Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/61

 The Story of Egypt 37 Egyptian hand loom. At one loom there issues a lovely tapestry, for these weavers of Egypt furnished the earliest-known speci- mens of such work, to be hung on the walls of the Pharaoh's palace or stretched to shade the roof garden of the noble's villa. Into the back door of the next booth pass huge bundles of Paper- papyrus reeds, which we see barelegged men gathering along "^^ ^"^^ the edge of the Nile marsh. These reeds furnish piles of pale yellow paper in long sheets (p. 22). The ships which we have followed on the Mediterranean (p. 31) will yet add bales of this Nile paper to their cargoes, and carry it to the European world. For fifteen hundred years these papyrus booths along the Nile were the world's paper mills, until the libraries of wealthy Greeks and Romans (p. 1 40) were filled with papyrus books. Thus these papyrus marshes of the Nile were exhausted and the papyrus plant at last became extinct in Egypt. The modern traveler looks for it in vain as he journeys up the river. We can easily imagine the hubbub of hammers and mauls as Shipbuilders, we approach the next section of wall, where we find the ship- anTcabhiet- builders and cabinetmakers. Here is a long line of curving hulls, makers with workmen swarming over them like ants, fitting together the earliest seagoing ships (Fig. 14). Beside them are the busy cabinetmakers, fashioning luxurious furniture for the noble's • villa. The finished chairs and couches for the king or the rich are overlaid with gold and silver, inlaid with ebony and ivory, and upholstered with soft leathern cushions (Figs. 20, t^:^. As we look back over these painted chapel walls, we see that the tombs of Gizeh have told us a very vivid story of how early men learned to make for themselves all the most important things they needed. We should notice how many more such things these men of the Nile could now make than the Stone Age men, who were living in the lake-villages of Europe (Fig. 5) at the very time these tomb-chapels were built. It is easy to picture the bright sunny river in those ancient days, alive with boats and barges moving hither and thither, and often depicted on these walls, bearing the products of all