nt times,
since the class of blacksmiths is associated with the
worship of Horus of Edfu, and appears in the account of the
mythical wars of that God. The earliest tools we possess, in
copper or bronze, date from the IVth dynasty: pieces of iron
have been found from time to time in the masonry of the
Great Pyramid. Mons Montelius has again and again contested
the authenticity of these discoveries, and he thinks that
iron was not known in Egypt till a much later period.

Those wooden weapons which were retained, were used for hunting, or were
only brought out on solemn occasions when tradition had to be respected.
The war-baton became the commander's wand of authority, and at last
degenerated into the walking-stick of the rich or noble.

[Illustration: 076.jpg KING HOLDING THE BATON. 3]

3 Bas-relief in the temple of Luxor, from a photograph
taken by Insinger in 1886.

The club at length represented merely the rank of a chieftain,[*] while
the crook and the wooden-handled mace, with its head of ivory, diorite,
granite, or white stone, the favourite weapons of princes, continued to
the last the most revered insignia of royalty.[**]

Life was passed in comparative ease and pleasure. Of the ponds left in
the open country by the river at its fall, some dried up more or less
quickly during the winter, leaving on the soil an immense quantity
of fish, the possession of which birds and wild beasts disputed with
man.[***]

* The wooden club most commonly represented is the usual
insignia of a nobleman. Several kinds of clubs, somewhat
difficult for us moderns to distinguish, yet bearing
different names, formed a part of funereal furniture.

** The crook is the sceptre of a prince, a Pharaoh, or a
god; the white mace has still the value apparently of a
weapon in the hands of the king who brandishes it over a
group of prisoners or over an ox which he is sacrificing to
a divinity. Most museums possess specimens of the stone
heads of these maces, but until lately their use was not
known. I had several placed in the Boulak Museum. It already
possessed a model of one entirely of wood.

*** Cf. the description of these pools given by Geoffroy-
Saint-Hilaire in speaking of the fahaka. Even at the present
day the jackals come down from the mountains in the night,
and regale themselves with the fi