Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/83



own day. The same kind of plow was used in Egypt thirty centuries ago as is used to-day. The bastinado was the mode of punishment for minor offences in the time of Joseph as it is in this year of grace 1868; while then as now, hanging was the penalty for capital crimes. There is good reason to believe that the use of gunpowder was known in the days of the earlier Pharaohs. Anvils and blacksmiths' bellows, almost precisely like those seen in an American country smithy, are depicted on the walls of the grottoes of Beni Hassan. The germ of the Doric Column may be traced among the oldest relics of Egyptian art, and the Arch is older than Sesostris. The Thebans amused themselves with the game of draughts, and their athletes and jugglers performed some of the same feats with which the Buisleys and Hellers of our day astonish metropolitan audiences. The harp, guitar, lyre, drum and bugle are as old as the Pyramids; Theban artisans knew how to anneal and solder metals; and Theban poulterers understood the art of hatching eggs by artificial means. Looking-glasses adorned ladies' boudoirs long before Moses was found among the bulrushes, and pins and needles, and combs and fancy jewelry were as indispensable to the dear sex in the days of Rameses as in the days of Victoria.

I visited in succession twelve of these wonderful tombs. The same sculptures —the same rich paintings—the same splendid halls—the same vaulted roof— the same interminable processions of gods and goddesses, sacred animals and brute-headed, divinities characterize each. The eye wearies and the brain reels with the succession of strange scenes. You feel as-if you were in a new world—a _ wierd, subterranean world. Were these tombs intended only for the receptacles of the dead Pharaohs? Was all this lavishment of means—all this struggling for brilliant

effects—for xo other purpose than that of enshrining a mummy? Was this rich product of Art, which it took the life-time of a monarch to rear, to be ignobly sealed the moment he closed his puny eyes in death? I cannot believe it. I must believe, rather, that the tombs had other purposes—purposes connected in some manner with religious rites—perhaps with the horrid "mysteries "which form so essential a part of the Egyptian religion. I recall the description of them given by Ezekiel: "Then said he unto me: 'Son of man dig in the wail;' and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. And he said unto me: 'Go in and see the abominable things that they do there. And so I went in, and saw and beheld every form of creeping thing and abominable beasts and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed upon the walls around about."

Our next visit is to the tombs of the Priests and People, on the western side of the desert mountain. Like those of the kings, they are cut out of the solid rock. The largest, that of Asseseef, covers an area of over one acre. The sculptures and paintings of many of them are of absorbing interest. In one we find cabinetmakers and carpenters at work. One person is hewing a piece of timber; another is working on a sofa; another is chiseling out a sphynx; another is putting a piece of furniture together; another is engaged in manufacturing glassware; while a group of swarthy workmen are making bricks. Here is the interior of the house of a wealthy Egyptian. A lady is making a call. A servant offers her some wine; a black slave stands near with a plate in her hand; while several musicians are entertaining her with what were, doubtless, airs from the last opera. Let me give you an idea of how a Theban woman of fashion dressed. She wore a petticoat or gown, secured at the waist by a colored sash, or by straps over the