ted obelisks
in single shafts nearly one hundred feet in height, and they engraved
the sides of these obelisks from top to bottom with representations of
warriors, priests, and captives. They ornamented their vast temples with
sculptures which required the hardest metals. Rameses the Great, the
Sesostris of the Greeks, had a fleet of four hundred vessels in the
Arabian Gulf, and the rowers wore quilted helmets. His vessels had
sails, which implies the weaving of flax and the twisting of heavy
ropes; some of his war-galleys were propelled by forty-four oars, and
were one hundred and twenty feet in length.

Among their domestic utensils the Egyptians used the same kind of
buckets for wells that we find to-day among the farmhouses of New
England. Skilful gardeners were employed in ornamenting grounds and in
raising fruits and vegetables. The leather cutters and dressers were
famous for their skill, as well as workers in linen. Most products of
the land, as well as domestic animals, were sold by weight in carefully
adjusted scales. Instead of coins, money was in rings of gold, silver,
and copper. The skill used by the Egyptians in rearing fowls, geese, and
domestic animals greatly surpassed that known to modern farmers.
According to Wilkinson, they caught fish in nets equal to the seines
employed by modern fishermen. Their houses as well as their monuments
were built of brick, and were sometimes four or five stories in height,
and secured by bolts on the doors. Locks and keys were also in use, made
of iron; and the doorways were ornamented. Some of the roofs of their
public buildings were arched with stone. In their mills for grinding
wheat circular stones were used, resembling in form those now employed,
generally turned by women, but sometimes so large that asses and mules
were employed in the work. The walls and ceilings of their buildings
were richly painted, the devices being as elaborate as those of the
Greeks. Besides town-houses, the rich had villas and gardens, where they
amused themselves with angling and spearing fish in the ponds. The
gardens were laid in walks shaded with trees, and were well watered from
large tanks. Vines were trained on trellis-work supported by pillars,
and sometimes in the form of bowers. For gathering fruit, baskets were
used somewhat similar to those now employed. Their wine-presses showed
considerable ingenuity, and after the necessary fermentation the wine
was poured into large earthen