ths many-shaped creatures, in coats of mail or scales,
swarm and find subsistence.

The lotos floats on the mirror of the waters, and among the papyrus reeds
by the shore water-fowl innumerable build their nests. Between the river
and the mountain-range lie fields, which after the seed-time are of a
shining blue-green, and towards the time of harvest glow like gold. Near
the brooks and water-wheels here and there stands a shady sycamore; and
date-palms, carefully tended, group themselves in groves. The fruitful
plain, watered and manured every year by the inundation, lies at the foot
of the sandy desert-hills behind it, and stands out like a garden
flower-bed from the gravel-path.

In the fourteenth century before Christ--for to so remote a date we must
direct the thoughts of the reader--impassable limits had been set by the
hand of man, in many places in Thebes, to the inroads of the water; high
dykes of stone and embankments protected the streets and squares, the
temples and the palaces, from the overflow.

Canals that could be tightly closed up led from the dykes to the land
within, and smaller branch-cuttings to the gardens of Thebes.

On the right, the eastern bank of the Nile, rose the buildings of the
far-famed residence of the Pharaohs. Close by the river stood the immense
and gaudy Temples of the city of Amon; behind these and at a short
distance from the Eastern hills--indeed at their very foot and partly
even on the soil of the desert--were the palaces of the King and nobles,
and the shady streets in which the high narrow houses of the citizens
stood in close rows.

Life was gay and busy in the streets of the capital of the Pharaohs.

The western shore of the Nile showed a quite different scene. Here too
there was no lack of stately buildings or thronging men; but while on the
farther side of the river there was a compact mass of houses, and the
citizens went cheerfully and openly about their day's work, on this side
there were solitary splendid structures, round which little houses and
huts seemed to cling as children cling to the protection of a mother. And
these buildings lay in detached groups.

Any one climbing the hill and looking down would form the notion that
there lay below him a number of neighboring villages, each with its
lordly manor house. Looking from the plain up to the precipice of the
western hills, hundreds of closed portals could be seen, some solitary,
others closely ranged in row