship it is hard to
+see; but there he was, with his spots and his long neck, the most
+wonderful creature that the good folks of Thebes had ever seen. The
+precious incense gum was stored in the temple, and the Queen herself
+gave a bushel measure, made of a mixture of gold and silver, to measure
+it out with.</p>
+
+<p>So the voyage of discovery had ended in a great success. But Queen
+Hatshepsut's purpose was only half fulfilled as yet. In a nook of the
+limestone cliffs, not far from Thebes, her father before her had begun
+to build a very wonderful temple, close beside the ruins of an older
+sanctuary which had stood there for hundreds of years. Hatshepsut had
+been gradually completing his work, and the temple was now growing into
+a most beautiful building, very different from ordinary Egyptian
+temples. From the desert sands in front it rose terrace above terrace,
+each platform bordered with rows of beautiful limestone pillars, until
+at last it reached the cliffs, and the most sacred chamber of it, the
+Holy of Holies, was hewn into the solid wall of rock behind.</p>
+
+<p>This temple the Queen resolved to make into what she called a Paradise
+for Amen, the god who had told her to send out the ships. So she planted
+on the terraces the sacred incense-trees which had been brought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> from
+Punt; and, thanks to careful tending and watering, they flourished well
+in their new home. And then, all along the walls of the temple, she
+caused her artists to carve and paint the whole story of the voyage. We
+do not know the names of the artists who did the work, though we know
+that of the architect, Sen-mut, who planned the building. But, whoever
+they were, they must have been very skilful sculptors; for the story of
+the voyage is told in pictures on the walls of this wonderful temple, so
+that everything can be seen just as it actually happened more than three
+thousand years ago.</p>
+
+<p>You can see the ships toiling along with oar and sail towards their
+destination, the meeting with the natives, the palaver and the trading,
+the loading of the galleys, and the long procession of Theban soldiers
+going out to meet the returning explorers. Not a single detail is
+missed, and, thanks to the Queen and her artists, we can go back over
+all these years, and see how sailors worked, and how people lived in
+savage lands in that far-off time, and realize that explorers dealt with
+the natives in foreign countries in those days very much as they deal
+with them now. When our explorers of to-day come back from their
+journeys, they generally tell the story of their adventures in a big
+book with many pictures; but no explorer ever published the account of a
+voyage of discovery on such a scale as did Queen Hatshepsut, when she
+carved the voyage to Punt on the walls of her great temple at
+Deir-el-Bahri, and no pictures in any modern book are likely to last as
+long, or to tell so much as these pictures that have come to light again
+during the last few years, after being buried for centuries under the
+desert sands.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 493px;">
+<a name="plate13" id="plate13"><img src="images/image13.jpg" width="493" height="700" alt="PLATE 13.
+
+THE BARK OF THE MOON, GUARDED BY THE DIVINE EYES." title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">PLATE 13.<br />
+
+THE BARK OF THE MOON, GUARDED BY THE DIVINE EYES.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+<p>Queen Hatshepsut has left other memorials of her greatness besides the
+temple with its story of her voyage. She has told us how one day she was
+sitting in her palace, and thinking of her Creator, when the thought
+came into her mind to rear two great obelisks before the Temple of Amen
+at Karnak. So she gave the command, and Sen-mut, her clever architect,
+went up the Nile to Aswan, and quarried two huge granite blocks, and
+floated them down the river. Cleopatra's Needle, which stands on the
+Thames Embankment, is 68&frac12; feet high, and it seems to us a huge stone
+for men to handle. Our own engineers had trouble enough in bringing it
+to this country, and setting it up. But these two great obelisks of
+Queen Hatshepsut were 98&frac12; feet high, and weighed about 350 tons
+apiece. Yet Sen-mut had them quarried, and set up, and carved all over
+from base to summit in seven months from the time when the Queen gave
+her command! One of them still stands at Karnak, the tallest obelisk in
+the temple there; while the other great shaft has fallen, and lies
+broken, close to its companion. They tell us their own plain story of
+the wisdom and skill of those far-off days; and perhaps the great Queen
+who thought of her Creator as she sat in her palace, and longed to
+honour Him, found that the God whom she ignorantly worshipped was indeed
+not far from His servant's heart.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI<br /><br />
+
+EGYPTIAN BOOKS</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>The Egyptians were, if not quite the earliest, at least among the
+earliest of all the peoples of the world to find out how to put down
+their thoughts in writing, or in other words, to make a book; and one of
+their old books, full of wise advice from a father to his son, is,
+perhaps, the oldest book in the world. Two words which we are constantly
+using might help to remind us of how much we owe to their cleverness.
+The one is "Bible," and the other is "paper." When we talk of the Bible,
+which just means "the Book," we are using one of the words which the
+Greeks used to describe the plant out of which the Egyptians made the
+material on which they wrote; and when we talk of paper, we are using
+another name, the commoner name, of the same plant. For the Egyptians
+were the first people to make paper, and they used it for many centuries
+before other people had learned how much handier it was than the other
+things which they used.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, if you saw an Egyptian book, you would think it was a very curious
+and clumsy thing indeed, and very different from the handy volumes which
+we use nowadays. When an Egyptian wanted to make a book, he gathered the
+stems of a kind of reed called the papyrus, which grew in some parts of
+Egypt in marshy ground. This plant grew to a height of from 12 to 15
+feet, and had a stalk about 6 inches thick. The outer rind was peeled
+off this stalk, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> then the inner part of it was separated, by means
+of a flat needle, into thin layers. These layers were joined to one
+another on a table, and a thin gum was spread over them, and then
+another layer was laid crosswise on the top of the first. The double
+sheet thus made was then put into a press, squeezed together, and dried.
+The sheets varied, of course, in breadth according to the purpose for
+which they were needed. The broadest that we know of measure about 17
+inches across, but most are much narrower than that.</p>
+
+<p>When the Egyptian had got his paper, he did not make it up into a volume
+with the sheets bound together at the back, as we do. He joined them end
+to end, adding on sheet after sheet as he wrote, and rolling up his book
+as he went along; so when the book was done it formed a big roll,
+sometimes many feet long. There is one great book in the British Museum
+which measures 135 feet in length. You would think it very strange and
+awkward to have to handle a book like that.</p>
+
+<p>But if the book seemed curious to you, the writing in it would seem
+still more curious; for the Egyptian writing was certainly the
+quaintest, and perhaps the prettiest, that has ever been known. It is
+called "hieroglyphic," which means "sacred carving," and it is nothing
+but little pictures from beginning to end. The Egyptians began by
+putting down a picture of the thing which was represented by the word
+they wanted to use, and, though by-and-by they formed a sort of alphabet
+to spell words with, and had, besides, signs that represented the
+different syllables of a word, still, these signs were all little
+pictures. For instance, one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> their signs for <i>a</i> was the figure of an
+eagle; their sign for <i>m</i> was a lion, and for <i>u</i> a little chicken; so
+that when you look at an Egyptian book written in the hieroglyphic
+character, you see column after column of birds and beasts and creeping
+things, of men and women and boats, and all sorts of other things,
+marching across the page.</p>
+
+<p>When the Egyptians wanted any of their writings to last for a very long
+time, they did not trust them to the frail papyrus rolls, but used
+another kind of book altogether. You have heard of "sermons in stones"?
+Well, a great many of the Egyptian books that tell us of the great deeds
+of the Pharaohs were written on stone, carved deep and clear in the hard
+granite of a great obelisk, or in the limestone of a temple wall. When
+one of the Kings came back from the wars, he generally published the
+account of his battles and victories by carving them on the walls of one
+of the great temples, or on a pillar set up in the court of a temple,
+and there they remain to this day for scholars to read.</p>
+
+<p>When the hieroglyphics were cut in stone, the lines were often filled in
+with pastes of different colours, so that the whole writing was a blaze
+of beautiful tints, and the walls looked as if they were covered with
+finely-coloured hangings. Of course, the colours have mostly faded now;
+but there are still some temples and tombs where they can be seen,
+almost as fresh as when they were first laid on, and from these we can
+gather some idea of how wonderfully beautiful were these stone books of
+ancient Egypt. The scribes and carvers knew very well how beautiful
+their work was, and were careful to make it look as beautiful as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+possible; so much so, that if they found that the grouping of figures to
+make up a particular word or sentence was going to be ugly or clumsy,
+they would even prefer to spell the word wrong, rather than spoil the
+appearance of their picture-writing. Some of you, I dare say, spell
+words wrong now and again; but I fancy it isn't because you think they
+look prettier that way.</p>
+
+<p>But now let us turn back again to our papyrus roll. Suppose that we have
+got it, clean and fresh, and that our friend the scribe is going to
+write upon it. How does he go about it? To begin with, he draws from his
+belt a long, narrow wooden case, and lays it down beside him. This is
+his palette; rather a different kind of palette from the one which
+artists use. It is a piece of wood, with one long hollow in it, and two
+or three shallow round ones. The long hollow holds a few pens, which are
+made out of thin reeds, bruised at the ends, so that their points are
+almost like little brushes. The shallow round hollows are for holding
+ink&mdash;black for most of the writing, red for special words, and perhaps
+one or two other colours, if the scribe is going to do a very fine piece
+of work. So he squats down, cross-legged, dips a reed-pen in the ink,
+and begins. As he writes he makes his little figures of men and beasts
+and birds face all in the one direction, and his readers will know that
+they must always read from the point towards which the characters face.
+Now and then, when he comes to some specially important part, he draws,
+in gay colours, a little picture of the scene which the words describe.</p>
+
+<p>Now, you can understand that this picture-writing was not very easy work
+to do when you had nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> but a bruised reed to draw all sorts of
+animals with. Gradually the pictures grew less and less like the
+creatures they stood for to begin with, and at last the old hieroglyphic
+broke down into a kind of running hand, where a stroke or two might
+stand for an eagle, a lion, or a man. And very many of the Egyptian
+books are written in this kind of broken-down hieroglyphic, which is
+called "hieratic," or priestly writing. But some of the finest and
+costliest books were still written in the beautiful old style.</p>
+
+<p>On their papyrus rolls the Egyptians wrote all sorts of things&mdash;books of
+wise advice, stories like the fairy-tales which we have been hearing,
+legends of the gods, histories, and poems; but the book that is oftenest
+met with is one of their religious books. It is nearly always called the
+"Book of the Dead" now, and some people call it the Egyptian Bible, but
+neither of these names is the right one. Certainly, it is not in the
+least like the Bible, and the Egyptians themselves never called it the
+Book of the Dead. They called it "The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day,"
+and the reason they gave it that name was because they believed that if
+their dead friends knew all the wisdom that was written in it, they
+would escape all the dangers of the other world, and would be able in
+heaven to go in and out just as they had done upon earth, and to be
+happy for ever.</p>
+
+<p>The book is full of all kinds of magical charms against the serpents and
+dragons and all the other kinds of evil things that sought to destroy
+the dead person in the other world. The scribes used to write off copies
+of it by the dozen, and keep them in stock, with blank places for the
+names of the persons who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> were to use them. When anyone died, his
+friends went away to a scribe, and bought a roll of the Book of the
+Dead, and the scribe filled in the name of the dead person in the blank
+places. Then the book was buried along with his mummy, so that when he
+met the demons and serpents on the road to heaven, he would know how to
+drive them away, and when he came to gates that had to be opened, or
+rivers that had to be crossed, he would know the right magical words to
+use.</p>
+
+<p>Some of these rolls of the Book of the Dead are very beautifully
+written, and illustrated with most wonderful little coloured pictures,
+representing different scenes of life in the other world, and it is from
+these that we have learned a great deal of what the Egyptians believed
+about the judgment after death, and heaven. But the common ones are very
+carelessly done. The scribes knew that the book was going to be buried
+at once, and that nobody was likely ever to see it again; so they did
+not care much whether they made mistakes or not, and often they missed
+out parts of the book altogether. They little thought that, thousands of
+years after they were dead, scholars would dig up their writings again,
+and read them, and see all their blunders.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, a great deal of this book is dreadful rubbish, and anything
+more unlike the noble and beautiful teaching of the Bible you can
+scarcely imagine. It has no more sense in it than the "Fee! fi! foh!
+fum!" of our fairy-stories. Here is one little chapter from it. It is
+called "The Chapter of Repulsing Serpents," and the Egyptians supposed
+that when a serpent attacked you on your way to heaven, you had only to
+recite this verse, and the serpent would be powerless to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> harm you:
+"Hail, thou serpent Rerek! advance not hither. Stand still now, and thou
+shalt eat the rat which is an abomination unto Ra (the Sun-God), and
+thou shalt crunch the bones of a filthy cat."</p>
+
+<p>It sounds very silly, doesn't it? And there are many things quite as
+silly as this in the book. You can scarcely imagine how wise people like
+the Egyptians could ever have believed in such drivel. But, then, side
+by side with this miserable stuff, you find really wonderful and noble
+thoughts, that surely came to these men of ancient days from God
+Himself, telling them how every man must be judged at last for all that
+he has done on earth, and how only those who have done justly, and loved
+mercy, and walked humbly with God, will be accepted by Him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII<br /><br />
+
+TEMPLES AND TOMBS</h2>
+
+
+<p>Anyone travelling through our own land, or through any European country,
+to see the great buildings of long ago, would find that they were nearly
+all either churches or castles. There are the great cathedrals, very
+beautiful and wonderful; and there are the great buildings, sometimes
+partly palaces and partly fortresses, where Kings and nobles lived in
+bygone days. Well, if you were travelling in Egypt to see its great
+buildings, you would find a difference. There are plenty of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> churches,
+or temples, rather, and very wonderful they are; but there are no
+castles or palaces left, or, at least, there are next to none. Instead
+of palaces and castles, you would find tombs. Egypt, in fact, is a land
+of great temples and great tombs.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<a name="plate14" id="plate14"><img src="images/image14.jpg" width="600" height="407" alt="Plate 14
+
+GATEWAY OF THE TEMPLE OF EDFU. Pages 74, 75" title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">Plate 14<br />
+
+GATEWAY OF THE TEMPLE OF EDFU. <small><i>Pages 74, 75</i></small></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Now, one can see why the Egyptians built great temples; for they were a
+very religious nation, and paid great honour to their gods. But why did
+they give so much attention to their tombs? The reason is, as you will
+hear more fully in another chapter, that there never was a nation which
+believed so firmly as did the Egyptians that the life after death was
+far more important than life in this world. They built their houses, and
+even their palaces, very lightly, partly of wood and partly of clay,
+because they knew that they were only to live in them for a few years.
+But they called their tombs "eternal dwelling-places"; and they have
+made them so wonderfully that they have lasted long after all the other
+buildings of the land, except the temples, have passed away.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, let me try to give you an idea of what an Egyptian temple
+must have been like in the days of its splendour. People come from all
+parts of the world to see even the ruins of these buildings, and they
+are altogether the most astonishing buildings in the world; but they are
+now only the skeletons of what the temples once were, and scarcely give
+you any more idea of their former glory and beauty than a human skeleton
+does of the beauty of a living man or woman. Suppose, then, that we are
+coming up to the gates of a great Egyptian temple in the days when it
+was still the house of a god who was worshipped by hundreds of thousands
+of people.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As we pass out of the narrow streets of the city to which the temple
+belongs, we find ourselves standing upon a broad paved way, which
+stretches before us for hundreds of yards. On either side, this way is
+bordered by a row of statues, and these statues are in the form of what
+we call sphinxes&mdash;that is to say, they have bodies shaped like crouching
+lions, and on the lion-body there is set the head of a different
+creature. Some of the sphinxes, like the Great Sphinx, have human heads;
+but those which border the temple avenues have oftener either ram or
+jackal heads.</p>
+
+<p>As we pass along the avenue, two high towers rise before us, and between
+them is a great gateway. In front of the gate-towers are two tall
+obelisks, slender, tapering shafts of red granite, like Cleopatra's
+Needle on the Thames Embankment. They are hewn out of single blocks of
+stone, carved all over with hieroglyphic figures, polished till they
+shine like mirrors, and their pointed tops are gilded so that they flash
+brilliantly in the sunlight. Beside the obelisks, which may be from 70
+to 100 feet high, there are huge statues, perhaps two, perhaps four, of
+the King who built the temple. These statues represent the King as
+sitting upon his throne, with the double crown of Egypt, red and white,
+upon his head. They also are hewn out of single blocks of stone, and
+when you look at the huge figures you wonder how human hands could ever
+get such stones out of the quarry, sculpture them, and set them up.
+Before one of the temples of Thebes still lie the broken fragments of a
+statue of Ramses II. When it was whole the statue must have been about
+57 feet high, and the great block of granite must have weighed about
+1,000 tons&mdash;the largest single stone that was ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> handled by human
+beings. Plate 10 will give you some idea of what these huge statues
+looked like.</p>
+
+<p>Fastened to the towers are four tall flagstaves&mdash;two on either side of
+the gate&mdash;and from them float gaily-coloured pennons. The walls of the
+towers are covered with pictures of the wars of the King. Here you see
+him charging in his chariot upon his fleeing enemies; here, again, he is
+seizing a group of captives by the hair, and raising his mace or his
+sword to kill them; but whatever he is doing, he is always gigantic,
+while his foes are mere helpless human beings. All these carvings are
+brilliantly painted, and the whole front of the building glows with
+colour; it is really a kind of pictorial history of the King's reign.</p>
+
+<p>Now we stand in front of the gate. Its two leaves are made of cedar-wood
+brought from Lebanon; but you cannot see the wood at all, for it is
+overlaid with plates of silver chased with beautiful designs. Passing
+through the gateway, we find ourselves in a broad open court. All round
+it runs a kind of cloister, whose roof is supported upon tall pillars,
+their capitals carved to represent the curving leaves of the palm-tree.
+In the middle of the court there stands a tall pillar of stone,
+inscribed with the story of the great deeds of Pharaoh, and his gifts to
+the god of the temple. It is inlaid with turquoise, malachite, and
+lapis-lazuli, and sparkles with precious stones.</p>
+
+<p>At the farther side of this court, another pair of towers and another
+gateway lead you into the second court. Here we pass at once out of
+brilliant sunlight into semi-darkness; for this court is entirely roofed
+over, and no light enters it except from the doorway and from grated
+slits in the roof. Look around you,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> and you will see the biggest single
+chamber that was ever built by the hands of man. Down the centre run two
+lines of gigantic pillars which hold up the roof, and form the nave of
+the hall; and beyond these on either side are the aisles, whose roofs
+are supported by a perfect forest of smaller columns.</p>
+
+<p>Look up to the twelve great pillars of the nave. They soar above your
+head, seventy feet into the air, their capitals bending outwards in the
+shape of open flowers. On each capital a hundred men could stand safely;
+and the great stone roofing beams that stretch from pillar to pillar
+weigh a hundred tons apiece. How were they ever brought to the place?
+And, still more, how were they ever swung up to that dizzy height, and
+laid in their places? Each of the great columns is sculptured with
+figures and gaily painted, and the surrounding walls of the hall are all
+decorated in the same way. But when you look at the pictures, you find
+that it is no longer the wars of the King that are represented. The
+inside of the temple is too holy for such things. Instead, you have
+pictures of the gods, and of the King making all kinds of offerings to
+them; and these pictures are repeated again and again, with endless
+inscriptions, telling of the great gifts which Pharaoh has given to the
+temple.</p>
+
+<p>Finally we pass into the Holy of Holies. Here no light of day ever
+enters at all. The chamber, smaller and lower than either of the others,
+is in darkness except for the dim light of the lamp carried by the
+attendant priest. Here stands the shrine, a great block of granite, hewn
+into a dwelling-place for the figure of the god. It is closed with cedar
+doors covered with gold plates, and the doors are sealed; but if we
+could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> persuade the priest to let us look within, we should see a small
+wooden figure something like the one that we saw carried through the
+streets of Thebes, dressed and painted, and surrounded by offerings of
+meat, drink, and flowers. For this little figure all the glories that we
+have passed through have been created: an army of priests attends upon
+it day by day, dresses and paints it, spreads food before it, offers
+sacrifices and sings hymns in its praise.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the sanctuary lie storehouses, which hold corn and fruits and
+wines enough to supply a city in time of siege. The god is a great
+proprietor, holding more land than any of the nobles of the country. He
+has a revenue almost as great as that of Pharaoh himself. He has troops
+of his own, an army which obeys no orders but his. On the Red Sea he has
+one fleet, bringing to his temple the spices and incense of the
+Southland; and from the Nile mouths another fleet sails to bring home
+cedar-wood from Lebanon, and costly stuffs from Tyre. His priests have
+far more power than the greatest barons of the land, and Pharaoh, mighty
+as he is, would think twice before offending a band of men whose hatred
+could shake him on his throne. Such was an Egyptian temple 3,000 years
+ago, when Egypt was the greatest power in the world.</p>
+
+<p>But if the temples of ancient Egypt are wonderful, the tombs are almost
+more wonderful still. Very early in their history the Egyptians began to
+show their sense of the importance of the life after death by raising
+huge buildings to hold the bodies of their great men. Even the earliest
+Kings, who lived before there was any history at all, had great
+underground chambers scooped out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> and furnished with all sorts of things
+for their use in the after-life. But it is when we come to that King
+Khufu, who figures in the fairy-stories of Zazamankh and Dedi, that we
+begin to understand what a wonderful thing an Egyptian tomb might be.</p>
+
+<p>Not very far from Cairo, the modern capital of Egypt, a line of strange,
+pointed buildings rises against the sky on the edge of the desert. These
+are the Pyramids, the tombs of the great Kings of Egypt in early days,
+and if we want to know what Egyptian builders could do 4,000 years
+before Christ, we must look at them. Take the largest of them, the Great
+Pyramid, called the Pyramid of Cheops. Cheops is really Khufu, the King
+who was so much put out by Dedi's prophecy about Rud-didet's three
+babies. No such building was ever reared either before or since. It
+stands, even now, 450 feet in height, and before the peak was destroyed,
+it was about 30 feet higher. Each of its four sides measures over 750
+feet in length, and it covers more than twelve acres of ground, the size
+of a pretty large field. But you will get the best idea of how
+tremendous a building it is when I tell you that if you used it as a
+quarry, you could build a town, big enough to hold all the people of
+Aberdeen, out of the Great Pyramid; or if you broke up the stones of
+which it is built, and laid them in a line a foot broad and a foot deep,
+the line would reach a good deal more than halfway round the world at
+the Equator. You would have some trouble in breaking up the stones,
+however; for many of the great blocks weigh from 40 to 50 tons apiece,
+and they are so beautifully fitted to one another that you could not get
+the edge of a sheet of paper into the joints!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Inside this great mountain of stone there are long passages leading to
+two small rooms in the centre of the Pyramid; and in one of these rooms,
+called "the King's Chamber," the body of the greatest builder the world
+has ever seen was laid in its stone coffin. Then the passages were
+closed with heavy plug-blocks of stone, so that no one should ever
+disturb the sleep of King Khufu. But, in spite of all precautions,
+robbers mined their way into the Pyramid ages ago, plundered the coffin,
+and scattered to the winds the remains of the King, so that, as Byron
+says, "Not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops."</p>
+
+<p>The other pyramids are smaller, though, if the Great Pyramid had not
+been built, the Second and Third would have been counted world's
+wonders. Near the Second Pyramid sits the Great Sphinx. It is a huge
+statue, human-headed and lion-bodied, carved out of limestone rock. Who
+carved it, or whose face it bears, we do not certainly know; but there
+the great figure crouches, as it has crouched for countless ages,
+keeping watch and ward over the empty tombs where the Pharaohs of Egypt
+once slept, its head towering seventy feet into the air, its vast limbs
+and body stretching for two hundred feet along the sand, the strangest
+and most wonderful monument ever hewn by the hands of man (Plate 11).</p>
+
+<p>Later on in Egyptian history the Kings and great folk grew tired of
+building pyramids, and the fashion changed. Instead of raising huge
+structures above ground, they began to hew out caverns in the rocks in
+which to lay their dead. Round about Thebes, the rocks on the western
+side of the Nile are honeycombed with these strange houses of the
+departed. Their walls, in many cases, are decorated with bright and
+cheerful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> pictures, showing scenes of the life which the dead man lived
+on earth. There he stands, or sits, placid and happy, with his wife
+beside him, while all around him his servants go about their usual work.
+They plough and hoe, sow and reap; they gather the grapes from the vines
+and put them into the winepress; or they bring the first-fruits of the
+earth to present them before their master (Plate 15). In other pictures
+you see the great man going out to his amusements, fishing, hunting, or
+fowling; or you are taken into the town, and see the tradesmen working,
+and the merchants, and townsfolk buying and selling in the bazaars. In
+fact, the whole of life in Ancient Egypt passes before your eyes as you
+go from chamber to chamber, and it is from these old tomb-pictures that
+we have learned the most of what we know of how people lived and worked
+in those long-past days.</p>
+
+<p>In one wild rocky glen, called the "Valley of the Kings," nearly all the
+later Pharaohs were buried, and to-day their tombs are one of the sights
+of Thebes. Let us look at the finest of them&mdash;the tomb of Sety I., the
+father of that Ramses II. of whom we have heard so much. Entering the
+dark doorway in the cliff, you descend through passage after passage and
+hall after hall, until at last you reach the fourteenth chamber, "the
+gold house of Osiris," 470 feet from the entrance, where the great King
+was laid in his magnificent alabaster coffin. The walls and pillars of
+each chamber are wonderfully carved and painted. The pillars show
+pictures of the King making offerings to the gods, or being welcomed by
+them, but the pictures on the walls are very strange and weird. They
+represent the voyage of the sun through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> realms of the
+under-world, and all the dangers and difficulties which the soul of the
+dead man has to encounter as he accompanies the sun-bark on its journey.
+Serpents, bats, and crocodiles, spitting fire, or armed with spears,
+pursue the wicked. The unfortunates who fall into their power are
+tortured in all kinds of horrible ways; their hearts are torn out; their
+heads are cut off; they are boiled in caldrons, or hung head downwards
+over lakes of fire. Gradually the soul passes through all these dangers
+into the brighter scenes of the Fields of the Blessed, where the
+justified sow and reap and are happy. Finally, the King arrives,
+purified, at the end of his long journey, and is welcomed by the gods
+into the Abode of the Blessed, where he, too, dwells as a god in
+everlasting life.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 467px;">
+<a name="plate15" id="plate15"><img src="images/image15.jpg" width="467" height="700" alt="Plate 15
+
+WALL-PICTURES IN A THEBAN TOMB. Pages 80, 81" title="" /></a>
+<span class="caption">Plate 15<br />
+
+WALL-PICTURES IN A THEBAN TOMB. <small><i>Pages 80, 81</i></small></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The beautiful alabaster coffin in which the mummy of King Sety was laid
+is now in the Soane Museum, London. When it was discovered, nearly a
+century ago, it was empty, and it was not till 1872 that some modern
+tomb-robbers found the body of the King, along with other royal mummies,
+hidden away in a deep pit among the cliffs. Now it lies in the museum at
+Cairo, and you can see the face of this great King, its fine, proud
+features not so very much changed, we can well believe, from what they
+were when he reigned 3,200 years ago. In the same museum you can look
+upon the faces of Tahutmes III., the greatest soldier of Egypt; of
+Ramses II., the oppressor of the Israelites; and, perhaps most
+interesting of all, of Merenptah, the Pharaoh who hardened his heart
+when Moses pled with him to let the Hebrews go, and whose picked troops
+were drowned in the Red Sea as they pursued their escaping slaves.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is very strange to think that one can see the actual features and
+forms on which the heroes of our Bible story looked in life. The reason
+of such a thing is that the Egyptians believed that when a man died, his
+soul, which passed to the life beyond, loved to return to its old home
+on earth, and find again the body in which it once dwelt; and even,
+perhaps, that the soul's existence in the other world depended in some
+way on the preservation of the body. So they made the bodies of their
+dead friends into what we call "mummies," steeping them for many days in
+pitch and spices till they were embalmed, and then wrapping them round
+in fold upon fold of fine linen. So they have endured all these hundreds
+of years, to be stored at last in a museum, and gazed upon by people who
+live in lands which were savage wildernesses when Egypt was a great and
+mighty Empire.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII<br /><br />
+
+AN EGYPTIAN'S HEAVEN</h2>
+
+
+<p>In this chapter I want to tell you a little about what the Egyptians
+thought of heaven&mdash;what it was, where it was, how people got there after
+death, and what kind of a life they lived when they were there. They had
+some very quaint and curious ideas about the heavens themselves. They
+believed, for instance, that the blue sky overhead was something like a
+great iron<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> plate spread over the world, and supported at the four
+corners, north, south, east, and west, by high mountains. The stars were
+like little lamps, which hung down from this plate. Right round the
+world ran a great celestial river, and on this river the sun sailed day
+after day in his bark, giving light to the world. You could only see him
+as he passed round from the east by the south to the west, for after
+that the river ran behind high mountains, and the sun passed out of
+sight to sail through the world of darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the sun, and appearing after he had vanished, came the moon,
+sailing in its own bark. It was protected by two guardian eyes, which
+watched always over it (Plate 13), and it needed the protection, for
+every month it was attacked by a great enemy in the form of a sow. For a
+fortnight the moon sailed on safely, and grew fuller and rounder; but at
+the middle of the month, just when it was full, the sow attacked it,
+tore it out of its place, and flung it into the celestial river, where
+for another fortnight it was gradually extinguished, to be revived again
+at the beginning of the next month. That was the Egyptians' curious way
+of accounting for the waxing and waning of the moon, and many of their
+other ideas were just as quaint as this.</p>
+
+<p>I do not mean to say anything of what they believed about God, for they
+had so many gods, and believed such strange things about them, that it
+would only confuse you if I tried to make you understand it all. But the
+most important thing in all the Egyptian religion was the belief in
+heaven, and in the life which people lived there after their life on
+earth was ended. No other nation of these old times ever believed so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+firmly as did the Egyptians that men were immortal, and did not cease to
+be when they died, but only began a new life, which might be either
+happy or miserable, according to the way in which they had lived on
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>They had a lot of different beliefs about the life after death, some of
+them rather confusing, and difficult to understand; but I shall tell you
+only the main things and the simplest things which they believed. They
+said, then, that very long ago, when the world was young, there was a
+great and good King called Osiris, who reigned over Egypt, and was very
+good to his subjects, teaching them all kinds of useful knowledge. But
+Osiris had a wicked brother named Set, who hated him, and was jealous of
+him. One day Set invited Osiris to a supper, at which he had gathered a
+number of his friends who were in the plot with him. When they were all
+feasting gaily, he produced a beautiful chest, and offered to give it to
+the man who fitted it. One after another they lay down in the chest, but
+it fitted none of them. Then at last Osiris lay down in it, and as soon
+as he was inside, his wicked brother and the other plotters fastened the
+lid down upon him, and threw the chest into the Nile. It was carried
+away by the river, and at last was washed ashore, with the dead body of
+the good King still in it.</p>
+
+<p>But Isis, wife of Osiris, sought for her husband everywhere, and at last
+she found the chest with his body. While she was weeping over it the
+wicked Set came upon her, tore his brother's body to pieces, and
+scattered the fragments far and wide; but the faithful Isis traced them
+all, and buried them wherever she found them.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Isis had a son named Horus, and when he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> grew to manhood he
+challenged Set, fought with him, and defeated him. Then the gods all
+assembled, and gave judgment that Osiris was in the right, and Set in
+the wrong. They raised Osiris up from the dead, made him a god, and
+appointed him to be judge of all men after death. And then, not all at
+once, but gradually, the Egyptians came to believe that because Osiris
+died, and rose again from the dead, and lived for ever after death,
+therefore all those men who believed in Osiris would live again after
+death, and dwell for ever with Osiris. You see that in some respects the
+story is strangely like that of the death and resurrection of Jesus
+Christ.</p>
+
+<p>Well, then, they supposed that, when a man died on earth, after his body
+was mummified and laid in its tomb, his soul went on to the gates of the
+palace of Osiris in the other world, where was the Hall of Truth, in
+which souls were judged. The soul had to know the magic names of the
+gates before it could even enter the Hall; but as soon as these names
+were spoken the gates opened, and the soul went in. Within the Hall
+there stood a great pair of scales, and beside the scales stood a god,
+ready to mark down the result of the judgment; while all round the Hall
+sat forty-two terrible creatures, who had authority to punish particular
+sins.</p>
+
+<p>The soul had to make confession to these avengers of sin that he had not
+been guilty of the sins which they had power to punish; then, when he
+had made his confession, his heart was taken, and weighed in the scales
+against a feather, which was the Egyptian sign for truth. If it was not
+of the right weight, the man was false, and his heart was thrown to a
+dreadful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> monster, part crocodile, part hippopotamus, which sat behind
+the balances, and devoured the hearts of the unjust; but if it was
+right, then Horus, the son of Osiris, took the man by the hand, and led
+him into the presence of Osiris the Judge, and he was pronounced just,
+and admitted to heaven.</p>
+
+<p>But what was heaven? Well, the Egyptians had several different ideas
+about it. One rather pretty one was that the souls which were pronounced
+just were taken up into the sky, and there became stars, shining down
+for ever upon the world. Another was that they were permitted to enter
+the boat, in which, as I told you, the sun sails round the world day by
+day, and to keep company with the sun on his unending voyage.</p>
+
+<p>But the idea that most believed in and loved was that somewhere away in
+a mysterious land to the west, there lay a wonderful and beautiful
+country, called the Field of Bulrushes. There the corn grew three and a
+half yards high, and the ears of corn were a yard long. Through the
+fields ran lovely canals, full of fish, and bordered with reeds and
+bulrushes. When the soul had passed the Judgment Hall, it came, by
+strange, hard roads, and through great dangers, to this beautiful
+country. And there the dead man, dead now no more, but living for ever,
+spent his time in endless peace and happiness, sowing and reaping,
+paddling in his canoe along the canals, or resting and playing draughts
+in the evening under the sycamore-trees.</p>
+
+<p>Now, I suppose that all this seemed quite a happy sort of heaven to most
+of the common people, who had been accustomed all their days to hard
+work and harder fare; but by-and-by the great nobles came to think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> that
+a heaven of this sort was not quite good enough for them. They had never
+done any work on earth; why should they have to do any in heaven? So
+they thought that they would find out a way of taking their slaves with
+them into the other world. I fancy that at first they actually tried to
+take them by killing the slaves at their master's grave. When the
+funeral of a great man took place, some of his servants would be killed
+beside the tomb, so that they might go with their lord into heaven, and
+work for him there, as they had worked for him on earth.</p>
+
+<p>But the Egyptians were always a gentle, kind-hearted people, and they
+quickly grew disgusted with the idea of such cruelty, so they found
+another way out of the difficulty. They got numbers of little clay
+figures made in the form of servants&mdash;one with a hoe on his shoulder,
+another with a basket in his hand, and so on. They called these little
+figures "Answerers," and when a man was buried, they buried a lot of
+these clay servants along with him, so that, when he reached heaven, and
+was summoned to do work in the Field of Bulrushes, the Answerers would
+rise up and answer for him, and take the task off his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>So, along with the mummies of the dead Egyptians, there is often found
+quite a number of these tiny figures, all ready to make heaven easy for
+their master when he gets there. They have sometimes a little verse
+written upon them, to tell the Answerer what he has got to do in the
+other world. It runs like this:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thou Answerer, when I am called, and when I am asked to do any kind
+of work that is done in heaven, and am required at any time to cause<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+the field to flourish, or to convey the sand from east to west, thou
+shalt say, 'Here am I.'"</p>
+
+<p>It all seems rather a curious idea of heaven, does it not? And most
+curious of all is the idea of dodging work in the other world by
+carrying a bundle of china dolls to heaven with you. But, even if we
+think that very ridiculous, we need not forget that the Egyptians had a
+wonderfully clear and sure grasp of the fact that it is a man's
+character in this world which will make him either happy or unhappy in
+the next, and that evil-doing, even if it escapes punishment in this
+life, is a thing that God will surely punish at last.</p>
+
+<p>Remember that these men of old, wonderfully wise and strong as they were
+in many ways, were still the children of the time when the world was
+young; like children, forming many false and even ridiculous ideas about
+things they could not understand; like children, too, reaching out their
+groping hands through the darkness to a Father whose love they felt,
+though they could not explain His ways. We need not wonder if at times
+they made mistakes, and went far astray. We may wonder far more at the
+way in which He taught them so many true and noble things and thoughts,
+never leaving Himself without a witness even in those days of long ago.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>The End.</h3>
+
+
+<p class='center'><small>PRINTED AT THE COMPLETE PRESS WEST NORWOOD LONDON</small></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt, by James Baikie
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+Project Gutenberg's Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt, by James Baikie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt
+
+Author: James Baikie
+
+Illustrator: Constance Baikie
+
+Release Date: September 29, 2007 [EBook #22799]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEEPS AT MANY LANDS: ANCIENT EGYPT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Geetu Melwani, Bruce Albrecht and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+      PEEPS AT
+      MANY LANDS
+
+     ANCIENT EGYPT
+
+
+    [Illustration: PLATE 1.
+     AN EGYPTIAN GALLEY.]
+
+
+
+
+     PEEPS AT MANY LANDS
+
+     ANCIENT
+     EGYPT
+
+     BY
+     REV. JAMES BAIKIE, F.R.A.S.
+
+     AUTHOR OF "PEEPS AT THE HEAVENS," "THE STORY OF
+     THE PHARAOHS," "THE SEA KINGS OF CRETE," ETC.
+
+     WITH SIXTEEN FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS,
+     THOSE IN COLOUR BEING BY
+     CONSTANCE N. BAIKIE
+
+     A. & C. BLACK, LTD.
+     4, 5 & 6, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.
+     1916
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+     _First published October 1912_
+     _Reprinted January and April 1916_
+
+
+     AGENTS
+
+     AMERICA       THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+                   64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
+
+     AUSTRALASIA   OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
+                   205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE
+
+     CANADA        THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD.
+                   ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE, 70 BOND STREET, TORONTO
+
+     INDIA         MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD.
+                   Macmillan Building, BOMBAY
+                   309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA
+
+     _Printed in Great Britain._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+          CONTENTS
+
+          CHAPTER                        PAGE
+
+       I. A LAND OF OLD RENOWN             1
+      II. A DAY IN THEBES                  6
+     III. A DAY IN THEBES (_continued_)   11
+      IV. PHARAOH AT HOME                 17
+       V. THE LIFE OF A SOLDIER           24
+      VI. CHILD-LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT     33
+     VII. SOME FAIRY-TALES OF LONG AGO    41
+    VIII. SOME FAIRY-TALES OF LONG AGO
+                        (_continued_)     47
+      IX. EXPLORING THE SOUDAN            54
+       X. A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY           59
+      XI. EGYPTIAN BOOKS                  66
+     XII. TEMPLES AND TOMBS               72
+    XIII. AN EGYPTIAN'S HEAVEN            82
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+     LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+     PLATE
+
+  *1. AN EGYPTIAN GALLEY, 1500 B.C.                      _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                            FACING PAGE
+
+   2. THE GODDESS ISIS DANDLING THE KING                              9
+
+   3. THE GREAT GATE OF THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR, WITH OBELISK            16
+
+  *4. RAMSES II. IN HIS WAR-CHARIOT--SARDINIAN GUARDSMEN ON FOOT     25
+
+  *5. ZAZAMANKH AND THE LOST CORONET                                 32
+
+   6. GRANITE STATUE OF RAMSES II.                                   35
+
+   7. NAVE OF THE TEMPLE AT KARNAK                                   38
+
+  *8. "AND THE GOOSE STOOD UP AND CACKLED"                           41
+
+  *9. AN EGYPTIAN COUNTRY HOUSE                                      48
+
+  10. STATUES OF KING AMENHOTEP III.                                 51
+
+  11. THE SPHINX AND THE SECOND PYRAMID                              54
+
+ *12. A DESERT POSTMAN                                               57
+
+ *13. THE BARK OF THE MOON, GUARDED BY THE DIVINE EYES               64
+
+  14. GATEWAY OF THE TEMPLE OF EDFU                                  73
+
+  15. WALL-PICTURES IN A THEBAN TOMB                                 80
+
+ *16. PHARAOH ON HIS THRONE                                          20
+
+    _Sketch-Map of Ancient Egypt on page viii_
+
+ * These eight illustrations are in colour; the others are in black
+      and white.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF ANCIENT EGYPT.]
+
+
+ANCIENT EGYPT
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"A LAND OF OLD RENOWN"
+
+
+If we were asked to name the most interesting country in the world, I
+suppose that most people would say Palestine--not because there is
+anything so very wonderful in the land itself, but because of all the
+great things that have happened there, and above all because of its
+having been the home of our Lord. But after Palestine, I think that
+Egypt would come next. For one thing, it is linked very closely to
+Palestine by all those beautiful stories of the Old Testament, which
+tell us of Joseph, the slave-boy who became Viceroy of Egypt; of Moses,
+the Hebrew child who became a Prince of Pharaoh's household; and of the
+wonderful exodus of the Children of Israel.
+
+But besides that, it is a land which has a most strange and wonderful
+story of its own. No other country has so long a history of great Kings,
+and wise men, and brave soldiers; and in no other country can you see
+anything to compare with the great buildings, some of them most
+beautiful, all of them most wonderful, of which Egypt has so many. We
+have some old and interesting buildings in this country, and people go
+far to see cathedrals and castles that are perhaps five or six hundred
+years old, or even more; but in Egypt, buildings of that age are looked
+upon as almost new, and nobody pays very much attention to them. For the
+great temples and tombs of Egypt were, many of them, hundreds of years
+old before the story of our Bible, properly speaking, begins.
+
+The Pyramids, for instance, those huge piles that are still the wonder
+of the world, were far older than any building now standing in Europe,
+before Joseph was sold to be a slave in Potiphar's house. Hundreds upon
+hundreds of years before anyone had ever heard of the Greeks and the
+Romans, there were great Kings reigning in Egypt, sending out their
+armies to conquer Syria and the Soudan, and their ships to explore the
+unknown southern seas, and wise men were writing books which we can
+still read. When Britain was a wild, unknown island, inhabited only by
+savages as fierce and untaught as the South Sea Islanders, Egypt was a
+great and highly civilized country, full of great cities, with noble
+palaces and temples, and its people were wise and learned.
+
+So in this little book I want to tell you something about this wonderful
+and interesting old country, and about the kind of life that people
+lived in it in those days of long ago, before most other lands had begun
+to waken up, or to have any history at all. First of all, let us try to
+get an idea of the land itself. It is a very remarkable thing that so
+many of the countries which have played a great part in the history of
+the world have been small countries. Our own Britain is not very big,
+though it has had a great story. Palestine, which has done more than any
+other country to make the world what it is to-day, was called "the least
+of all lands." Greece, whose influence comes, perhaps, next after that
+of Palestine, is only a little hilly corner of Southern Europe. And
+Egypt, too, is comparatively a small land.
+
+It looks a fair size when you see it on the map; but you have to
+remember that nearly all the land which is called Egypt on the map is
+barren sandy desert, or wild rocky hill-country, where no one can live.
+The real Egypt is just a narrow strip of land on either side of the
+great River Nile, sometimes only a mile or two broad altogether, never
+more than thirty miles broad, except near the mouth of the river, where
+it widens out into the fan-shaped plain called the Delta. Someone has
+compared Egypt to a lily with a crooked stem, and the comparison is very
+true. The long winding valley of the Nile is the crooked stem of the
+lily, and the Delta at the Nile mouth, with its wide stretch of fertile
+soil, is the flower; while, just below the flower, there is a little
+bud--a fertile valley called the Fayum.
+
+Long before even Egyptian history begins, there was no bloom on the
+lily. The Nile, a far bigger river then than it is now, ran into the sea
+near Cairo, the modern capital of Egypt; and the land was nothing but
+the narrow valley of the river, bordered on either side by desert hills.
+But gradually, century by century, the Nile cut its way deeper down into
+the land, leaving banks of soil on either side between itself and the
+hills, and the mud which it brought down in its waters piled up at its
+mouth and pressed the sea back, till, at last, the Delta was formed,
+much as we see it now. This was long before Egypt had any story of its
+own; but even after history begins the Delta was still partly marshy
+land, not long reclaimed from the sea, and the real Egyptians of the
+valley despised the people who lived there as mere marsh-dwellers. Even
+after the Delta was formed, the whole country was only about twice as
+large as Wales, and, though there was a great number of people in it for
+its size, the population was only, at the most, about twice as great as
+that of London.
+
+An old Greek historian once said, "Egypt is the gift of the Nile," and
+it is perfectly true. We have seen how the great river made the country
+to begin with, cutting out the narrow valley through the hills, and
+building up the flat plain of the Delta. But the Nile has not only made
+the country; it keeps it alive. You know that Egypt has always been one
+of the most fertile lands in the world. Almost anything will grow there,
+and it produces wonderful crops of corn and vegetables, and, nowadays,
+of cotton. It was the same in old days. When Rome was the capital of the
+world, she used to get most of the corn to feed her hungry thousands
+from Egypt by the famous Alexandrian corn-ships; and you remember how,
+in the Bible story, Joseph's brethren came down from Palestine because,
+though there was famine there, there was "corn in Egypt." And yet Egypt
+is a land where rain is almost unknown. Sometimes there will come a
+heavy thunder-shower; but for month after month, year in and year out,
+there may be no rain at all.
+
+How can a rainless country grow anything? The secret is the Nile. Every
+year, when the rains fall in the great lake-basin of Central Africa,
+from which one branch of the great river comes, and on the Abyssinian
+hills, where the other branch rises, the Nile comes down in flood. All
+the lower lands are covered, and a fresh deposit of Nile mud is left
+upon them; and, though the river does not rise to the higher grounds,
+the water is led into big canals, and these, again, are divided up into
+little ones, till it circulates through the whole land, as the blood
+circulates through your arteries and veins. This keeps the land fertile,
+and makes up for the lack of rain.
+
+Apart from its wonderful river, the country itself has no very striking
+features. It is rather a monotonous land--a long ribbon of green running
+through a great waste of yellow desert and barren hills. But the great
+charm that draws people's minds to Egypt, and gives the old land a
+never-failing interest, is its great story of the past, and all the
+relics of that story which are still to be seen.
+
+In no other land can you see the real people and things of the days of
+long ago as you can see them in Egypt. Think how we should prize an
+actual building that had been connected with the story of King Arthur,
+if such a thing could be found in our country, and what wonderful
+romance would belong to the weapons, the actual shields and helmets,
+swords and lances, of the Knights of the Round Table, Lancelot and
+Tristram and Galahad--if only we could find them. Out there in Egypt you
+can see buildings compared with which King Arthur's Camelot would be
+only a thing of yesterday; and you can look, not only on the weapons,
+but on the actual faces and forms of great Kings and soldiers who lived,
+and fought bravely for their country, hundreds of years before Saul and
+Jonathan and David began to fight the battles of Israel. You can see the
+pictures of how people lived in those far-away days, how their houses
+were built, how they traded and toiled, how they amused themselves, how
+they behaved in time of sorrow, how they worshipped God--all set down by
+themselves at the very time when they were doing these things. You can
+even see the games at which the children used to play, and the queer
+old-fashioned toys and dolls that they played with, and you can read the
+stories which their mothers and their nurses used to tell them.
+
+These are the things which make this old land of Egypt so interesting to
+us all to-day; and I want to try to tell you about some of them, so that
+you may be able to have in your mind's eye a real picture of the life of
+those long past days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A DAY IN THEBES
+
+
+If any foreigner were wanting to get an idea of our country, and to see
+how our people live, I suppose the first place that he would go to would
+be London, because it is the capital of the whole country, and its
+greatest city; and so, if we want to learn something about Egypt, and
+how people lived there in those far-off days, we must try to get to the
+capital of the country, and see what is to be seen there.
+
+Suppose, then, that we are no longer living in Britain in the twentieth
+century, but that somehow or other we have got away back into the past,
+far beyond the days of Jesus Christ, beyond even the times of Moses,
+and are living about 1,300 years before Christ. We have come from Tyre
+in a Phoenician galley, laden with costly bales of cloth dyed with
+Tyrian purple, and beautiful vessels wrought in bronze and copper, to
+sell in the markets of Thebes, the greatest city in Egypt. We have
+coasted along past Carmel and Joppa, and, after narrowly escaping being
+driven in a storm on the dangerous quicksand called the Syrtis, we have
+entered one of the mouths of the Nile. We have taken up an Egyptian
+pilot at the river mouth, and he stands on a little platform at the bow
+of the galley, and shouts his directions to the steersmen, who work the
+two big rudders, one on either side of the ship's stern. The north wind
+is blowing strongly and driving us swiftly upstream, in spite of the
+current of the great river; so our weary oarsmen have shipped their
+oars, and we drive steadily southwards under our one big swelling sail.
+
+At first we sail along through a broad flat plain, partly cultivated,
+and partly covered with marsh and marsh plants. By-and-by the green
+plain begins to grow narrower; we are coming to the end of the Delta,
+and entering upon the real valley of Egypt. Soon we pass a great city,
+its temples standing out clear against the deep blue sky, with their
+towering gateways, gay flags floating from tall flagstaves in front of
+them, and great obelisks pointing to the sky; and our pilot says that
+this is Memphis, one of the oldest towns in the country, and for long
+its capital. Not far from Memphis, three great pyramid-shaped masses of
+stone rise up on the river-bank, looking almost like mountains; and the
+pilot tells us that these are the tombs of some of the great Kings of
+long past days, and that all around them lie smaller pyramids and other
+tombs of Kings and great men.
+
+But we are bound for a city greater even than Memphis, and so we never
+stop, but hasten always southward. Several days of steady sailing carry
+us past many towns that cluster near the river, past one ruined city,
+falling into mere heaps of stone and brick, which our pilot tells us was
+once the capital of a wicked King who tried to cast down all the old
+gods of Egypt, and to set up a new god of his own; and at last we see,
+far ahead of us, a huge cluster of buildings on both sides of the river,
+which marks a city greater than we have ever seen.
+
+As we sweep up the river we see that there are really two cities. On the
+east bank lies the city of the living, with its strong walls and towers,
+its enormous temples, and an endless crowd of houses of all sorts and
+sizes, from the gay palaces of the nobles to the mud huts of the poor
+people. On the west bank lies the city of the dead. It has neither
+streets nor palaces, and no hum of busy life goes up from it; but it is
+almost more striking than its neighbour across the river. The hills and
+cliffs are honeycombed with long rows of black openings, the doorways of
+the tombs where the dead of Thebes for centuries back are sleeping. Out
+on the plain, between the cliffs and the river, temple rises after
+temple in seemingly endless succession. Some of these temples are small
+and partly ruined, but some are very great and splendid; and, as the
+sunlight strikes upon them, it sends back flashes of gold and crimson
+and blue that dazzle the eyes.
+
+[Illustration: Plate 2
+THE GODDESS ISIS DANDLING THE KING. _Page 18_]
+
+But now our galley is drawing in towards the quay on the east side of
+the river, and in a few minutes the great sail comes thundering down,
+and, as the ship drifts slowly up to the quay, the mooring-ropes are
+thrown and made fast, and our long voyage is at an end. The Egyptian
+Custom-house officers come on board to examine the cargo, and collect
+the dues that have to be paid on it; and we watch them with interest,
+for they are quite different in appearance from our own hook-nosed,
+bearded sailors, with their thick many-coloured cloaks. These Egyptians
+are all clean shaven; some of them wear wigs, and some have their hair
+cut straight across their brows, while it falls thickly behind upon
+their necks in a multitude of little curls, which must have taken them
+no small trouble to get into order. Most wear nothing but a kilt of
+white linen; but the chief officer has a fine white cloak thrown over
+his shoulders; his linen kilt is stiffly starched, so that it stands out
+almost like a board where it folds over in front, and he wears a gilded
+girdle with fringed ends which hang down nearly to his knees. In his
+right hand he carries a long stick, which he is not slow to lay over the
+shoulders of his men when they do not obey his orders fast enough.
+
+After a good deal of hot argument, the amount of the tax is settled and
+paid, and we are free to go up into the great town. We have not gone far
+before we find that life in Thebes can be quite exciting. A great noise
+is heard from one of the narrow riverside streets, and a crowd of men
+comes rushing up with shouts and oaths. Ahead of them runs a single
+figure, whose writing-case, stuck in his girdle, marks him out as a
+scribe. He is almost at his last gasp, for he is stout and not
+accustomed to running; and he is evidently fleeing for his life, for the
+men behind him--rough, half-naked, ill-fed creatures of the working
+class--are chasing him with cries of anger, and a good deal of
+stone-throwing. Bruised and bleeding, he darts up to the gate of a
+handsome house whose garden-wall faces the street. He gasps out a word
+to the porter, and is quickly passed into the garden. The gate is
+slammed and bolted in the faces of his pursuers, who form a ring round
+it, shouting and shaking their fists.
+
+In a little while the gate is cautiously unbarred, and a fine-looking
+man, very richly dressed, and followed by half a dozen well-armed negro
+guards, steps forward, and asks the workmen why they are here, making
+such a noise, and why they have chased and beaten his secretary. He is
+Prince Paser, who has charge of the Works Department of the Theban
+Government, and the workmen are masons employed on a large job in the
+cemetery of Thebes. They all shout at once in answer to the Prince's
+question; but by-and-by they push forward a spokesman, and he begins,
+rather sheepishly at first, but warming up as he goes along, to make
+their complaint to the great man.
+
+He and his mates, he says, have been working for weeks. They have had no
+wages; they have not even had the corn and oil which ought to be issued
+as rations to Government workmen. So they have struck work, and now they
+have come to their lord the Prince to entreat him either to give command
+that the rations be issued, or, if his stores are exhausted, to appeal
+to Pharaoh. "We have been driven here by hunger and thirst; we have no
+clothes, we have no oil, we have no food. Write to our lord the Pharaoh,
+that he may give us something for our sustenance." When the spokesman
+has finished his complaint, the whole crowd volubly assents to what he
+has said, and sways to and fro in a very threatening manner.
+
+Prince Paser, however, is an old hand at dealing with such complaints.
+With a smiling face he promises that fifty sacks of corn shall be sent
+to the cemetery immediately, with oil to correspond. Only the workmen
+must go back to their work at once, and there must be no more chasing of
+poor Secretary Amen-nachtu. Otherwise, he can do nothing. The workmen
+grumble a little. They have been put off with promises before, and have
+got little good of them. But they have no leader bold enough to start a
+riot, and they have no weapons, and the spears and bows of the Prince's
+Nubians look dangerous. Finally they turn, and disappear, grumbling,
+down the street from which they came; and Prince Paser, with a shrug of
+his shoulders, goes indoors again. Whether the fifty sacks of corn are
+ever sent or not, is another matter. Strikes, you see, were not unknown,
+even so long ago as this.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A DAY IN THEBES--_Continued_
+
+
+Having seen the settlement of the masons' strike, we wander up into the
+heart of the town. The streets are generally narrow and winding, and
+here and there the houses actually meet overhead, so that we pass out of
+the blinding sunlight into a sort of dark tunnel. Some of the houses
+are large and high; but even the largest make no display towards the
+street. They will be fine enough inside, with bright courts surrounded
+with trees, in the midst of which lies a cool pond of water, and with
+fine rooms decorated with gay hangings; but their outer walls are almost
+absolutely blank, with nothing but a heavy door breaking the dead line.
+We pass by some quarters where there is nothing but a crowd of mud huts,
+packed so closely together that there is only room for a single
+foot-passenger to thread his way through the narrow alleys between them.
+These are the workmen's quarters, and the heat and smell in them are so
+overpowering that one wonders how people can live in such places.
+
+By-and-by we come out into a more open space--one of the bazaars of the
+city--where business is in full swing. The shops are little shallow
+booths quite open to the front; and all the goods are spread out round
+the shopkeeper, who squats cross-legged in the middle of his property,
+ready to serve his customers, and invites the attention of the
+passers-by by loud explanations of the goodness and cheapness of his
+wares. All sorts of people are coming and going, for a Theban crowd
+holds representatives of nearly every nation known. Here are the
+townsfolk, men and women, out to buy supplies for their houses, or to
+exchange the news of the day; peasants from the villages round about,
+bringing in vegetables and cattle to barter for the goods which can only
+be got in the town; fine ladies and gentlemen, dressed elaborately in
+the latest Court fashion, with carefully curled wigs, long pleated robes
+of fine transparent linen, and dainty, brightly-coloured sandals turned
+up at the toes. At one moment you rub shoulders with a Hittite from
+Kadesh, a conspicuous figure, with his high-peaked cap, pale complexion,
+and heavy, pointed boots. He looks round him curiously, as if thinking
+that Thebes would be a splendid town to plunder. Then a priest of high
+rank goes by, with shaven head, a panther skin slung across his shoulder
+over his white robe, and a roll of papyrus in his hand. A Sardinian of
+the bodyguard swaggers along behind him, the ball and horns on his
+helmet flashing in the sunlight, his big sword swinging in its sheath as
+he walks; and a Libyan bowman, with two bright feathers in his leather
+skull-cap, looks disdainfully at him as he shoulders his way through the
+crowd.
+
+All around us people are buying and selling. Money, as we know it, has
+not yet been invented, and nearly all the trade is done by means of
+exchange. When it comes to be a question of how many fish have to be
+given for a bed, or whether a load of onions is good value for a chair,
+you can imagine that there has to be a good deal of argument. Besides,
+the Egyptian dearly loves bargaining for the mere excitement of the
+thing, and so the clatter of tongues is deafening. Here and there one or
+two traders have advanced a little beyond the old-fashioned way of
+barter, and offer, instead of goods, so many rings of copper, silver, or
+gold wire. A peasant who has brought in a bullock to sell is offered 90
+copper "uten" (as the rings are called) for it; but he loudly protests
+that this is robbery, and after a long argument he screws the merchant
+up to 111 "uten," with 8 more as a luck-penny, and the bargain is
+clinched. Even then the rings have still to be weighed that he may be
+sure he is not being cheated. So a big pair of balances is brought out;
+the "uten" are heaped into one scale, and in the other are piled weights
+in the shape of bulls' heads. Finally, he is satisfied, and picks up his
+bag of rings; but the wily merchant is not done with him yet. He spreads
+out various tempting bargains before the eyes of the countryman, and,
+before the latter leaves the shop, most of the copper rings have found
+their way back again to the merchant's sack.
+
+A little farther on, the Tyrian traders, to whom the cargo of our galley
+is consigned, have their shop. Screens, made of woven grass, shelter it
+from the sun, and under their shade all sorts of gorgeous stuffs are
+displayed, glowing with the deep rich colours, of which the Tyrians
+alone have the secret since the sack of Knossos destroyed the trade of
+Crete. Beyond the Tyrian booth, a goldsmith is busily employed in his
+shop. Necklets and bracelets of gold and silver, beautifully inlaid with
+all kinds of rich colours, hang round him; and he is hard at work, with
+his little furnace and blowpipe, putting the last touches to the welding
+of a bracelet, for which a lady is patiently waiting.
+
+In one corner of the bazaar stands a house which makes no display of
+wares, but, nevertheless, seems to secure a constant stream of
+customers. Workmen slink in at the door, as though half ashamed of
+themselves, and reappear, after a little, wiping their mouths, and not
+quite steady in their gait. A young man, with pale and haggard face,
+swaggers past and goes in, and, as he enters the door, one bystander
+nudges another and remarks: "Pentuere is going to have a good day again;
+he will come to a bad end, that young man."
+
+By-and-by the door opens again, and Pentuere comes out staggering. He
+looks vacantly round, and tries to walk away; but his legs refuse to
+carry him, and, after a stumble or two, he falls in a heap and lies in
+the road, a pitiful sight. The passers-by jeer and laugh at him as he
+lies helpless; but one decent-looking man points him out to his young
+son, and says: "See this fellow, my son, and learn not to drink beer to
+excess. Thou dost fall and break thy limbs, and bespatter thyself with
+mud, like a crocodile, and no one reaches out a hand to thee. Thy
+comrades go on drinking, and say, 'Away with this fellow, who is drunk.'
+If anyone should seek thee on business, thou art found lying in the dust
+like a little child."
+
+But in spite of much wise advice, the Egyptian, though generally
+temperate, is only too fond of making "a good day," as he calls it, at
+the beerhouse. Even fine ladies sometimes drink too much at their great
+parties, and have to be carried away very sick and miserable. Worst of
+all, the very judges of the High Court have been known to take a day off
+during the hearing of a long case, in order to have a revel with the
+criminals whom they were trying; and it is not so long since two of them
+had their noses cut off, as a warning to the rest against such shameful
+conduct.
+
+Sauntering onwards, we gradually get near to the sacred quarter of the
+town, and can see the towering gateways and obelisks of the great
+temples over the roofs of the houses. Soon a great crowd comes towards
+us, and the sounds of trumpets and flutes are heard coming from the
+midst of it. Inquiring what is the meaning of the bustle, we are told
+that one of the images of Amen, the great god of Thebes, is being
+carried in procession as a preliminary to an important service which is
+to take place in the afternoon, and at which the King is going to
+preside. Stepping back under the doorway of a house, we watch the
+procession go past. After a group of musicians and singers, and a number
+of women who are dancing as they go, and shaking curious metal rattles,
+there comes a group of six men, who form the centre of the whole crowd,
+and on whom the eyes of all are fixed.
+
+They are tall, spare, keen-looking men, their heads clean shaven, their
+bodies wrapped in pure white robes of the beautiful Egyptian linen. On
+their shoulders they carry, by means of two long poles, a model of a
+Nile boat, in the midst of which rises a little shrine. The shrine is
+carefully draped round with a veil, so as to hide the god from curious
+eyes. But just in front of the doorway where we are standing a small
+stone pillar rises from the roadway, and when the bearers come to this
+point, the bark of the god is rested on the top of the pillar. Two
+censer-bearers come forward, and swing their censers, wafting clouds of
+incense round the shrine; a priest lifts up his voice, loudly intoning a
+hymn of praise to the great god who creates and sustains all things; and
+a few of the by-standers lay before the bark offerings of flowers,
+fruit, and eatables of various kinds. Then comes the solemn moment. Amid
+breathless silence, the veil of the shrine is slowly drawn aside, and
+the faithful can see a little wooden image, about 18 inches high,
+adorned with tall plumes, carefully dressed, and painted with green and
+black. The revelation of this little doll, to a Theban crowd the most
+sacred object in all the world, is hailed with shouts of wonder and
+reverence. Then the veil is drawn again, the procession passes on,
+and the streets are left quiet for awhile.
+
+[Illustration: Plate 3
+THE GREAT GATE OF THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR, WITH OBELISK. _Pages 74, 75_]
+
+We are reminded that, if we wish to get a meal before starting out to
+see Pharaoh passing in procession to the temple, we had better lose no
+time, and so we turn our faces riverwards again, and wander down through
+the endless maze of streets to where our galley is moored at the quay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PHARAOH AT HOME
+
+
+The time is coming on now for the King to go in state to the great
+temple at Karnak to offer sacrifice, and as we go up to the palace to
+see him come forth in all his glory, let me tell you a little about him
+and the kind of life he leads. Pharaoh, of course, is not his real name;
+it is not even his official title; it is just a word which is used to
+describe a person who is so great that people scarcely venture to call
+him by his proper name. Just as the Turks nowadays speak of the "Sublime
+Porte," when they mean the Sultan and his Government, so the Egyptians
+speak of "Per-o," or Pharaoh, as we call it, which really signifies
+"Great House," when they mean the King.
+
+For the King of Egypt is a very great man indeed; in fact, his people
+look upon him, and he looks upon himself, as something more than a man.
+There are many gods in Egypt; but the god whom the people know best,
+and to whom they pay the most reverence, is their King. Ever since there
+have been Kings in the country, and that is a very long time now, the
+reigning monarch has been looked upon as a kind of god manifest in the
+flesh. He calls himself "Son of the Sun"; in the temples you will see
+pictures of his childhood, where great goddesses dandle the young god
+upon their knees (Plate 2). Divine honours are paid, and sacrifices
+offered to him; and when he dies, and goes to join his brother-gods in
+heaven, a great temple rises to his memory, and hosts of priests are
+employed in his worship. There is just one distinction made between him
+and the other gods. Amen at Thebes, Ptah at Memphis, and all the rest of
+the crowd of divinities, are called "the great gods." Pharaoh takes a
+different title. He is called "the good god."
+
+At present "the good god" is Ramses II. Of course, that is only one part
+of his name; for, like all the other Pharaohs, he has a list of titles
+that would fill a page. His subjects in Thebes have not seen very much
+of him for a long time, for there has been so much to do away in Syria,
+that he has built another capital at Tanis, which the Hebrews call Zoan,
+down between the Delta and the eastern frontier, and spends most of his
+time there. People who have been down the river tell us great wonders
+about the beauty of the new town, its great temple, and the huge statue
+of the King, 90 feet high, which stands before the temple gate. But
+Thebes is still the centre of the nation's life, and now, when it is
+growing almost certain that there will be another war with those vile
+Hittites in the North of Syria, he has come up to the great city to
+take counsel with his brother-god, Amen, and to make arrangements for
+gathering his army. The royal palace is in a constant bustle, with
+envoys coming and going, and counsellors and generals continually
+passing in and out with reports and orders.
+
+Outside, the palace is not so very imposing. The Egyptians built their
+temples to last for ever; but the palaces of their Kings were meant to
+serve only for a short time. The new King might not care for the old
+King's home, and so each Pharaoh builds his house according to his own
+taste, of light materials. It will serve his turn, and his successor may
+build another for himself. A high wall, with battlements, towers, and
+heavy gates, surrounds it; for, though Pharaoh is a god, his subjects
+are sometimes rather difficult to keep in order. Plots against the King
+have not been unknown in the past; and on at least one occasion, a great
+Pharaoh of bygone days had to spring from his couch and fight
+single-handed for his life against a crowd of conspirators who had
+forced an entrance into the palace while he was enjoying his siesta. So
+since then Pharaoh has found it better to trust in his strong walls, and
+in the big broadswords of his faithful Sardinian guardsmen, than in any
+divinity that may belong to himself.
+
+Within the great boundary wall lie pleasant gardens, gay with all sorts
+of flowers, and an artificial lake shows its gleaming water here and
+there through the trees and shrubs. The palace itself is all glittering
+white stucco on the outside. A high central door leads into a great
+audience hall, glowing with colour, its roof supported by painted
+pillars in the form of lotus-stalks; and on either side of this lie two
+smaller halls. Behind the audience chamber are two immense
+dining-rooms, and behind these come the sleeping apartments of the
+numerous household. Ramses has a multitude of wives, and a whole army of
+sons and daughters, and it takes no small space to house them all. The
+bedroom of the great King himself stands apart from the other rooms, and
+is surrounded by banks of flowers in full bloom.
+
+The Son of the Sun has had a busy day already. He has had many letters
+and despatches to read and consider. Some of the Syrian vassal-princes
+have sent clay tablets, covered with their curious arrow-headed writing,
+giving news of the advance of the Hittites, and imploring the help of
+the Egyptian army; and now the King is about to give audience, and to
+consider these with his great nobles and Generals. At one end of the
+reception hall stands a low balcony, supported on gaily-painted wooden
+pillars which end in capitals of lotus-flowers. The front of this
+balcony is overlaid with gold, and richly decorated with turquoise and
+lapis lazuli. Here the King will show himself to his subjects,
+accompanied by his favourite wife, Queen Nefertari, and some of the
+young Princes and Princesses. The folding doors of the audience chamber
+are thrown open, and the barons, the provincial governors, and the high
+officers of the army and the State throng in to do homage to their
+master.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In a few moments the glittering crowd is duly arranged, a door opens at
+the back of the balcony, and the King of the Two Lands, Lord of the
+Vulture and the Snake, steps forth with his Queen and family. In earlier
+times, whenever the King appeared, the assembled nobles were expected to
+fall on their faces and kiss the ground before him. Fashion has
+changed, however, and now the great folks, at all events, are no longer
+required to "smell the earth." As Pharaoh enters the balcony, the nobles
+bow profoundly, and raise their arms as if in prayer to "the good god."
+Then, in silent reverence, they wait until it shall please their lord to
+speak.
+
+Ramses sweeps his glance over the crowd, singles out the General in
+command of the Theban troops, and puts a question to him as to the
+readiness of his division--the picked division of the army. The soldier
+steps forward with a deep bow; but it is not Court manners for him to
+answer his lord's question directly. Instead, he begins by reciting a
+little psalm of praise, which tells of the King's greatness, his valour
+and skill in war, and asserts that wherever his horses tread his enemies
+flee before him and perish. This little piece of flattery over, the
+General begins, "O King, my master," and in a few sensible words gives
+the information required. So the audience goes on, counsellor after
+counsellor coming forward at the royal command, reciting his little
+hymn, and then giving his opinion on such matters as his master suggests
+to him. At last the council is over, the King gives orders to his
+equerry to prepare his chariot for the procession to the temple, and, as
+he turns to leave the audience chamber, the assembled nobles once more
+bow profoundly, and raise their arms in adoration.
+
+After a short delay, the great gates of the boundary wall of the palace
+are opened; a company of spearmen, in quilted leather kilts and leather
+skull-caps, marches out, and takes position a short distance from the
+gateway. Behind them comes a company of the Sardinians of the guard,
+heavily armed, with bright helmets, broad round shields, quilted
+corselets, and long, heavy, two-edged swords. They range themselves on
+either side of the roadway, and stand like statues, waiting for the
+appearance of Pharaoh. There is a whir of chariot-wheels, and the royal
+chariot sweeps through the gateway, and sets off at a good round pace
+towards the temple. The spearmen in front start at the double, and the
+guardsmen, in spite of their heavy equipment, keep pace with their royal
+master on either side.
+
+The waiting crowd bows to the dust as the sovereign passes; but Pharaoh
+looks neither to the right hand nor to the left. He stands erect and
+impassive in the swaying chariot, holding the crook and whip which are
+the Egyptian royal emblems. On his head he wears the royal war helmet,
+in the front of which a golden cobra rears its crest from its coils, as
+if to threaten the enemies of Egypt. His finely-shaped, swarthy features
+are adorned, or disfigured, by an artificial beard, which is fastened on
+by a strap passing up in front of the ears. His tall slender body is
+covered, above his corselet, with a robe of fine white linen, a perfect
+wonder of pleating; and round his waist passes a girdle of gold and
+green enamel, whose ends cross and hang down almost to his knees,
+terminating in two threatening cobra heads (Plate 4 and Cover Picture).
+On either side of him run the fan-bearers, who manage, by a miracle of
+skill and activity, to keep their great gaily-coloured fans of perfumed
+ostrich feathers waving round the royal head even as they run.
+
+Behind the King comes a long train of other chariots, only less splendid
+than that of Ramses. In the first stands Queen Nefertari, languidly
+sniffing at a lotus-flower as she passes on. The others are filled by
+some of the Princes of the blood, who are going to take part in the
+ceremony at the temple, chief among them the wizard Prince Khaemuas, the
+greatest magician in Egypt, who has spells that can bring the dead from
+their graves. Some in the crowd shrink from his keen eye, and mutter
+that the papyrus roll which he holds so close to his breast was taken
+from the grave of another magician Prince of ancient days, and that
+Khaemuas will know no peace till it is restored. In a few minutes the
+whole brilliant train has passed, dazzling the eyes with a blaze of gold
+and white and scarlet; and crowds of courtiers stream after their
+master, as fast as their feet can carry them, towards Karnak. You have
+seen, if only for a moment, the greatest man on earth--the Great
+Oppressor of Hebrew story. Very mighty and very proud he is; and he does
+not dream that the little Hebrew boy whom his daughter has adopted, and
+who is being trained in the priestly college at Heliopolis, will one day
+humble all the pride of Egypt, and that the very name of Ramses shall be
+best remembered because it is linked with that of Moses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE LIFE OF A SOLDIER
+
+
+When you read about the Egyptians in the Bible, it seems as though they
+were nearly always fighting; and, indeed, they did a good deal of
+fighting in their time, as nearly every nation did in those old days.
+But in reality they were not a great soldier people, like their rivals
+the Assyrians, or the Babylonians. We, who have had so much to do with
+their descendants, the modern Egyptians, and have fought both against
+them and with them, know that the "Gippy" is not fond of soldiering in
+his heart. He makes a very good, patient, hardworking soldier when he
+has good officers; but he is not like the Soudanese, who love fighting
+for fighting's sake. He much prefers to live quietly in his own native
+village, and cultivate his own bit of ground. And his forefathers, in
+these long-past days, were very much of the same mind. Often, of course,
+they had to fight, when Pharaoh ordered them out for a campaign in the
+Soudan or in Syria, and then they fought wonderfully well; but all the
+time their hearts were at home, and they were glad to get back to their
+farm-work and their simple pleasures. They were a peaceful, kindly,
+pleasant race, with little of the cruelty and fierceness that you find
+continually among the Assyrians.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 4.
+RAMSES II. IN HIS WAR CHARIOT: SARDINIAN GUARDSMEN ON FOOT.]
+
+In fact, the old Egyptian rather despised soldiering as a profession. He
+thought it was rather a miserable, muddled kind of a job, in which,
+unless you were a great officer, you got all the hard knocks and none
+of the honours; and I am not sure that he was far wrong. His great
+idea of a happy life was to get employment as a scribe, or, as we should
+say, a clerk, to some big man or to the Government, to keep accounts and
+write reports. Of course the people could not all be scribes; but an
+Egyptian who had sons was never so proud as when he could get one of
+them into a scribe's position, even though the young man might look down
+upon his old father and his brothers, toiling on the land or serving in
+the army.
+
+A curious old book has come down to us from these ancient days, in which
+the writer, who had been both a soldier and a high officer under
+Government in what we should call the diplomatic service, has told a
+young friend his opinion of soldiering as a profession. The young man
+had evidently been dazzled with the idea of being in the cavalry, or,
+rather, the chariotry, for the Egyptian soldiers did not ride on horses
+like our cavalry, but drove them in chariots, in each of which there
+were two men--the charioteer, to drive the two horses, and the soldier,
+who stood beside the driver and fought with the bow, and sometimes with
+the lance or sword.
+
+But this wise old friend tells him that even to be in the chariotry is
+not by any means a pleasant job. Of course it seems very nice at first.
+The young man gets his new equipment, and thinks all the world of
+himself as he goes home to show off his fine feathers.
+
+    "He receives beautiful horses,
+     And rejoices and exults,
+     And returns with them to his town."
+
+But then comes the inspection, and if he has not everything in perfect
+order he has a bad time of it, for he is thrown down on the ground, and
+beaten with sticks till he is sore all over.
+
+But if the lot of the cavalry soldier is hard, that of the infantry-man
+is harder. In the barracks he is flogged for every mistake or offence.
+Then war breaks out, and he has to march with his battalion to Syria.
+Day after day he has to tramp on foot through the wild hill-country, so
+different from the flat, fertile homeland that he loves. He has to carry
+all his heavy equipment and his rations, so that he is laden like a
+donkey; and often he has to drink dirty water, which makes him ill.
+Then, when the battle comes, he gets all the danger and the wounds,
+while the Generals get all the credit. When the war is over, he comes
+home riding on a donkey, a broken-down man, sick and wounded, his very
+clothes stolen by the rascals who should have attended on him. Far
+better, the wise man says, to be a scribe, and to remain comfortably at
+home. I dare say it was all quite true, just as perhaps it would not be
+very far from the truth at the present time; but, in spite of it all,
+Pharaoh had his battles to fight, and he got his soldiers all right when
+they were needed.
+
+The Egyptian army was not generally a very big one. It was nothing like
+the great hosts that we hear of nowadays, or read of in some of the old
+histories. The armies that the Pharaohs led into Syria were not often
+much bigger than what we should call an army corps nowadays--probably
+about 20,000 men altogether, rarely more than 25,000. But in that number
+you could find almost as many different sorts of men as in our own
+Indian army. There would be first the native Egyptian spearmen and
+bowmen--the spearmen with leather caps and quilted leather tunics,
+carrying a shield and spear, and sometimes an axe, or a dagger, or
+short sword--the bowmen, more lightly equipped, but probably more
+dangerous enemies, for the Egyptian archers were almost as famous as the
+old English bowmen, and won many a battle for their King. Then came the
+chariot brigade, also of native Egyptians, men probably of higher rank
+than the foot-soldiers. The chariots were very light, and it must have
+been exceedingly difficult for the bowman to balance himself in the
+narrow car, as it bumped and clattered over rough ground. The two horses
+were gaily decorated, and often wore plumes on their heads. The
+charioteer sometimes twisted the reins round his waist, and could take a
+hand in the fighting if his companion was hard pressed, guiding his
+horses by swaying his body to one side or the other.
+
+Round the Pharaoh himself, as he stood in his beautiful chariot, marched
+the royal bodyguard. It was made up of men whom the Egyptians called
+"Sherden"--Sardinians, probably, who had come over the sea to serve for
+hire in the army of the great King. They wore metal helmets, with a
+round ball on the top and horns at the sides, carried round bossed
+shields, and were armed with great heavy swords of much the same shape
+as those which the Norman knights used to carry. Behind the native
+troops and the bodyguard marched the other mercenaries--regiments of
+black Soudanese, with wild-beast skins thrown over their ebony
+shoulders; and light-coloured Libyans from the West, each with a couple
+of feathers stuck in his leather skull-cap.
+
+Scouts went on ahead to scour the country, and bring to the King reports
+of the enemy's whereabouts. Beside the royal chariot there padded along
+a strange, but very useful soldier--a great tame lion, which had been
+trained to guard his master and fight with teeth and claws against his
+enemies. Last of all came the transport train, with the baggage carried
+on the backs of a long line of donkeys, and protected by a
+baggage-guard. The Egyptians were good marchers, and even in the hot
+Syrian sunshine, and across a rough country where roads were almost
+unknown, they could keep up a steady fifteen miles a day for a week on
+end without being fagged out.
+
+Let us follow the fortunes of an Egyptian soldier through one of the
+great battles of the nation's history. Menna was one of the most skilful
+charioteers of the whole Egyptian army--so skilful that, though he was
+still quite young, he was promoted to be driver of the royal war-chariot
+when King Ramses II. marched out from Zaru, the frontier garrison town
+of Egypt, to fight with the Hittites in Northern Syria. During all the
+long march across the desert, through Palestine, and over the northern
+mountain passes, no enemy was seen at all, and, though Menna was kept
+busy enough attending to his horses and seeing that the chariot was in
+perfect order, he was in no danger. But as the army began to wind down
+the long valley of the Orontes towards the town of Kadesh, the scouts
+were kept out in every direction, and the whole host was anxiously on
+the lookout for the Hittite troops.
+
+Kadesh came in sight at last. Far on the horizon its towers could be
+seen, and the sun's rays sparkled on the river and on the broad moat
+which surrounded the walls; but still no enemy was to be seen. The
+scouts came in with the report that the Hittites had retreated
+northwards in terror, and King Ramses imagined that Kadesh was going to
+fall into his hands without a battle. His army was divided into four
+brigades, and he himself hurried on rather rashly with the first
+brigade, leaving the other three to straggle on behind him, widely
+separated from one another (Plate 4).
+
+The first brigade reached its camping-ground to the north-west of
+Kadesh; the tired troops pitched camp; the baggage was unloaded; and the
+donkeys, released from their burdens, rolled on the ground in delight.
+Just at that moment some of the Egyptian scouts came in, bringing with
+them two Arabs whom they had caught, and suspected to belong to the
+enemy. King Ramses ordered the Arabs to be soundly beaten with sticks,
+and the poor creatures confessed that the Hittite King, with a great
+army, was concealed on the other side of Kadesh, watching for an
+opportunity to attack the Egyptian army. In great haste Ramses, scolding
+his scouts the while for not keeping a better lookout, began to get his
+soldiers under arms again, while Menna ran and yoked to the royal
+chariot the two noble horses which had been kept fresh for the day of
+battle.
+
+But before Pharaoh could leap into his chariot a wild uproar broke out
+at the gate of the camp, and the scattered fragments of the second
+brigade came pouring in headlong flight into the enclosure. Behind them
+the whole Hittite chariot force, 2,500 chariots strong, each chariot
+with three men in it, came clattering and leaping upon the heels of the
+fugitives. The Hittite King had waited till he saw the first brigade
+busy pitching camp, and then, as the second came straggling up, he had
+launched his chariots upon the flank of the weary soldiers, who were
+swept away in a moment as if by a flood.
+
+The rush of terrified men carried off the first brigade along with it in
+hopeless rout. Ramses and Menna were left with only a few picked
+chariots of the household troops, and the whole Hittite army was coming
+on. But though King Ramses had made a terrible bungle of his
+generalship, he was at least a brave man. Leaping into his chariot, and
+calling to the handful of faithful soldiers to follow him, he bade Menna
+lash his horses and charge the advancing Hittites. Menna was no coward,
+but when he saw the thin line of Egyptian troops, and looked at the
+dense mass of Hittite chariots, his heart almost failed him. He never
+thought of disobedience, but, as he stooped over his plunging horses, he
+panted to the King: "O mighty strength of Egypt in the day of battle, we
+are alone in the midst of the enemy. O, save us, Ramses, my good lord!"
+"Steady, steady, my charioteer," said Ramses, "I am going among them
+like a hawk!"
+
+In a moment the fiery horses were whirling the King and his charioteer
+between the files of the Hittite chariots, which drew aside as if
+terrified at the glittering figures that dashed upon them so fearlessly.
+As they swept through, Menna had enough to do to manage his steeds,
+which were wild with excitement; but Ramses' bow was bent again and
+again, and at every twang of the bowstring a Hittite champion fell from
+his chariot. Behind the King came his household troops, and all together
+they burst through the chariot brigade of the enemy, leaving a long
+trail marked by dead and wounded men, overturned chariots, and maddened
+horses.
+
+Still King Ramses had only gained a breathing-space. The Hittites far
+outnumbered his little force, and, though his orderlies were madly
+galloping to bring up the third and fourth brigades, it must be some
+time yet before even the nearest could come into action. Besides, on the
+other bank of the river there hung a great cloud of 8,000 Hittite
+spearmen, under the command of the Hittite King himself. If these got
+time to cross the river, the Egyptian position, bad enough as it was,
+would be hopeless. There was nothing for it but to charge again and
+again, and, if possible, drive back the Hittite chariots on the river,
+so as to hinder the spearmen from crossing.
+
+So Menna whipped up his horses again, and, with arrow on string, the
+Pharaoh dashed upon his enemies once more. Again they burst through the
+opposing ranks, scattering death on either side as they passed. Now some
+of the fragments of the first and second brigades were beginning to
+rally and come back to the field, and the struggle was becoming less
+unequal. The Egyptian quivers were nearly all empty now; but lance and
+sword still remained, and inch by inch the Hittites were forced back
+upon the river. Their King stood ingloriously on the opposite bank,
+unable to do anything. It was too late for him to try to move his
+spearmen across--they would only have been trampled down by the
+retreating chariots. At last a great shout from the rear announced the
+arrival of the third Egyptian brigade, and, the little knot of brave men
+who had saved the day still leading, the army swept the broken Hittites
+down the bank of the Orontes into the river.
+
+Great was the confusion and the slaughter. As the chariots struggled
+through the ford, the Egyptian bowmen, spread out along the bank, picked
+off the chiefs. The two brothers of the Hittite King, the chief of his
+bodyguard, his shield-bearer, and his chief scribe, were all killed. The
+King of Aleppo missed the ford, and was swept down the river; but some
+of his soldiers dashed into the water, rescued him, and, in rough first
+aid, held the half-drowned leader up by the heels, to let the water
+drain out of him. The Hittite King picked up his broken fugitives,
+covered them with his mass of spearmen, and moved reluctantly off the
+field where so splendid a chance of victory had been missed, and turned
+into defeat. The Egyptians were too few and too weary to attempt to
+cross the river in pursuit, and they retired to the camp of the first
+brigade.
+
+Then Pharaoh called his Captains before him. The troops stood around,
+leaning on their spears, ashamed of their conduct in the earlier part of
+the day, and wondering at the grim signs of conflict that lay on every
+side. King Ramses called Menna to him, and, handing the reins to a
+groom, the young charioteer came bowing before his master. Pharaoh
+stripped from his own royal neck a collar of gold, and fastened it round
+the neck of his faithful squire; and, while the Generals and Captains
+hung their heads for shame, the King told them how shamefully they had
+left him to fight his battle alone, and how none had stood by him but
+the young charioteer. "As for my two horses," he said, "they shall be
+fed before me every day in the royal palace."
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 5.
+ZAZAMANKH AND THE LOST CORONET.]
+
+Both armies had suffered too much loss for any further strife to be
+possible, and a truce was agreed upon. The Hittites drew off to the
+north, and the Egyptians marched back again to Egypt, well aware that
+they had gained little or nothing by all their efforts, but thankful
+that they had been saved from the total destruction which had seemed so
+near.
+
+A proud man was Menna when he drove the royal chariot up to the bridge
+of Zaru. As the troops passed the frontier canal the road was lined on
+either side with crowds of nobles, priests, and scribes, strewing
+flowers in the way, and bowing before the King. And after the Pharaoh
+himself, whose bravery had saved the day, there was no one so honoured
+as the young squire who had stood so manfully by his master in the hour
+of danger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+CHILD-LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT
+
+
+How did the boys and girls live in this quaint old land so many hundreds
+of years ago? How were they dressed, what sort of games did they play
+at, what sort of lessons did they learn, and what kind of school did
+they go to? If you could have lived in Egypt in those far-off days, you
+would have found many differences between your life of to-day and the
+life that the Egyptian children led; but you would also have found that
+there were very many things much the same then as they are now. Boys and
+girls were boys and girls three thousand years ago, just as they are
+now; and you would find that they did very much the same things, and
+even played very much the same games as you do to-day.
+
+When you read in your fairy-stories about a little boy or girl, you
+often hear that they had fairy godmothers who came to their cradles, and
+gave them gifts, and foretold what was going to happen to the little
+babies in after years. Well, when little Tahuti or little Sen-senb was
+born in Thebes fifteen hundred years before Christ, there were fairy
+godmothers too, who presided over the great event; and there were others
+called the Hathors, who foretold all that was going to happen to the
+little boy or girl as the years went on. The baby was kept a baby much
+longer in those days than our little ones are kept. The happy mother
+nursed the little thing carefully for three years at all events,
+carrying it about with her wherever she went, either on her shoulder, or
+astride upon her hip.
+
+If baby took ill, and the doctor was called in, the medicines that were
+given were not in the least like the sugar-coated pills and capsules
+that make medicine-taking easy nowadays. The Egyptian doctor did not
+know a very great deal about medicine and sickness, but he made up for
+his ignorance by the nastiness of the doses which he gave to his
+patients. I don't think you would like to take pills made up of the
+moisture scraped from pig's ears, lizard's blood, bad meat, and decaying
+fat, to say nothing of still nastier things. Often the doctor would look
+very grave, and say, "The child is not ill; he is bewitched"; and then
+he would sit down and write out a prescription something like this:
+"Remedy to drive away bewitchment. Take a great beetle; cut off his head
+and his wings, boil him, put him in oil, and lay him out. Then cook
+his head and his wings; put them in snake-fat, boil, and let the patient
+drink the mixture." I think you would almost rather take the risk of
+being bewitched than drink a dose like that!
+
+[Illustration: Plate 6
+GRANITE STATUE OF RAMSES II. _Page_ 75
+Note the hieroglyphics on base of statue. _Pages_ 68, 69]
+
+Sometimes the doctor gave no medicines at all, but wrote a few magic
+words on a scrap of old paper, and tied it round the part where the pain
+was. I daresay it did as much good as his pills. Very often the mother
+believed that it was not really sickness that was troubling her child,
+but that a ghost was coming and hurting him; so when his cries showed
+that the ghost was in the room, the mother would rise up, shaking all
+over, I daresay, and would repeat the verse that she had been taught
+would drive ghosts away:
+
+    "Comest thou to kiss this child? I suffer thee not to kiss him;
+     Comest thou to quiet him? I suffer thee not to quiet him;
+     Comest thou to harm him? I suffer thee not to harm him;
+     Comest thou to take him away? I suffer thee not to take him away."
+
+When little Tahuti has got over his baby aches, and escaped the ghosts,
+he begins to run about and play. He and his sister are not bothered to
+any great extent with dressing in the mornings. They are very particular
+about washing, but as Egypt is so hot, clothes are not needed very much,
+and so the little boy and girl play about with nothing at all on their
+little brown bodies except, perhaps, a narrow girdle, or even a single
+thread tied round the waist. They have their toys just like you. Tahuti
+has got a wonderful man, who, when you pull a string, works a roller up
+and down upon a board, just like a baker rolling out dough, and besides
+he has a crocodile that moves its jaws. His sister has dolls: a fine
+Egyptian lady and a frizzy-haired, black-faced Nubian girl. Sometimes
+they play together at ninepins, rolling the ball through a little gate.
+
+For about four years this would go on, as long as Tahuti was what the
+Egyptians called "a wise little one." Then, when he was four years old,
+the time came when he had to become "a writer in the house of books,"
+which is what the Egyptians called a school-boy; so little Tahuti set
+off for school, still wearing no more clothes than the thread tied round
+his waist, and with his black hair plaited up into a long thick lock,
+which hung down over his right ear. The first thing that he had to learn
+was how to read and write, and this was no easy task, for Egyptian
+writing, though it is very beautiful when well done, is rather difficult
+to master, all the more as there were two different styles which had to
+be learned if a boy was going to become a man of learning. I don't
+suppose that you think your old copy-books of much importance when you
+are done with them; but the curious thing is that among all the books
+that have come down to us from ancient Egypt, there are far more old
+copy-books than any others, and these books, with the teachers'
+corrections written on the margins, and rough sketches scratched in here
+and there among the writing, have proved most valuable in telling us
+what the Egyptians learned, and what they liked to read; for a great
+deal of the writing consisted in the copying out of wise words of the
+men of former days, and sometimes of stories of old times.
+
+These old copy-books can speak to us in one way, but if they could speak
+in another, I daresay they would tell us of many weary hours in school,
+and of many floggings and tears; for the Egyptian school-master
+believed with all his heart in the cane, and used it with great vigour
+and as often as he could. Little Tahuti used to look forward to his
+daily flogging, much as he did to his lunch in the middle of the day,
+when his careful mother regularly brought him three rolls of bread and
+two jugs of beer. "A boy's ears," his master used to say, "are on his
+back, and he hears when he is beaten." One of the former pupils at his
+school writing to his teacher, and recalling his school-days, says: "I
+was with thee since I was brought up as a child; thou didst beat my
+back, and thine instructions went into my ear." Sometimes the boys, if
+they were stubborn, got punishments even worse than the cane. Another
+boy, in a letter to his old master, says: "Thou hast made me buckle to
+since the time that I was one of thy pupils. I spent my time in the
+lock-up, and was sentenced to three months, and bound in the temple." I
+am afraid our schoolboys would think the old Egyptian teachers rather
+more severe than the masters with whom they have to do nowadays.
+
+Lesson-time occupied about half the day, and when it came to an end the
+boys all ran out of the school, shouting for joy. That custom has not
+changed much, anyway, in all these hundreds of years. I don't think they
+had any home lessons to do, and so, perhaps, their school-time was not
+quite so bad as we might imagine from the rough punishments they used to
+get.
+
+When Tahuti grew a little older, and had fairly mastered the rudiments
+of writing, his teacher set him to write out copies of different
+passages from the best known Egyptian books, partly to keep up his
+hand-writing, and partly to teach him to know good Egyptian and to use
+correct language. Sometimes it was a piece of a religious book that he
+was set to copy, sometimes a poem, sometimes a fairy-tale. For the
+Egyptians were very fond of fairy-tales, and later on, perhaps, we may
+hear some of their stories, the oldest fairy-stories in the world. But
+generally the piece that was chosen was one which would not only
+exercise the boy's hand, and teach him a good style, but would also help
+to teach him good manners, and fill his mind with right ideas. Very
+often Tahuti's teacher would dictate to him a passage from the wise
+advice which a great King of long ago left to his son, the Crown Prince,
+or from some other book of the same kind. And sometimes the exercises
+would be in the form of letters which the master and his pupils wrote as
+though they had been friends far away from one another. Tahuti's
+letters, you may be sure, were full of wisdom and of good resolutions,
+and I dare say he was just about as fond of writing them as you are of
+writing the letters that your teacher sometimes sets as a task for you.
+
+When it came to Arithmetic, Tahuti was so far lucky that the number of
+rules he had to learn was very few. His master taught him addition and
+subtraction, and a very slow and clumsy form of multiplication; but he
+could not teach him division, for the very simple reason that he did not
+properly understand it himself. Enough of mensuration was taught him to
+enable him to find out, though rather roughly, what was the size of a
+field, and how much corn would go into a granary of any particular size.
+And when he had learned these things, his elementary education was
+pretty well over.
+
+[Illustration: Plate 7
+NAVE OF THE TEMPLE AT KARNAK. _Pages_ 75, 76]
+
+Of course a great deal would depend on the profession he was going to
+follow. If he was going to be only a common scribe, his education
+would go no farther; for the work he would have to do would need no
+greater learning than reading, writing, and arithmetic. If he was going
+to be an officer in the army, he entered as a cadet in a military school
+which was attached to the royal stables. But if he was going to be a
+priest, he had to join one of the colleges which belonged to the
+different temples of the gods, and there, like Moses, he was instructed
+in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was taught all the strange ideas
+which they had about the gods, and the life after death, and the
+wonderful worlds, above and below, where the souls of men lived after
+they had finished their lives on earth.
+
+But, whether his schooling was carried on to what we should call a
+University training or not, there was one thing that Tahuti was taught
+with the utmost care, and that was to be very respectful to those who
+were older than himself, never to sit down while an older person was
+standing in the room, and always to be very careful in his manners.
+Chief of the older people to whom he had to show respect were his
+parents, and above all, his mother, for the Egyptians reverenced their
+mothers more than anyone else in the world. Here is a little scrap of
+advice that a wise old Egyptian once left to his son: "Thou shalt never
+forget what thy mother has done for thee. She bare thee, and nourished
+thee in all manner of ways. She nursed thee for three years. She brought
+thee up, and when thou didst enter the school, and wast instructed in
+the writings, she came daily to thy master with bread and beer from her
+house. If thou forgettest her, she might blame thee; she might lift up
+her hands to God, and He would hear her complaint." Children nowadays
+might do a great deal worse than remember these wise words of the
+oldest book in the world.
+
+But you are not to think that the Egyptian children's life was all
+teaching and prim behaviour. When Tahuti got his holidays, he would
+sometimes go out with his father and mother and sister on a fishing or
+fowling expedition. If they were going fishing, the little papyrus skiff
+was launched, and the party paddled away, armed with long thin spears,
+which had two prongs at the point. Drifting over the quiet shallow
+waters of the marshy lakes, they could see the fish swimming beneath
+them, and launch their spears at them. Sometimes, if he was lucky,
+Tahuti's father would pierce a fish with either prong of the spear, and
+then there was great excitement.
+
+But still more interesting was the fowling among the marshes. The spears
+were laid aside on this kind of expedition, and instead, Tahuti and his
+father were armed with curved throw-sticks, shaped something like an
+Australian boomerang. But, besides the throw-sticks, they had with them
+a rather unusual helper. When people go shooting nowadays, they take
+dogs with them to retrieve the game. Well, the Egyptians had different
+kinds of dogs, too, which they used for hunting; but when they went
+fowling they took with them a cat which was trained to catch the wounded
+birds and bring them to her master. The little skiff was paddled
+cautiously across the marsh, and in among the reeds where the wild ducks
+and other waterfowl lived, Sen-senb and her mother holding on to the
+tall papyrus plants and pulling them aside to make room for the boat, or
+plucking the beautiful lotus-lilies, of which the Egyptians were so
+fond. When the birds rose, Tahuti and his father let fly their
+throw-sticks, and when a bird was knocked down, the cat, which had been
+sitting quietly in the bow of the boat, dashed forward among the reeds
+and secured the fluttering creature before it could escape.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 8.
+"AND THE GOOSE STOOD UP AND CACKLED."]
+
+Altogether, it was great fun for the brother and sister, as well as for
+the grown folks, and Tahuti and Sen-senb liked nothing so well as when
+the gaily-painted little skiff was launched for a day on the marshes. I
+think that, on the whole, they had a very bright and happy life in these
+old days, and that, though they had not many of the advantages that you
+have to-day, the boys and girls of three thousand years ago managed to
+enjoy themselves in their own simple way quite as well as you do now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SOME FAIRY-TALES OF LONG AGO
+
+
+The little brown boys and girls who lived in Egypt three thousand years
+ago were just as fond as you are of hearing wonderful stories that begin
+with "Once upon a time;" and I want in this chapter to tell you some of
+the tales that Tahuti and Sen-senb used to listen to in the evening when
+school was over and play was done--the oldest of all wonder-tales,
+stories that were old and had long been forgotten, ages before The
+Sleeping Beauty and Jack and the Beanstalk were first thought of.
+
+One day, when King Khufu, the great King who built the biggest of the
+Pyramids, had nothing else to do, he called his sons and his wise men
+together, and said, "Is there anyone among you who can tell me the tales
+of the old magicians?" Then the King's son, Prince Baufra, stood up and
+said, "Your Majesty, I can tell you of a wonder that happened in the
+days of your father, King Seneferu. It fell on a day that the King grew
+weary of everything, and sought through all his palace for something to
+please him, but found nothing. Then he said to his officers, 'Bring to
+me the magician Zazamankh.' And when the magician came, the King said to
+him, 'O Zazamankh, I have sought through all my palace for some delight,
+and I have found none.' Then said Zazamankh, 'Let thy Majesty go in thy
+boat upon the lake of the palace, and let twenty beautiful girls be
+brought to row thee, and let their oars be of ebony, inlaid with gold
+and silver. And I myself will go with thee; and the sight of the
+water-birds, and the fair shores, and the green grass will cheer thy
+heart.' So the King and the wizard went down to the lake, and the twenty
+maidens rowed them about in the King's pleasure-galley. Nine rowed on
+this side, and nine on that, and the two fairest stood by the two
+rudders at the stern, and set the rowing song, each for her own side.
+And the King's heart grew glad and light, as the boat sped hither and
+thither, and the oars flashed in the sunshine to the song of the rowers.
+
+"But as the boat turned, the top of the steering-oar struck the hair of
+one of the maidens who steered, and knocked her coronet of turquoise
+into the water; and she stopped her song, and all the rowers on her
+side stopped rowing. Then his Majesty said, 'Why have you stopped
+rowing, little one?' And the maiden answered, 'It is because my jewel of
+turquoise has fallen into the water.' 'Row on,' said the King, 'and I
+will give you another.' But the girl answered, 'I want my own one back,
+as I had it before.' So King Seneferu called Zazamankh to come to him,
+and said, 'Now, Zazamankh, I have done as you advised, and my heart is
+light; but, behold, the coronet of this little one has fallen into the
+water, and she has stopped singing, and spoiled the rowing of her side;
+and she will not have a new jewel, but wants the old one back again.'
+
+"Then Zazamankh the wizard stood up in the King's boat, and spoke
+wonderful words. And, lo! the water of one half of the lake rose up, and
+heaped itself upon the top of the water of the other half, so that it
+was twice as deep as it was before. And the King's bark rode upon the
+top of the piled-up waters; but beyond it the bottom of the lake lay
+bare, with the shells and pebbles shining in the sunlight. And there,
+upon a broken shell, lay the little rower's coronet. Then Zazamankh
+leaped down and picked it up, and brought it to the King. And he spake
+wonderful words again, and the water sank down, and covered the whole
+bed of the lake, as it had done at first. So his Majesty spent a joyful
+day, and gave great rewards to the wizard Zazamankh."
+
+When King Khufu heard that story, he praised the men of olden times. But
+another of his sons, Prince Hordadef, stood up, and said, "O King, that
+is only a story of bygone days, and no one knows whether it is true or a
+lie; but I will show thee a magician of to-day." "Who is he, Hordadef?"
+said King Khufu. And Hordadef answered, "His name is Dedi. He is a
+hundred and ten years old, and every day he eats five hundred loaves of
+bread, and a side of beef, and drinks a hundred jugs of beer. He knows
+how to fasten on a head that has been cut off. He knows how to make a
+lion of the desert follow him, and he knows the plan of the house of God
+that you have wanted to know for so long."
+
+Then King Khufu sent Prince Hordadef to bring Dedi to him, and he
+brought Dedi back in the royal boat. The King came out, and sat in the
+colonnade of the palace, and Dedi was led before him. Then said his
+Majesty, "Why have I never seen you before, Dedi?" And Dedi answered,
+"Life, health, strength to your Majesty! A man can only come when he is
+called." "Is it true, Dedi, that you can fasten on a head which has been
+cut off?" "Certainly I can, your Majesty." Then said the King, "Let a
+prisoner be brought from the prison, and let his head be struck off."
+But Dedi said, "Long life to your Majesty; do not try it on a man. Let
+us try a bird or an animal."
+
+So a goose was brought; its head was cut off; and the head was laid at
+the east side of the hall, and the body at the west. Then Dedi rose, and
+spoke wonderful words. And, behold! the body of the goose waddled to
+meet the head, and the head came to meet the body. They joined together
+before his Majesty's throne, and the goose stood up and cackled (Plate
+8).
+
+Then, when Dedi had joined to its body again the head that had been
+struck off from an ox, and the ox followed him lowing, King Khufu said
+to him, "Is it true, O Dedi, that you know the plans of the house of
+God?" "It is true, your Majesty; but it is not I who shall give them to
+you." "Who, then?" said the King. "It is the eldest of three sons who
+shall be born to the lady Rud-didet, wife of the priest of Ra, the
+Sun-God. And Ra has promised that these three sons shall reign over this
+kingdom of thine." When King Khufu heard that word, his heart was
+troubled; but Dedi said, "Let not your Majesty's heart be troubled. Thy
+son shall reign first, then thy son's son, and then one of these." So
+the King commanded that Dedi should live in the house of Prince
+Hordadef; and that every day there should be given to him a thousand
+loaves, a hundred jugs of beer, an ox, and a hundred bunches of onions!
+
+When the three sons of Rud-didet were born, Ra sent four goddesses to be
+their godmothers. They came attired like travelling dancing-girls; and
+one of the gods came with them, dressed like a porter. And when they had
+nursed the three children awhile, Rud-didet's husband said to them, "My
+ladies, what wages shall I give you?" So he gave them a bushel of
+barley, and they went away with their wages. But when they had gone a
+little way, Isis, the chief of them, said, "Why have we not done a
+wonder for these children?" So they stopped, and made crowns, the red
+crown and the white crown of Egypt, and hid them in the bushel of
+barley, and sealed the sack, and put it in Rud-didet's store-chamber,
+and went away again.
+
+A fortnight later, when Rud-didet was going to brew the household beer,
+there was no barley. And her maidservant said, "There is a bushel, but
+it was given to the dancing-girls, and lies in the store-room, sealed
+with their seal." So the lady said to her maid, "Go down and fetch it,
+and we shall give them more when they need it." The maid went down, but
+when she came to the store-room, lo! from within there came a sound of
+singing and dancing, and all such music as should be heard in a King's
+Court. So in fear she crept back to her mistress and told her, and
+Rud-didet went down and heard the royal music, and she told her husband
+when he came home at night, and their hearts were glad because their
+sons were to be Kings.
+
+But after a time the lady Rud-didet quarrelled with her maid, and gave
+her a beating, as ladies sometimes did in those days; and the weeping
+maid said to her fellow-servants, "Shall she do this to me? She has
+borne three Kings, and I will go and tell it to his Majesty, King
+Khufu." So she stole away first to her uncle, and told him of her plot;
+but he was angry because she wished to betray the children to King
+Khufu, and he beat her with a scourge of flax. And as she went away by
+the side of the river a great crocodile came out of the water, and
+carried her off.... But here, alas! our story breaks off; the rest of
+the book is lost, and we cannot tell whether King Khufu tried to kill
+the three royal babies or not. Only we do know that the first three
+Kings of the race which succeeded the race of Khufu bore the same names
+as Rud-didet's three babies, and were called, like all the Kings of
+Egypt after them, "Sons of the Sun."
+
+These, then, are absolutely the oldest fairy-stories in the world, and
+if they do not seem very wonderful to you, you must remember that
+everything has to have a beginning, and that the people who made these
+tales hadn't had very much practice in the art of story-telling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+SOME FAIRY-TALES OF LONG AGO (_Continued_)
+
+
+Our next story belongs to a time several hundred years later, and I dare
+say it seemed as wonderful to the little Egyptians as the story of
+Sindbad the Sailor does to you. It is called "The Story of the
+Shipwrecked Sailor," and the sailor himself tells it to a noble
+Egyptian.
+
+"I was going," he says, "to the mines of Pharaoh, and we set sail in a
+ship of 150 cubits long and 40 cubits wide (225 feet by 60 feet--quite a
+big ship for the time). We had a crew of 150 of the best sailors of
+Egypt, men whose hearts were as bold as lions. They all foretold a happy
+voyage, but as we came near the shore a great storm blew, the sea rose
+in terrible waves, and our ship was fairly overwhelmed. Clinging to a
+piece of wood, I was washed about for three days, and at last tossed up
+on an island; but not one was left of all my shipmates--all perished in
+the waves.
+
+"I lay down in the shade of some bushes, and when I had recovered a
+little, I looked about me for food. There was plenty on every hand--figs
+and grapes, berries and corn, with all manner of birds. When my hunger
+was satisfied, I lit a fire, and made an offering to the gods who had
+saved me. Suddenly I heard a noise like thunder; the trees shook, and
+the earth quaked. Looking round, I saw a great serpent approaching me.
+He was nearly 50 feet long, and had a beard 3 feet in length. His body
+shone in the sun like gold, and when he reared himself up from his coils
+before me I fell upon my face.
+
+"Then the serpent began to speak: 'What has brought thee, little one,
+what has brought thee? If thou dost not tell me quickly what has brought
+thee to this isle, I shall make thee vanish like a flame.' So saying, he
+took me up in his mouth, carried me gently to his lair, and laid me down
+unhurt; and again he said, 'What has brought thee, little one, what has
+brought thee to this isle of the sea?' So I told him the story of our
+shipwreck, and how I alone had escaped from the fury of the waves. Then
+said he to me: 'Fear not, little one, and let not thy face be sad. If
+thou hast come to me, it is God who has brought thee to this isle, which
+is filled with all good things. And now, see: thou shalt dwell for four
+months in this isle, and then a ship of thine own land shall come, and
+thou shalt go home to thy country, and die in thine own town. As for me,
+I am here with my brethren and my children. There are seventy-five of us
+in all, besides a young girl, who came here by chance, and was burned by
+fire from heaven. But if thou art strong and patient, thou shalt yet
+embrace thy children and thy wife, and return to thy home.'
+
+"Then I bowed low before him, and promised to tell of him to Pharaoh,
+and to bring him ships full of all the treasures of Egypt; but he smiled
+at my speech, and said, 'Thou hast nothing that I need, for I am Prince
+of the Land of Punt, and all its perfumes are mine. Moreover, when thou
+departest, thou shalt never again see this isle, for it shall be changed
+into waves.'
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 9.
+AN EGYPTIAN COUNTRY HOUSE.]
+
+"Now, behold! when the time was come, as he had foretold, the ship drew
+near. And the good serpent said to me, 'Farewell, farewell! go to thy
+home, little one, see again thy children, and let thy name be good in
+thy town; these are my wishes for thee.' So I bowed low before him, and
+he loaded me with precious gifts of perfume, cassia, sweet woods, ivory,
+baboons, and all kinds of precious things, and I embarked in the ship.
+And now, after a voyage of two months, we are coming to the house of
+Pharaoh, and I shall go in before Pharaoh, and offer the gifts which I
+have brought from this isle into Egypt, and Pharaoh shall thank me
+before the great ones of the land."
+
+Our last story belongs to a later age than that of the Shipwrecked
+Sailor. About 1,500 years before Christ there arose in Egypt a race of
+mighty soldier-Kings, who founded a great empire, which stretched from
+the Soudan right through Syria and Mesopotamia as far as the great River
+Euphrates. Mesopotamia, or Naharaina, as the Egyptians called it, had
+been an unknown land to them before this time; but now it became to them
+what America was to the men of Queen Elizabeth's time, or the heart of
+Africa to your grandfathers--the wonderful land of romance, where all
+kinds of strange things might happen. And this story of the Doomed
+Prince, which I have to tell you, belongs partly to Naharaina, and, as
+you will see, some of our own fairy-stories have been made out of very
+much the same materials as are used in it.
+
+Once upon a time there was a King in Egypt who had no child. His heart
+was grieved because he had no child, and he prayed to the gods for a
+son; so in course of time a son was born to him, and the Fates (like
+fairy godmothers) came to his cradle to foretell what should happen to
+him. And when they saw him, they said, "His doom is to die either by the
+crocodile, or by the serpent, or by the dog." When the King heard this,
+his heart was sore for his little son, and he resolved that he would put
+the boy where no harm could come to him; so he built for him a beautiful
+house away in the desert, and furnished it with all kinds of fine
+things, and sent the boy there, with faithful servants to guard him, and
+to see that he came to no hurt. So the boy grew up quietly and safely in
+his house in the desert.
+
+But it fell on a day that the young Prince looked out from the roof of
+his house, and he saw a man walking across the desert, with a dog
+following him. So he said to the servant who was with him, "What is this
+that walks behind the man who is coming along the road?" "It is a dog,"
+said the page. Then the boy said, "You must bring me one like him," and
+the page went and told His Majesty. Then the King said, "Get a little
+puppy, and take it to him, lest his heart be sad." So they brought him a
+little dog, and it grew up along with him.
+
+Now, it happened that, when the boy had grown to be a strong young man,
+he grew weary of being always shut up in his fine house. Therefore he
+sent a message to his father, saying, "Why am I always to be shut up
+here? Since I am doomed to three evil Fates, let me have my desire, and
+let God do what is in His heart." So the King agreed, and they gave the
+young Prince arms, and sent him away to the eastern frontier, and his
+dog went with him, and they said to him, "Go wherever you will." So he
+went northward through the desert, he and his dog, until he came to
+the land of Naharaina.
+
+[Illustration: Plate 10
+STATUES OF KING AMENHOTEP III.]
+
+Now, the chief of the land of Naharaina had no children, save one
+beautiful daughter, and for her he had built a wonderful house. It had
+seventy windows, and it stood on a great rock more than 100 feet high.
+And the chief summoned the sons of all the chiefs of the country round
+about, and said to them, "The Prince who can climb to my daughter's
+window shall have her for his wife." So all the young Princes of the
+land camped around the house, and tried every day to climb to the window
+of the beautiful Princess; but none of them succeeded, for the rock was
+very steep and high.
+
+Then, one day when they were climbing as they were wont, the young
+Prince of Egypt rode by with his dog; and the Princes welcomed him,
+bathed him, and fed his horse, and said to him, "Whence comest thou,
+thou goodly youth?" He did not wish to tell them that he was the son of
+Pharaoh, so he answered, "I am the son of an Egyptian officer. My father
+married a second wife, and, when she had children, she hated me, and
+drove me away from my home." So they took him into their company, and he
+stayed with them many days.
+
+Now, it fell on a day that he asked them, "Why do you stay here, trying
+always to climb this rock?" And they told him of the beautiful Princess
+who lived in the house on the top of the rock, and how the man who could
+climb to her window should marry her. Therefore the young Prince of
+Egypt climbed along with them, and it came to pass that at last he
+climbed to the window of the Princess; and when she saw him, she fell in
+love with him, and kissed him.
+
+Then was word sent to the Chief of Naharaina that one of the young men
+had climbed to his daughter's window, and he asked which of the Princes
+it was, and the messenger said, "It is not a Prince, but the son of an
+Egyptian officer, who has been driven away from Egypt by his
+stepmother." Then the Chief of Naharaina was very angry, and said,
+"Shall I give my daughter to an Egyptian fugitive? Let him go back to
+Egypt." But, when the messengers came to tell the young man to go away,
+the Princess seized his hand, and said, "If you take him from me, I will
+not eat; I will not drink; I shall die in that same hour." Then the
+chief sent men to kill the youth where he was in the house. But the
+Princess said, "If you kill him, I shall be dead before the sun goes
+down. I will not live an hour if I am parted from him." So the chief was
+obliged to agree to the marriage; and the young Prince was married to
+the Princess, and her father gave them a house, and slaves, and fields,
+and all sorts of good things.
+
+But after a time the young Prince said to his wife, "I am doomed to die,
+either by a crocodile, or by a serpent, or by a dog." And his wife
+answered, "Why, then, do you keep this dog always with you? Let him be
+killed." "Nay," said he, "I am not going to kill my faithful dog, which
+I have brought up since the time that he was a puppy." So the Princess
+feared greatly for her husband, and would never let him go out of her
+sight.
+
+Now, it happened in course of time that the Prince went back to the land
+of Egypt; and his wife went with him, and his dog, and he dwelt in
+Egypt. And one day, when the evening came, he grew drowsy, and fell
+asleep; and his wife filled a bowl with milk, and placed it by his side,
+and sat to watch him as he slept. Then a great serpent came out of his
+hole to bite the youth. But his wife was watching, and she made the
+servants give the milk to the serpent, and he drank till he could not
+move. Then the Princess killed the serpent with blows of her dagger. So
+she woke her husband, and he was astonished to see the serpent lying
+dead, and his faithful wife said to him, "Behold, God has given one of
+thy dooms into thy hand; He will also give the others." And the Prince
+made sacrifice to God, and praised Him.
+
+Now, it fell on a day that the Prince went out to walk in his estate,
+and his dog went with him. And as they walked, the dog ran after some
+game, and the Prince followed the dog. They came to the River Nile, and
+the dog went into the river, and the Prince followed him. Then a great
+crocodile rose in the river, and laid hold on the youth, and said, "I am
+thy doom, following after thee." ...
+
+But just here the old papyrus roll on which the story is written is torn
+away, and we do not know what happened to the Doomed Prince. I fancy
+that, in some way or other, his dog would save him from the crocodile,
+and that later, by some accident, the poor faithful dog would be the
+cause of his master's death. At least, it looks as if the end of the
+story must have been something like that; for the Egyptians believed
+that no one could escape from the doom that was laid upon him, but had
+to suffer it sooner or later. Perhaps, some day, one of the explorers
+who are searching the land of Egypt for relics of the past may come on
+another papyrus roll with the end of the story, and then we shall find
+out whether the dog did kill the Prince, or whether God gave all his
+dooms into his hand, as his wife hoped.
+
+These are some of the stories that little Tahuti and Sen-senb used to
+listen to in the long evenings when they were tired of play. Perhaps
+they seem very simple and clumsy to you; but I have no doubt that, when
+they were told in those old days, the black eyes of the little Egyptian
+boys and girls used to grow very big and round, and the wizard who could
+fasten on heads which had been cut off seemed a very wonderful person,
+and the talking serpents and crocodiles seemed very real and very
+dreadful.
+
+Anyhow, you have heard the oldest stories in all the world--the fathers
+and mothers, so to speak, of all the great family of wonder-tales that
+have delighted and terrified children ever since.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+EXPLORING THE SOUDAN
+
+
+There is no more wonderful or interesting story than that which tells
+how bit by bit the great dark continent of Africa has been explored, and
+made to yield up its secrets. But did you ever think what a long story
+it is, and how very early it begins? It is in Egypt that we find the
+first chapters of the story; and they can still be read, written in the
+quaint old picture writing which the Egyptians used, on the rock
+tombs of a place in the south of Egypt, called Elephantine.
+
+[Illustration: Plate 11
+THE SPHINX AND THE SECOND PYRAMID. _Page_ 79]
+
+In early days the land of Egypt used to end at what was called the First
+Cataract of the Nile, a place where the river came down in a series of
+rapids among a lot of rocky islets. The First Cataract has disappeared
+now, for British engineers have made a great dam across the Nile just at
+this point, and turned the whole country, for miles above the dam, into
+a lake. But in those days the Egyptians used to believe that the Nile,
+to which they owed so much, began at the First Cataract. Yet they knew
+of the wild country of Nubia beyond and, in very early times indeed,
+about 5,000 years ago, they used to send exploring expeditions into that
+half-desert land which we have come to know as the Soudan.
+
+Near the First Cataract there lies the island of Elephantine, and when
+the Egyptian kingdom was young the great barons who owned this island
+were the Lords of the Egyptian Marches, just as the Percies and the
+Douglases were the Lords of the Marches in England and Scotland. It was
+their duty to keep in order the wild Nubian tribes south of the
+Cataract, to see that they allowed the trading caravans to pass safely,
+and sometimes to lead these caravans through the desert themselves. A
+caravan was a very different thing then from the long train of camels
+that we think of now when we hear the name. For, though there are some
+very old pictures which show that, before Egyptian history begins at
+all, the camel was known in Egypt, somehow that useful animal seems to
+have disappeared from the land for many hundreds of years. The Pharaohs
+and their adventurous barons never used the queer, ungainly creature
+that carries the desert postman in our picture (Plate 12), and the
+ivory, gold-dust, and ebony that came from the Soudan had to be carried
+on the backs of hundreds of asses.
+
+The barons of Elephantine bore the proud title of "Keepers of the Door
+of the South," and, in addition, they display, seemingly just as
+proudly, the title "Caravan Conductors." In those days it was no easy
+task to lead a caravan through the Soudan, and bring it back safe with
+its precious load through all the wild and savage tribes who inhabited
+the land of Nubia. More than one of the barons of Elephantine set out
+with a caravan never to return, but to leave his bones, and those of his
+companions, to whiten among the desert sands; and one of them has told
+us how, hearing that his father had been killed on one of these
+adventurous journeys, he mustered his retainers, marched south with a
+train of a hundred asses, punished the tribe which had been guilty of
+the deed, and brought his father's body home, to be buried with all due
+honours.
+
+Some of the records of these early journeys, the first attempts to
+explore the interior of Africa, may still be read, carved on the walls
+of the tombs where the brave explorers sleep. One baron, called Herkhuf,
+has told us of no fewer than four separate expeditions which he made
+into the Soudan. On his first journey, as he was still young, he went in
+company with his father, and was away for seven months. The next time he
+was allowed to go alone, and brought back his caravan safely after an
+absence of eight months.
+
+On his third journey he went farther than before, and gathered so large
+a quantity of ivory and gold-dust that three hundred asses were required
+to bring his treasure home. So rich a caravan was a tempting prize
+for the wild tribes on the way; but Herkhuf persuaded one of the
+Soudanese chiefs to furnish him with a large escort, and the caravan was
+so strongly guarded that the other tribes did not venture to attack it,
+but were glad to help its leader with guides and gifts of cattle.
+Herkhuf brought his treasures safely back to Egypt, and the King was so
+pleased with his success that he sent a special messenger with a boat
+full of delicacies to refresh the weary traveller.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 12.
+A DESERT POSTMAN.]
+
+But the most successful of all his expeditions was the fourth. The King
+who had sent him on the other journeys had died, and was succeeded by a
+little boy called Pepy, who was only about six years old when he came to
+the throne, and who reigned for more than ninety years--the longest
+reign in the world's history. In the second year of Pepy's reign, the
+bold Herkhuf set out again for the Soudan, and this time, along with
+other treasures, he brought back something that his boy-King valued far
+more than gold or ivory.
+
+You know how, when Stanley went in search of Emin Pasha, he discovered
+in the Central African forests a strange race of dwarfs, living by
+themselves, and very shy of strangers. Well, for all these thousands of
+years, the forefathers of these little dwarfs must have been living in
+the heart of the Dark Continent. In early days they evidently lived not
+so far away from Egypt as when Stanley found them, for, on at least one
+occasion, one of Pharaoh's servants had been able to capture one of the
+little men, and bring him down as a present to his master, greatly to
+the delight of the King and Court. Herkhuf was equally fortunate. He
+managed to secure a dwarf from one of these pigmy tribes, and brought
+him back with his caravan, that he might please the young King with his
+quaint antics and his curious dances.
+
+When the King heard of the present which his brave servant was bringing
+back for him, he was wild with delight. The thought of this new toy was
+far more to the little eight-year-old, King though he was, than all the
+rest of the treasure which Herkhuf had gathered; and he caused a letter
+to be written to the explorer, telling him of his delight, and giving
+him all kinds of advice as to how careful he should be that the dwarf
+should come to no harm on the way to Court.
+
+The letter, through all its curious old phrases, is very much the kind
+of letter that any boy might send on hearing of some new toy that was
+coming to him. "My Majesty," says the little eight-year-old Pharaoh,
+"wisheth to see this pigmy more than all the tribute of Punt. And if
+thou comest to Court having this pigmy with thee sound and whole, My
+Majesty will do for thee more than King Assa did for the Chancellor
+Baurded." (This was the man who had brought back the other dwarf in
+earlier days.) Little King Pepy then gives careful directions that
+Herkhuf is to provide proper people to see that the precious dwarf does
+not fall into the Nile on his way down the river; and these guards are
+to watch behind the place where he sleeps, and look into his bed ten
+times each night, that they may be sure that nothing has gone wrong.
+
+The poor little dwarf must have had rather an uncomfortable time of it,
+one fancies, if his sleep was to be broken so often. Perhaps there was
+more danger of killing him with kindness and care, than if they had left
+him more to himself; but Pepy's anxiety was very like a boy. However,
+Herkhuf evidently succeeded in bringing his dwarf safe and sound to the
+King's Court, and no doubt the quaint little savage proved a splendid
+toy for the young King. One wonders what he thought of the great cities
+and the magnificent Court of Egypt, and whether his heart did not weary
+sometimes for the wild freedom of his lost home.
+
+Herkhuf was so proud of the King's letter that he caused it to be
+engraved, word for word, on the walls of the tomb which he hewed out for
+himself at Elephantine, and there to this day the words can be read
+which tell us how old is the story of African exploration, and how a boy
+was always just a boy, even though he lived five thousand years ago, and
+reigned over a great kingdom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY
+
+
+About 3,500 years ago, there reigned a great Queen in Egypt. It was not
+usual for the Egyptian throne to be occupied by a woman, though great
+respect was always shown to women in Egypt, and the rank of a King's
+mother was considered quite as important as that of his father. But once
+at least in her history Egypt had a great Queen, whose fame deserves to
+be remembered, and who takes honourable rank among the great women, like
+Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, who have ruled kingdoms.
+
+During part of her life Queen Hatshepsut was only joint sovereign along
+with her husband, and in the latter part of her reign she was joint
+sovereign with her half-brother or nephew, who succeeded her; but for at
+least twenty years she was really the sole ruler of Egypt, and governed
+the land wisely and well.
+
+Perhaps the most interesting thing that happened in her reign was the
+voyage of discovery which she caused to be made by some ships of her
+fleet. Centuries before her time, when the world was young, the
+Egyptians had made expeditions down the Red Sea to a land which they
+sometimes called Punt, and sometimes "The Divine Land." Probably it was
+part of the country that we now know as Somaliland. But for a very long
+time these voyages had ceased, and people only knew by hearsay, and by
+the stories of ancient days, of this wonderful country that lay away by
+the Southern Sea.
+
+One day, the Queen tells us, she was at prayers in the temple of the god
+Amen at Thebes, when she felt a sudden inspiration. The god was giving
+her a command to send an expedition to this almost forgotten land. "A
+command was heard in the sanctuary, a behest of the god himself, that
+the ways which lead to Punt should be explored, and that the roads to
+the Ladders of Incense should be trodden." In obedience to this command,
+the Queen at once equipped a little fleet of the quaint old galleys that
+the Egyptians then used (Plate 1), and sent them out, with picked crews,
+and a royal envoy in command, to sail down the Red Sea, in search of the
+Divine Land. The ships were laden with all kinds of goods to barter with
+the Punites, and a guard of Egyptian soldiers was placed on board.
+
+We do not know how long it took the little squadron to reach its
+destination. Sea voyages in those days were slow and dangerous. But at
+last the ships safely reached the mouth of the Elephant River in
+Somaliland, and went up the river with the tide till they came to the
+village of the natives. They found that the Punites lived in curious
+beehive-shaped houses, some of them made of wicker-work, and placed on
+piles, so that they had to climb into them by ladders. The men were not
+negroes, though some negroes lived among them; they were very much like
+the Egyptians in appearance, wore pointed beards, and were dressed only
+in loincloths, while the women wore a yellow sleeveless dress, which
+reached halfway between the knee and ankle.
+
+Nehsi, the royal envoy, landed with an officer and eight soldiers, and,
+to show that he came in peace, he spread out on a table some presents
+for the chief of the Punites--five bracelets, two gold necklaces, a
+dagger, with belt and sheath, a battle-axe, and eleven strings of glass
+beads--much such a present as a European explorer might give to-day to
+an African chief. The natives came down in great excitement to see the
+strangers who had brought such treasures, and were astonished at the
+arrival of such a fleet. "How is it," they said, "that you have reached
+this country, hitherto unknown to men? Have you come by way of the sky,
+or have you sailed on the waters of the Divine Sea?" The chief, who was
+called Parihu, came down with his wife Aty, and his daughter. Aty rode
+down on a donkey, but dismounted to see the strangers, and, indeed, the
+poor donkey must have been greatly relieved, for the chieftainess was an
+exceedingly fat lady, and her daughter, though so young, showed every
+intention of being as fat as her mother.
+
+After the envoy and the chief had exchanged compliments, business began.
+The Egyptians pitched a tent in which they stored their goods for
+barter, and to put temptation out of the way of the natives, they drew a
+guard of soldiers round the tent. For several days the market remained
+open, and the country people brought down their treasures, till the
+ships were laden as deeply as was safe. The cargo was a varied and
+valuable one. Elephants' tusks, gold, ebony, apes, greyhounds, leopard
+skins, all were crowded into the galleys, the apes sitting gravely on
+the top of the bales of goods, and looking longingly at the land which
+they were leaving.
+
+But the most important part of the cargo was the incense, and the
+incense-trees. Great quantities of the gum from which the incense was
+made were placed on board, and also thirty-one of the incense sycamores,
+their roots carefully surrounded with a large ball of earth, and
+protected by baskets. Several young chiefs of the Punites accompanied
+the expedition back to Thebes, to see what life was like in the strange
+new world which had been revealed to them. Altogether the voyage home
+must have been no easy undertaking, for the ships, with their heavy
+cargoes, must have been very difficult to handle.
+
+The arrival of the squadron at Thebes, which they must have reached by a
+canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea, was made the occasion of a
+great holiday festival. Long lines of troops in gala attire came out to
+meet the brave explorers, and an escort of the royal fleet accompanied
+the exploring squadron up to the temple quay where the ships were to
+moor. Then the Thebans feasted their eyes on the wonderful treasures
+that had come from Punt, wondering at the natives, the incense, the
+ivory, and, above all, at a giraffe which had been brought home. How the
+poor creature was stowed away on the little Egyptian ship it is hard to
+see; but there he was, with his spots and his long neck, the most
+wonderful creature that the good folks of Thebes had ever seen. The
+precious incense gum was stored in the temple, and the Queen herself
+gave a bushel measure, made of a mixture of gold and silver, to measure
+it out with.
+
+So the voyage of discovery had ended in a great success. But Queen
+Hatshepsut's purpose was only half fulfilled as yet. In a nook of the
+limestone cliffs, not far from Thebes, her father before her had begun
+to build a very wonderful temple, close beside the ruins of an older
+sanctuary which had stood there for hundreds of years. Hatshepsut had
+been gradually completing his work, and the temple was now growing into
+a most beautiful building, very different from ordinary Egyptian
+temples. From the desert sands in front it rose terrace above terrace,
+each platform bordered with rows of beautiful limestone pillars, until
+at last it reached the cliffs, and the most sacred chamber of it, the
+Holy of Holies, was hewn into the solid wall of rock behind.
+
+This temple the Queen resolved to make into what she called a Paradise
+for Amen, the god who had told her to send out the ships. So she planted
+on the terraces the sacred incense-trees which had been brought from
+Punt; and, thanks to careful tending and watering, they flourished well
+in their new home. And then, all along the walls of the temple, she
+caused her artists to carve and paint the whole story of the voyage. We
+do not know the names of the artists who did the work, though we know
+that of the architect, Sen-mut, who planned the building. But, whoever
+they were, they must have been very skilful sculptors; for the story of
+the voyage is told in pictures on the walls of this wonderful temple, so
+that everything can be seen just as it actually happened more than three
+thousand years ago.
+
+You can see the ships toiling along with oar and sail towards their
+destination, the meeting with the natives, the palaver and the trading,
+the loading of the galleys, and the long procession of Theban soldiers
+going out to meet the returning explorers. Not a single detail is
+missed, and, thanks to the Queen and her artists, we can go back over
+all these years, and see how sailors worked, and how people lived in
+savage lands in that far-off time, and realize that explorers dealt with
+the natives in foreign countries in those days very much as they deal
+with them now. When our explorers of to-day come back from their
+journeys, they generally tell the story of their adventures in a big
+book with many pictures; but no explorer ever published the account of a
+voyage of discovery on such a scale as did Queen Hatshepsut, when she
+carved the voyage to Punt on the walls of her great temple at
+Deir-el-Bahri, and no pictures in any modern book are likely to last as
+long, or to tell so much as these pictures that have come to light again
+during the last few years, after being buried for centuries under the
+desert sands.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 13.
+THE BARK OF THE MOON, GUARDED BY THE DIVINE EYES.]
+
+Queen Hatshepsut has left other memorials of her greatness besides the
+temple with its story of her voyage. She has told us how one day she was
+sitting in her palace, and thinking of her Creator, when the thought
+came into her mind to rear two great obelisks before the Temple of Amen
+at Karnak. So she gave the command, and Sen-mut, her clever architect,
+went up the Nile to Aswan, and quarried two huge granite blocks, and
+floated them down the river. Cleopatra's Needle, which stands on the
+Thames Embankment, is 68-1/2 feet high, and it seems to us a huge stone
+for men to handle. Our own engineers had trouble enough in bringing it
+to this country, and setting it up. But these two great obelisks of
+Queen Hatshepsut were 98-1/2 feet high, and weighed about 350 tons
+apiece. Yet Sen-mut had them quarried, and set up, and carved all over
+from base to summit in seven months from the time when the Queen gave
+her command! One of them still stands at Karnak, the tallest obelisk in
+the temple there; while the other great shaft has fallen, and lies
+broken, close to its companion. They tell us their own plain story of
+the wisdom and skill of those far-off days; and perhaps the great Queen
+who thought of her Creator as she sat in her palace, and longed to
+honour Him, found that the God whom she ignorantly worshipped was indeed
+not far from His servant's heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+EGYPTIAN BOOKS
+
+
+The Egyptians were, if not quite the earliest, at least among the
+earliest of all the peoples of the world to find out how to put down
+their thoughts in writing, or in other words, to make a book; and one of
+their old books, full of wise advice from a father to his son, is,
+perhaps, the oldest book in the world. Two words which we are constantly
+using might help to remind us of how much we owe to their cleverness.
+The one is "Bible," and the other is "paper." When we talk of the Bible,
+which just means "the Book," we are using one of the words which the
+Greeks used to describe the plant out of which the Egyptians made the
+material on which they wrote; and when we talk of paper, we are using
+another name, the commoner name, of the same plant. For the Egyptians
+were the first people to make paper, and they used it for many centuries
+before other people had learned how much handier it was than the other
+things which they used.
+
+Yet, if you saw an Egyptian book, you would think it was a very curious
+and clumsy thing indeed, and very different from the handy volumes which
+we use nowadays. When an Egyptian wanted to make a book, he gathered the
+stems of a kind of reed called the papyrus, which grew in some parts of
+Egypt in marshy ground. This plant grew to a height of from 12 to 15
+feet, and had a stalk about 6 inches thick. The outer rind was peeled
+off this stalk, and then the inner part of it was separated, by means
+of a flat needle, into thin layers. These layers were joined to one
+another on a table, and a thin gum was spread over them, and then
+another layer was laid crosswise on the top of the first. The double
+sheet thus made was then put into a press, squeezed together, and dried.
+The sheets varied, of course, in breadth according to the purpose for
+which they were needed. The broadest that we know of measure about 17
+inches across, but most are much narrower than that.
+
+When the Egyptian had got his paper, he did not make it up into a volume
+with the sheets bound together at the back, as we do. He joined them end
+to end, adding on sheet after sheet as he wrote, and rolling up his book
+as he went along; so when the book was done it formed a big roll,
+sometimes many feet long. There is one great book in the British Museum
+which measures 135 feet in length. You would think it very strange and
+awkward to have to handle a book like that.
+
+But if the book seemed curious to you, the writing in it would seem
+still more curious; for the Egyptian writing was certainly the
+quaintest, and perhaps the prettiest, that has ever been known. It is
+called "hieroglyphic," which means "sacred carving," and it is nothing
+but little pictures from beginning to end. The Egyptians began by
+putting down a picture of the thing which was represented by the word
+they wanted to use, and, though by-and-by they formed a sort of alphabet
+to spell words with, and had, besides, signs that represented the
+different syllables of a word, still, these signs were all little
+pictures. For instance, one of their signs for _a_ was the figure of an
+eagle; their sign for _m_ was a lion, and for _u_ a little chicken; so
+that when you look at an Egyptian book written in the hieroglyphic
+character, you see column after column of birds and beasts and creeping
+things, of men and women and boats, and all sorts of other things,
+marching across the page.
+
+When the Egyptians wanted any of their writings to last for a very long
+time, they did not trust them to the frail papyrus rolls, but used
+another kind of book altogether. You have heard of "sermons in stones"?
+Well, a great many of the Egyptian books that tell us of the great deeds
+of the Pharaohs were written on stone, carved deep and clear in the hard
+granite of a great obelisk, or in the limestone of a temple wall. When
+one of the Kings came back from the wars, he generally published the
+account of his battles and victories by carving them on the walls of one
+of the great temples, or on a pillar set up in the court of a temple,
+and there they remain to this day for scholars to read.
+
+When the hieroglyphics were cut in stone, the lines were often filled in
+with pastes of different colours, so that the whole writing was a blaze
+of beautiful tints, and the walls looked as if they were covered with
+finely-coloured hangings. Of course, the colours have mostly faded now;
+but there are still some temples and tombs where they can be seen,
+almost as fresh as when they were first laid on, and from these we can
+gather some idea of how wonderfully beautiful were these stone books of
+ancient Egypt. The scribes and carvers knew very well how beautiful
+their work was, and were careful to make it look as beautiful as
+possible; so much so, that if they found that the grouping of figures to
+make up a particular word or sentence was going to be ugly or clumsy,
+they would even prefer to spell the word wrong, rather than spoil the
+appearance of their picture-writing. Some of you, I dare say, spell
+words wrong now and again; but I fancy it isn't because you think they
+look prettier that way.
+
+But now let us turn back again to our papyrus roll. Suppose that we have
+got it, clean and fresh, and that our friend the scribe is going to
+write upon it. How does he go about it? To begin with, he draws from his
+belt a long, narrow wooden case, and lays it down beside him. This is
+his palette; rather a different kind of palette from the one which
+artists use. It is a piece of wood, with one long hollow in it, and two
+or three shallow round ones. The long hollow holds a few pens, which are
+made out of thin reeds, bruised at the ends, so that their points are
+almost like little brushes. The shallow round hollows are for holding
+ink--black for most of the writing, red for special words, and perhaps
+one or two other colours, if the scribe is going to do a very fine piece
+of work. So he squats down, cross-legged, dips a reed-pen in the ink,
+and begins. As he writes he makes his little figures of men and beasts
+and birds face all in the one direction, and his readers will know that
+they must always read from the point towards which the characters face.
+Now and then, when he comes to some specially important part, he draws,
+in gay colours, a little picture of the scene which the words describe.
+
+Now, you can understand that this picture-writing was not very easy work
+to do when you had nothing but a bruised reed to draw all sorts of
+animals with. Gradually the pictures grew less and less like the
+creatures they stood for to begin with, and at last the old hieroglyphic
+broke down into a kind of running hand, where a stroke or two might
+stand for an eagle, a lion, or a man. And very many of the Egyptian
+books are written in this kind of broken-down hieroglyphic, which is
+called "hieratic," or priestly writing. But some of the finest and
+costliest books were still written in the beautiful old style.
+
+On their papyrus rolls the Egyptians wrote all sorts of things--books of
+wise advice, stories like the fairy-tales which we have been hearing,
+legends of the gods, histories, and poems; but the book that is oftenest
+met with is one of their religious books. It is nearly always called the
+"Book of the Dead" now, and some people call it the Egyptian Bible, but
+neither of these names is the right one. Certainly, it is not in the
+least like the Bible, and the Egyptians themselves never called it the
+Book of the Dead. They called it "The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day,"
+and the reason they gave it that name was because they believed that if
+their dead friends knew all the wisdom that was written in it, they
+would escape all the dangers of the other world, and would be able in
+heaven to go in and out just as they had done upon earth, and to be
+happy for ever.
+
+The book is full of all kinds of magical charms against the serpents and
+dragons and all the other kinds of evil things that sought to destroy
+the dead person in the other world. The scribes used to write off copies
+of it by the dozen, and keep them in stock, with blank places for the
+names of the persons who were to use them. When anyone died, his
+friends went away to a scribe, and bought a roll of the Book of the
+Dead, and the scribe filled in the name of the dead person in the blank
+places. Then the book was buried along with his mummy, so that when he
+met the demons and serpents on the road to heaven, he would know how to
+drive them away, and when he came to gates that had to be opened, or
+rivers that had to be crossed, he would know the right magical words to
+use.
+
+Some of these rolls of the Book of the Dead are very beautifully
+written, and illustrated with most wonderful little coloured pictures,
+representing different scenes of life in the other world, and it is from
+these that we have learned a great deal of what the Egyptians believed
+about the judgment after death, and heaven. But the common ones are very
+carelessly done. The scribes knew that the book was going to be buried
+at once, and that nobody was likely ever to see it again; so they did
+not care much whether they made mistakes or not, and often they missed
+out parts of the book altogether. They little thought that, thousands of
+years after they were dead, scholars would dig up their writings again,
+and read them, and see all their blunders.
+
+Of course, a great deal of this book is dreadful rubbish, and anything
+more unlike the noble and beautiful teaching of the Bible you can
+scarcely imagine. It has no more sense in it than the "Fee! fi! foh!
+fum!" of our fairy-stories. Here is one little chapter from it. It is
+called "The Chapter of Repulsing Serpents," and the Egyptians supposed
+that when a serpent attacked you on your way to heaven, you had only to
+recite this verse, and the serpent would be powerless to harm you:
+"Hail, thou serpent Rerek! advance not hither. Stand still now, and thou
+shalt eat the rat which is an abomination unto Ra (the Sun-God), and
+thou shalt crunch the bones of a filthy cat."
+
+It sounds very silly, doesn't it? And there are many things quite as
+silly as this in the book. You can scarcely imagine how wise people like
+the Egyptians could ever have believed in such drivel. But, then, side
+by side with this miserable stuff, you find really wonderful and noble
+thoughts, that surely came to these men of ancient days from God
+Himself, telling them how every man must be judged at last for all that
+he has done on earth, and how only those who have done justly, and loved
+mercy, and walked humbly with God, will be accepted by Him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TEMPLES AND TOMBS
+
+
+Anyone travelling through our own land, or through any European country,
+to see the great buildings of long ago, would find that they were nearly
+all either churches or castles. There are the great cathedrals, very
+beautiful and wonderful; and there are the great buildings, sometimes
+partly palaces and partly fortresses, where Kings and nobles lived in
+bygone days. Well, if you were travelling in Egypt to see its great
+buildings, you would find a difference. There are plenty of churches,
+or temples, rather, and very wonderful they are; but there are no
+castles or palaces left, or, at least, there are next to none. Instead
+of palaces and castles, you would find tombs. Egypt, in fact, is a land
+of great temples and great tombs.
+
+[Illustration: Plate 14
+GATEWAY OF THE TEMPLE OF EDFU. _Pages_ 74, 75]
+
+Now, one can see why the Egyptians built great temples; for they were a
+very religious nation, and paid great honour to their gods. But why did
+they give so much attention to their tombs? The reason is, as you will
+hear more fully in another chapter, that there never was a nation which
+believed so firmly as did the Egyptians that the life after death was
+far more important than life in this world. They built their houses, and
+even their palaces, very lightly, partly of wood and partly of clay,
+because they knew that they were only to live in them for a few years.
+But they called their tombs "eternal dwelling-places"; and they have
+made them so wonderfully that they have lasted long after all the other
+buildings of the land, except the temples, have passed away.
+
+First of all, let me try to give you an idea of what an Egyptian temple
+must have been like in the days of its splendour. People come from all
+parts of the world to see even the ruins of these buildings, and they
+are altogether the most astonishing buildings in the world; but they are
+now only the skeletons of what the temples once were, and scarcely give
+you any more idea of their former glory and beauty than a human skeleton
+does of the beauty of a living man or woman. Suppose, then, that we are
+coming up to the gates of a great Egyptian temple in the days when it
+was still the house of a god who was worshipped by hundreds of thousands
+of people.
+
+As we pass out of the narrow streets of the city to which the temple
+belongs, we find ourselves standing upon a broad paved way, which
+stretches before us for hundreds of yards. On either side, this way is
+bordered by a row of statues, and these statues are in the form of what
+we call sphinxes--that is to say, they have bodies shaped like crouching
+lions, and on the lion-body there is set the head of a different
+creature. Some of the sphinxes, like the Great Sphinx, have human heads;
+but those which border the temple avenues have oftener either ram or
+jackal heads.
+
+As we pass along the avenue, two high towers rise before us, and between
+them is a great gateway. In front of the gate-towers are two tall
+obelisks, slender, tapering shafts of red granite, like Cleopatra's
+Needle on the Thames Embankment. They are hewn out of single blocks of
+stone, carved all over with hieroglyphic figures, polished till they
+shine like mirrors, and their pointed tops are gilded so that they flash
+brilliantly in the sunlight. Beside the obelisks, which may be from 70
+to 100 feet high, there are huge statues, perhaps two, perhaps four, of
+the King who built the temple. These statues represent the King as
+sitting upon his throne, with the double crown of Egypt, red and white,
+upon his head. They also are hewn out of single blocks of stone, and
+when you look at the huge figures you wonder how human hands could ever
+get such stones out of the quarry, sculpture them, and set them up.
+Before one of the temples of Thebes still lie the broken fragments of a
+statue of Ramses II. When it was whole the statue must have been about
+57 feet high, and the great block of granite must have weighed about
+1,000 tons--the largest single stone that was ever handled by human
+beings. Plate 10 will give you some idea of what these huge statues
+looked like.
+
+Fastened to the towers are four tall flagstaves--two on either side of
+the gate--and from them float gaily-coloured pennons. The walls of the
+towers are covered with pictures of the wars of the King. Here you see
+him charging in his chariot upon his fleeing enemies; here, again, he is
+seizing a group of captives by the hair, and raising his mace or his
+sword to kill them; but whatever he is doing, he is always gigantic,
+while his foes are mere helpless human beings. All these carvings are
+brilliantly painted, and the whole front of the building glows with
+colour; it is really a kind of pictorial history of the King's reign.
+
+Now we stand in front of the gate. Its two leaves are made of cedar-wood
+brought from Lebanon; but you cannot see the wood at all, for it is
+overlaid with plates of silver chased with beautiful designs. Passing
+through the gateway, we find ourselves in a broad open court. All round
+it runs a kind of cloister, whose roof is supported upon tall pillars,
+their capitals carved to represent the curving leaves of the palm-tree.
+In the middle of the court there stands a tall pillar of stone,
+inscribed with the story of the great deeds of Pharaoh, and his gifts to
+the god of the temple. It is inlaid with turquoise, malachite, and
+lapis-lazuli, and sparkles with precious stones.
+
+At the farther side of this court, another pair of towers and another
+gateway lead you into the second court. Here we pass at once out of
+brilliant sunlight into semi-darkness; for this court is entirely roofed
+over, and no light enters it except from the doorway and from grated
+slits in the roof. Look around you, and you will see the biggest single
+chamber that was ever built by the hands of man. Down the centre run two
+lines of gigantic pillars which hold up the roof, and form the nave of
+the hall; and beyond these on either side are the aisles, whose roofs
+are supported by a perfect forest of smaller columns.
+
+Look up to the twelve great pillars of the nave. They soar above your
+head, seventy feet into the air, their capitals bending outwards in the
+shape of open flowers. On each capital a hundred men could stand safely;
+and the great stone roofing beams that stretch from pillar to pillar
+weigh a hundred tons apiece. How were they ever brought to the place?
+And, still more, how were they ever swung up to that dizzy height, and
+laid in their places? Each of the great columns is sculptured with
+figures and gaily painted, and the surrounding walls of the hall are all
+decorated in the same way. But when you look at the pictures, you find
+that it is no longer the wars of the King that are represented. The
+inside of the temple is too holy for such things. Instead, you have
+pictures of the gods, and of the King making all kinds of offerings to
+them; and these pictures are repeated again and again, with endless
+inscriptions, telling of the great gifts which Pharaoh has given to the
+temple.
+
+Finally we pass into the Holy of Holies. Here no light of day ever
+enters at all. The chamber, smaller and lower than either of the others,
+is in darkness except for the dim light of the lamp carried by the
+attendant priest. Here stands the shrine, a great block of granite, hewn
+into a dwelling-place for the figure of the god. It is closed with cedar
+doors covered with gold plates, and the doors are sealed; but if we
+could persuade the priest to let us look within, we should see a small
+wooden figure something like the one that we saw carried through the
+streets of Thebes, dressed and painted, and surrounded by offerings of
+meat, drink, and flowers. For this little figure all the glories that we
+have passed through have been created: an army of priests attends upon
+it day by day, dresses and paints it, spreads food before it, offers
+sacrifices and sings hymns in its praise.
+
+Behind the sanctuary lie storehouses, which hold corn and fruits and
+wines enough to supply a city in time of siege. The god is a great
+proprietor, holding more land than any of the nobles of the country. He
+has a revenue almost as great as that of Pharaoh himself. He has troops
+of his own, an army which obeys no orders but his. On the Red Sea he has
+one fleet, bringing to his temple the spices and incense of the
+Southland; and from the Nile mouths another fleet sails to bring home
+cedar-wood from Lebanon, and costly stuffs from Tyre. His priests have
+far more power than the greatest barons of the land, and Pharaoh, mighty
+as he is, would think twice before offending a band of men whose hatred
+could shake him on his throne. Such was an Egyptian temple 3,000 years
+ago, when Egypt was the greatest power in the world.
+
+But if the temples of ancient Egypt are wonderful, the tombs are almost
+more wonderful still. Very early in their history the Egyptians began to
+show their sense of the importance of the life after death by raising
+huge buildings to hold the bodies of their great men. Even the earliest
+Kings, who lived before there was any history at all, had great
+underground chambers scooped out and furnished with all sorts of things
+for their use in the after-life. But it is when we come to that King
+Khufu, who figures in the fairy-stories of Zazamankh and Dedi, that we
+begin to understand what a wonderful thing an Egyptian tomb might be.
+
+Not very far from Cairo, the modern capital of Egypt, a line of strange,
+pointed buildings rises against the sky on the edge of the desert. These
+are the Pyramids, the tombs of the great Kings of Egypt in early days,
+and if we want to know what Egyptian builders could do 4,000 years
+before Christ, we must look at them. Take the largest of them, the Great
+Pyramid, called the Pyramid of Cheops. Cheops is really Khufu, the King
+who was so much put out by Dedi's prophecy about Rud-didet's three
+babies. No such building was ever reared either before or since. It
+stands, even now, 450 feet in height, and before the peak was destroyed,
+it was about 30 feet higher. Each of its four sides measures over 750
+feet in length, and it covers more than twelve acres of ground, the size
+of a pretty large field. But you will get the best idea of how
+tremendous a building it is when I tell you that if you used it as a
+quarry, you could build a town, big enough to hold all the people of
+Aberdeen, out of the Great Pyramid; or if you broke up the stones of
+which it is built, and laid them in a line a foot broad and a foot deep,
+the line would reach a good deal more than halfway round the world at
+the Equator. You would have some trouble in breaking up the stones,
+however; for many of the great blocks weigh from 40 to 50 tons apiece,
+and they are so beautifully fitted to one another that you could not get
+the edge of a sheet of paper into the joints!
+
+Inside this great mountain of stone there are long passages leading to
+two small rooms in the centre of the Pyramid; and in one of these rooms,
+called "the King's Chamber," the body of the greatest builder the world
+has ever seen was laid in its stone coffin. Then the passages were
+closed with heavy plug-blocks of stone, so that no one should ever
+disturb the sleep of King Khufu. But, in spite of all precautions,
+robbers mined their way into the Pyramid ages ago, plundered the coffin,
+and scattered to the winds the remains of the King, so that, as Byron
+says, "Not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops."
+
+The other pyramids are smaller, though, if the Great Pyramid had not
+been built, the Second and Third would have been counted world's
+wonders. Near the Second Pyramid sits the Great Sphinx. It is a huge
+statue, human-headed and lion-bodied, carved out of limestone rock. Who
+carved it, or whose face it bears, we do not certainly know; but there
+the great figure crouches, as it has crouched for countless ages,
+keeping watch and ward over the empty tombs where the Pharaohs of Egypt
+once slept, its head towering seventy feet into the air, its vast limbs
+and body stretching for two hundred feet along the sand, the strangest
+and most wonderful monument ever hewn by the hands of man (Plate 11).
+
+Later on in Egyptian history the Kings and great folk grew tired of
+building pyramids, and the fashion changed. Instead of raising huge
+structures above ground, they began to hew out caverns in the rocks in
+which to lay their dead. Round about Thebes, the rocks on the western
+side of the Nile are honeycombed with these strange houses of the
+departed. Their walls, in many cases, are decorated with bright and
+cheerful pictures, showing scenes of the life which the dead man lived
+on earth. There he stands, or sits, placid and happy, with his wife
+beside him, while all around him his servants go about their usual work.
+They plough and hoe, sow and reap; they gather the grapes from the vines
+and put them into the winepress; or they bring the first-fruits of the
+earth to present them before their master (Plate 15). In other pictures
+you see the great man going out to his amusements, fishing, hunting, or
+fowling; or you are taken into the town, and see the tradesmen working,
+and the merchants, and townsfolk buying and selling in the bazaars. In
+fact, the whole of life in Ancient Egypt passes before your eyes as you
+go from chamber to chamber, and it is from these old tomb-pictures that
+we have learned the most of what we know of how people lived and worked
+in those long-past days.
+
+In one wild rocky glen, called the "Valley of the Kings," nearly all the
+later Pharaohs were buried, and to-day their tombs are one of the sights
+of Thebes. Let us look at the finest of them--the tomb of Sety I., the
+father of that Ramses II. of whom we have heard so much. Entering the
+dark doorway in the cliff, you descend through passage after passage and
+hall after hall, until at last you reach the fourteenth chamber, "the
+gold house of Osiris," 470 feet from the entrance, where the great King
+was laid in his magnificent alabaster coffin. The walls and pillars of
+each chamber are wonderfully carved and painted. The pillars show
+pictures of the King making offerings to the gods, or being welcomed by
+them, but the pictures on the walls are very strange and weird. They
+represent the voyage of the sun through the realms of the
+under-world, and all the dangers and difficulties which the soul of the
+dead man has to encounter as he accompanies the sun-bark on its journey.
+Serpents, bats, and crocodiles, spitting fire, or armed with spears,
+pursue the wicked. The unfortunates who fall into their power are
+tortured in all kinds of horrible ways; their hearts are torn out; their
+heads are cut off; they are boiled in caldrons, or hung head downwards
+over lakes of fire. Gradually the soul passes through all these dangers
+into the brighter scenes of the Fields of the Blessed, where the
+justified sow and reap and are happy. Finally, the King arrives,
+purified, at the end of his long journey, and is welcomed by the gods
+into the Abode of the Blessed, where he, too, dwells as a god in
+everlasting life.
+
+[Illustration: Plate 15
+WALL-PICTURES IN A THEBAN TOMB. _Pages_ 80, 81]
+
+The beautiful alabaster coffin in which the mummy of King Sety was laid
+is now in the Soane Museum, London. When it was discovered, nearly a
+century ago, it was empty, and it was not till 1872 that some modern
+tomb-robbers found the body of the King, along with other royal mummies,
+hidden away in a deep pit among the cliffs. Now it lies in the museum at
+Cairo, and you can see the face of this great King, its fine, proud
+features not so very much changed, we can well believe, from what they
+were when he reigned 3,200 years ago. In the same museum you can look
+upon the faces of Tahutmes III., the greatest soldier of Egypt; of
+Ramses II., the oppressor of the Israelites; and, perhaps most
+interesting of all, of Merenptah, the Pharaoh who hardened his heart
+when Moses pled with him to let the Hebrews go, and whose picked troops
+were drowned in the Red Sea as they pursued their escaping slaves.
+
+It is very strange to think that one can see the actual features and
+forms on which the heroes of our Bible story looked in life. The reason
+of such a thing is that the Egyptians believed that when a man died, his
+soul, which passed to the life beyond, loved to return to its old home
+on earth, and find again the body in which it once dwelt; and even,
+perhaps, that the soul's existence in the other world depended in some
+way on the preservation of the body. So they made the bodies of their
+dead friends into what we call "mummies," steeping them for many days in
+pitch and spices till they were embalmed, and then wrapping them round
+in fold upon fold of fine linen. So they have endured all these hundreds
+of years, to be stored at last in a museum, and gazed upon by people who
+live in lands which were savage wildernesses when Egypt was a great and
+mighty Empire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+AN EGYPTIAN'S HEAVEN
+
+
+In this chapter I want to tell you a little about what the Egyptians
+thought of heaven--what it was, where it was, how people got there after
+death, and what kind of a life they lived when they were there. They had
+some very quaint and curious ideas about the heavens themselves. They
+believed, for instance, that the blue sky overhead was something like a
+great iron plate spread over the world, and supported at the four
+corners, north, south, east, and west, by high mountains. The stars were
+like little lamps, which hung down from this plate. Right round the
+world ran a great celestial river, and on this river the sun sailed day
+after day in his bark, giving light to the world. You could only see him
+as he passed round from the east by the south to the west, for after
+that the river ran behind high mountains, and the sun passed out of
+sight to sail through the world of darkness.
+
+Behind the sun, and appearing after he had vanished, came the moon,
+sailing in its own bark. It was protected by two guardian eyes, which
+watched always over it (Plate 13), and it needed the protection, for
+every month it was attacked by a great enemy in the form of a sow. For a
+fortnight the moon sailed on safely, and grew fuller and rounder; but at
+the middle of the month, just when it was full, the sow attacked it,
+tore it out of its place, and flung it into the celestial river, where
+for another fortnight it was gradually extinguished, to be revived again
+at the beginning of the next month. That was the Egyptians' curious way
+of accounting for the waxing and waning of the moon, and many of their
+other ideas were just as quaint as this.
+
+I do not mean to say anything of what they believed about God, for they
+had so many gods, and believed such strange things about them, that it
+would only confuse you if I tried to make you understand it all. But the
+most important thing in all the Egyptian religion was the belief in
+heaven, and in the life which people lived there after their life on
+earth was ended. No other nation of these old times ever believed so
+firmly as did the Egyptians that men were immortal, and did not cease to
+be when they died, but only began a new life, which might be either
+happy or miserable, according to the way in which they had lived on
+earth.
+
+They had a lot of different beliefs about the life after death, some of
+them rather confusing, and difficult to understand; but I shall tell you
+only the main things and the simplest things which they believed. They
+said, then, that very long ago, when the world was young, there was a
+great and good King called Osiris, who reigned over Egypt, and was very
+good to his subjects, teaching them all kinds of useful knowledge. But
+Osiris had a wicked brother named Set, who hated him, and was jealous of
+him. One day Set invited Osiris to a supper, at which he had gathered a
+number of his friends who were in the plot with him. When they were all
+feasting gaily, he produced a beautiful chest, and offered to give it to
+the man who fitted it. One after another they lay down in the chest, but
+it fitted none of them. Then at last Osiris lay down in it, and as soon
+as he was inside, his wicked brother and the other plotters fastened the
+lid down upon him, and threw the chest into the Nile. It was carried
+away by the river, and at last was washed ashore, with the dead body of
+the good King still in it.
+
+But Isis, wife of Osiris, sought for her husband everywhere, and at last
+she found the chest with his body. While she was weeping over it the
+wicked Set came upon her, tore his brother's body to pieces, and
+scattered the fragments far and wide; but the faithful Isis traced them
+all, and buried them wherever she found them.
+
+Now, Isis had a son named Horus, and when he grew to manhood he
+challenged Set, fought with him, and defeated him. Then the gods all
+assembled, and gave judgment that Osiris was in the right, and Set in
+the wrong. They raised Osiris up from the dead, made him a god, and
+appointed him to be judge of all men after death. And then, not all at
+once, but gradually, the Egyptians came to believe that because Osiris
+died, and rose again from the dead, and lived for ever after death,
+therefore all those men who believed in Osiris would live again after
+death, and dwell for ever with Osiris. You see that in some respects the
+story is strangely like that of the death and resurrection of Jesus
+Christ.
+
+Well, then, they supposed that, when a man died on earth, after his body
+was mummified and laid in its tomb, his soul went on to the gates of the
+palace of Osiris in the other world, where was the Hall of Truth, in
+which souls were judged. The soul had to know the magic names of the
+gates before it could even enter the Hall; but as soon as these names
+were spoken the gates opened, and the soul went in. Within the Hall
+there stood a great pair of scales, and beside the scales stood a god,
+ready to mark down the result of the judgment; while all round the Hall
+sat forty-two terrible creatures, who had authority to punish particular
+sins.
+
+The soul had to make confession to these avengers of sin that he had not
+been guilty of the sins which they had power to punish; then, when he
+had made his confession, his heart was taken, and weighed in the scales
+against a feather, which was the Egyptian sign for truth. If it was not
+of the right weight, the man was false, and his heart was thrown to a
+dreadful monster, part crocodile, part hippopotamus, which sat behind
+the balances, and devoured the hearts of the unjust; but if it was
+right, then Horus, the son of Osiris, took the man by the hand, and led
+him into the presence of Osiris the Judge, and he was pronounced just,
+and admitted to heaven.
+
+But what was heaven? Well, the Egyptians had several different ideas
+about it. One rather pretty one was that the souls which were pronounced
+just were taken up into the sky, and there became stars, shining down
+for ever upon the world. Another was that they were permitted to enter
+the boat, in which, as I told you, the sun sails round the world day by
+day, and to keep company with the sun on his unending voyage.
+
+But the idea that most believed in and loved was that somewhere away in
+a mysterious land to the west, there lay a wonderful and beautiful
+country, called the Field of Bulrushes. There the corn grew three and a
+half yards high, and the ears of corn were a yard long. Through the
+fields ran lovely canals, full of fish, and bordered with reeds and
+bulrushes. When the soul had passed the Judgment Hall, it came, by
+strange, hard roads, and through great dangers, to this beautiful
+country. And there the dead man, dead now no more, but living for ever,
+spent his time in endless peace and happiness, sowing and reaping,
+paddling in his canoe along the canals, or resting and playing draughts
+in the evening under the sycamore-trees.
+
+Now, I suppose that all this seemed quite a happy sort of heaven to most
+of the common people, who had been accustomed all their days to hard
+work and harder fare; but by-and-by the great nobles came to think that
+a heaven of this sort was not quite good enough for them. They had never
+done any work on earth; why should they have to do any in heaven? So
+they thought that they would find out a way of taking their slaves with
+them into the other world. I fancy that at first they actually tried to
+take them by killing the slaves at their master's grave. When the
+funeral of a great man took place, some of his servants would be killed
+beside the tomb, so that they might go with their lord into heaven, and
+work for him there, as they had worked for him on earth.
+
+But the Egyptians were always a gentle, kind-hearted people, and they
+quickly grew disgusted with the idea of such cruelty, so they found
+another way out of the difficulty. They got numbers of little clay
+figures made in the form of servants--one with a hoe on his shoulder,
+another with a basket in his hand, and so on. They called these little
+figures "Answerers," and when a man was buried, they buried a lot of
+these clay servants along with him, so that, when he reached heaven, and
+was summoned to do work in the Field of Bulrushes, the Answerers would
+rise up and answer for him, and take the task off his shoulders.
+
+So, along with the mummies of the dead Egyptians, there is often found
+quite a number of these tiny figures, all ready to make heaven easy for
+their master when he gets there. They have sometimes a little verse
+written upon them, to tell the Answerer what he has got to do in the
+other world. It runs like this:
+
+"Oh, thou Answerer, when I am called, and when I am asked to do any kind
+of work that is done in heaven, and am required at any time to cause
+the field to flourish, or to convey the sand from east to west, thou
+shalt say, 'Here am I.'"
+
+It all seems rather a curious idea of heaven, does it not? And most
+curious of all is the idea of dodging work in the other world by
+carrying a bundle of china dolls to heaven with you. But, even if we
+think that very ridiculous, we need not forget that the Egyptians had a
+wonderfully clear and sure grasp of the fact that it is a man's
+character in this world which will make him either happy or unhappy in
+the next, and that evil-doing, even if it escapes punishment in this
+life, is a thing that God will surely punish at last.
+
+Remember that these men of old, wonderfully wise and strong as they were
+in many ways, were still the children of the time when the world was
+young; like children, forming many false and even ridiculous ideas about
+things they could not understand; like children, too, reaching out their
+groping hands through the darkness to a Father whose love they felt,
+though they could not explain His ways. We need not wonder if at times
+they made mistakes, and went far astray. We may wonder far more at the
+way in which He taught them so many true and noble things and thoughts,
+never leaving Himself without a witness even in those days of long ago.
+
+
+
+
+The End.
+
+
+PRINTED AT THE COMPLETE PRESS WEST NORWOOD LONDON
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 01:54:21 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 01:54:21 -0700
commit	a8294f7cdb36734d368d65f1eed6b6532c3fef79 (patch)
tree	991d0a797b0264162f17bc4609b634a37140ab6e