es are
excavated in the rocky face of the Libyan hills. Those of the Theban
Pharaohs stand apart, and we approach through a narrow gorge called the
"Gate of Kings." The paintings, sculptures, and inscriptions on these
tombs, literally the eternal _houses_ of the dead, are the Pompeii of
the Egyptian antiquary. At Thebes are the magnificent and temple-like
palaces of the greatest of the Pharaohs, the halls of their assemblies
and their counsels, the records of their wars and conquests. At Thebes,
too, is the Memnon, a mutilated statue of Amnoph, which never was vocal
except by trick or in imagination, and the Obelisks, whose form is
sufficiently explained, without obscenity or mystery, by the fancy for
monolithic monuments and the possession of large blocks of granite. The
remains of the Labyrinth do not enable us to pronounce whether its
twenty-seven halls were a burial-place for kings or crocodiles, or a
place of assembly for the provinces of Egypt.

"Very various and very extravagant notions have been formed of the
population of ancient Egypt. That it was dense may well be inferred from
the length of time through which it multiplied in a limited space, and
from that evident parsimony of land which drove tombs and monuments to
the rocks, and cities to the edge of the desert. Calculations based on
the number of cities, and on the number of men of military age, have
plausibly placed the sum at about five millions.

"Agriculture was the chief business of the Egyptians, and the chief
business of agriculture consisted in distributing and detaining, by
canals and dams, the precious waters of the Nile. The sheep and cattle
were numerous. A grandee of Eilytheia possessed one hundred and twenty
two cows and oxen, three hundred rams, twelve hundred goats, and fifteen
hundred swine. Lower Egypt contained the great pasture lands, and was
the abode of the herdsmen--a lawless race, and, _therefore_, an
abomination to their more civilized countrymen. The ass was the beast of
burden. The horse was bred for the war-chariot--that great attribute of
ancient power. The breed was small but fine and peculiar to the country.
They were kept in stables along the Nile, and hence they do not appear
in the landscapes. Horticulture was extensively and elaborately
practised, both for use and pleasure; and the Pharaohs, like Solomon,
'made them gardens and orchards, planted trees in them of all kinds of
fruit, and made them pools of water to water