asions. In some other house a marriage will be
taking place, and the singers and pipers will, in like manner, recall
the scenes upon the monuments. The former have a favourite gesture--the
placing of the hand behind the ear as they sing--which is frequently
shown in ancient representations of such festive scenes. The dancing
girls, too, are here to be seen, their eyes and cheeks heavily painted,
as were those of their ancestresses; and in their hands are the same
tambourines as are carried by their class in Pharaonic paintings and
reliefs. The same date-wine which intoxicated the worshippers of the
Egyptian Bacchus goes the round of this village company, and the same
food stuff, the same small, flat loaves of bread, are eaten.

Passing out into the fields the traveller observes the ground raked into
the small squares for irrigation which the prehistoric farmer made; and
the plough is shaped as it always was. The _shadoof_, or water-hoist,
is patiently worked as it has been for thousands of years; while the
cylindrical hoist employed in Lower Egypt was invented and introduced in
Ptolemaic times. Threshing and winnowing proceed in the manner
represented on the monuments, and the methods of sowing and reaping have
not changed. Along the embanked roads, men, cattle, and donkeys file
past against the sky-line, recalling the straight rows of such figures
depicted so often upon the monuments. Overhead there flies the vulture
goddess Nekheb, and the hawk Horus hovers near by. Across the road ahead
slinks the jackal, Anubis; under one's feet crawls Khepera, the scarab;
and there, under the sacred tree, sleeps the horned ram of Amon. In all
directions the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians pass to and fro, as
though some old temple-inscription had come to life. The letter _m_, the
owl, goes hooting past. The letter _a_, the eagle, circles overhead; the
sign _ur_, the wagtail, flits at the roadside, chirping at the sign
_rekh_, the peewit. Along the road comes the sign _ab_, the frolicking
calf; and near it is _ka_, the bull; while behind them walks the sign
_fa_, a man carrying a basket on his head. In all directions are the
figures from which the ancients made their hieroglyphical script; and
thus that wonderful old writing at once ceases to be mysterious, a thing
of long ago, and one realises how natural a product of the country it
was.

[Illustration: PL. IV. In the palm-groves near Sakkara, Egypt.]