ed
to hold sacred. The sculptures on the walls of the temples are copied in
little; and cats, dogs, and monkeys are there placed in the attitudes of
the gods and kings of old. In one picture we have the mice attacking a
castle defended by the cats, copied from a battle-scene of Ramses II.
fighting against the Ethiopians. In another the king on his throne as
a dog, with a second dog behind him as a fan-bearer, is receiving the
sacred offerings from a cat. In a third the king and queen are seen
playing at chess or checkers in the form of a lion playing with a
unicorn or horned ass.

We may form some opinion of the wealth of Egypt in its more prosperous
times when we learn from Cicero that in this reign, when the Romans had
good means of knowing, the revenues of the country amounted to twelve
thousand five hundred talents, or ten million dollars; just one-half of
which wras paid by the port of Alexandria. This was at a time when the
foreign trade had, through the faults of the government, sunk down to
its lowest ebb; when not more than twenty ships sailed each year from
the Red Sea to India; when the free population of the kingdom had so far
fallen off that it was not more than three millions, which was only half
of what it had been in the reign of Ptolemy Soter, though Alexandria
alone still held three hundred thousand persons.

But, though much of the trade of the country was lost, though many of
the royal works had ceased, though the manufacture of the finer linen
had left the country, the digging in the gold mines, the favourite
source of wealth to a despot, never ceased. Night and day in the mines
near the Golden Berenice did slaves, criminals, and prisoners of war
work without pause, chained together in gangs, and guarded by soldiers,
who were carefully chosen for their not being able to speak the language
of these unhappy workmen.

[Illustration: 297.jpg THE MINES OF MAGHARA]

The rock which held the gold was broken up into small pieces; when hard
it was first made brittle in the fire; the broken stone was then washed
to separate the waste from the heavier grains which held the gold; and,
lastly, the valuable parts when separated were kept heated in a furnace
for five days, at the end of which time the pure gold was found melted
into a button at the bottom. But the mines were nearly worn out; and
the value of the gold was a very small part of the thirty-five million
dollars which they are said to have yielded ev