ial princes to multiply their
strongholds. The campaign of Piankhi on the banks of the Nile is a series
of successful sieges. Nothing, however, leads us to suppose that the art of
fortification had at that time made any distinct progress; and when the
Greek rulers succeeded the native Pharaohs, they most probably found it at
much the same stage as it was left by the engineers of the Nineteenth and
Twentieth Dynasties.

[3] At Medinet Habu.

3.--PUBLIC WORKS.

A permanent network of roads would be useless in a country like Egypt. The
Nile here is the natural highway for purposes of commerce, and the pathways
which intersect the fields suffice for foot-passengers, for cattle, and for
the transport of goods from village to village. Ferry-boats for crossing
the river, fords wherever the canals were shallow enough, and embanked dams
thrown up here and there where the water was too deep for fordings,
completed the system of internal communication. Bridges were rare. Up to
the present time, we know of but one in the whole territory of ancient
Egypt; and whether that one was long or short, built of stone or of wood,
supported on arches or boldly flung across the stream from bank to bank, we
cannot even conjecture. This bridge, close under the very walls of Zaru,[4]
crossed the canal which separated the eastern frontier of Egypt from the
desert regions of Arabia Petraea. A fortified enclosure protected this
canal on the Asiatic side, as shown in the accompanying illustration (fig.
42). The maintenance of public highways, which figures as so costly an item
in the expenses of modern nations, played, therefore, but a very small part
in the annual disbursements of the Pharaohs, who had only to provide for
the due execution of three great branches of government works,--namely,
storage, irrigation, mining and quarrying.

[Illustration: Fig. 42.--Canal and bridge, Zaru, Karnak.]

[Illustration: Fig. 43.--Cellar, with amphorae.]

[Illustration: Fig. 44.--Granary.]

The taxation of ancient Egypt was levied in kind, and government servants
were paid after the same system. To workmen, there were monthly
distributions of corn, oil, and wine, wherewith to support their families;
while from end to end of the social scale, each functionary, in exchange
for his labour, received cattle, stuffs, manufactured goods, and certain
quantities of copper or precious metals. Thus it became necessary that the
treasury officials should hav