nswering to "the ruler," "overseer," or "steward of
Joseph's house;" others "superintended the granaries," the vineyard,
or the culture of the fields; and the extent of their duties, or the
number of those employed, depended on the quantity of land, or the
will of its owner.

The mode of laying out their gardens was as varied as that of the
houses; but in all cases they appear to have taken particular care to
command a plentiful supply of water, by means of reservoirs and
canals. Indeed, in no country is artificial irrigation more required
than in the valley of the Nile; and, from the circumstance of the
water of the inundation not being admitted into the gardens, they
depend throughout the year on the supply obtained from wells and
tanks, or a neighboring canal.

The mode of irrigation adopted by the ancient Egyptians was
exceedingly simple, being merely the _shadoof_, or pole and bucket of
the present day; and, in many instances, men were employed to carry
the water in pails, suspended by a wooden yoke they bore upon their
shoulders. The same yoke was employed for carrying other things, as
boxes, baskets containing game and poultry, or whatever was taken to
market; and every trade seems to have used it for this purpose, from
the potter and the brick-maker, to the carpenter and the shipwright.

Part of the garden was laid out in walks shaded with trees, usually
planted in rows, and surrounded, at the base of the stem, with a
circular ridge of earth, which, being lower at the centre than at the
circumference, retained the water, and directed it more immediately
towards the roots. It is difficult to say if trees were trimmed into
any particular shape, or if their formal appearance in the sculpture
is merely owing to a conventional mode of representing them; but,
since the pomegranate, and some other fruit trees, are drawn with
spreading and irregular branches, it is possible that sycamores, and
others, which presented large masses of foliage, were really trained
in that formal manner, though, from the hieroglyphic signifying
"_tree_" having the same shape, we may conclude it was only a general
character for all trees.

Some, as the pomegranates, date-trees, and _dom_-palms, are easily
recognized in the sculptures, but the rest are doubtful, as are the
flowering plants, with the exception of the lotus and a few others.

To the garden department belonged the care of the bees, which were
kept in hives very like our ow