ght,
supple wood interlaced in ingenious fashion. The baskets contained seven
sorts of wines: date wine, palm wine, and wine of the grape, white, red,
and green wines, new wine, Phoenician and Greek wines, and white
Mareotis wine with a bouquet of violets.

The Pharaoh also took a cup from the hands of his cup-bearer standing
near his throne, and put to his royal lips the strengthening drink.

Then sounded the harps, the lyres, the double flutes, the lutes,
accompanying a song of triumph which choristers, ranged opposite the
throne, one knee on the ground, accentuated as they beat time with the
palms of their hands.

The repast began. The dishes, brought by Ethiopians from the vast
kitchens of the palace, where a thousand slaves were busy preparing the
feast in a fiery atmosphere, were placed on tables close by the guests.
The dishes, of scented wood admirably carved, of bronze, of earthenware
or porcelain enamelled in brilliant colours, held large pieces of beef,
antelope legs, trussed geese, siluras from the Nile, dough drawn out
into long tubes and rolled, cakes of sesamum and honey, green
watermelons with rosy meat, pomegranates full of rubies, grapes the
colour of amber or of amethyst. Wreaths of papyrus crowned these dishes
with their green foliage. The cups were also wreathed in flowers, and in
the centre of the table, amid a vast heap of golden-coloured bread
stamped with designs and marked with hieroglyphs, rose a tall vase
whence emerged, spraying as it fell, a vast sheaf of persolutas,
myrtles, pomegranates, convolvulus, chrysanthemums, heliotropes,
seriphiums, and periplocas, a mingling of colours and of scents. Under
the tables, around the supporting pillar, were arranged pots of lotus.
Flowers, flowers everywhere, even under the seats of the guests! The
women wore them on their arms, round their necks, on their heads in the
shape of bracelets, necklaces, and crowns; the lamps burned amid huge
bouquets, the dishes disappeared under leaves, the wines sparkled amid
violets and roses. It was a most characteristic, gigantic debauch of
flowers, a colossal orgy of scents, unknown to other nations.

Slaves constantly brought from the gardens, which they plundered without
diminishing their wealth, armfuls of rose laurel, of pomegranate, of
lotus, to renew the flowers which had faded, while servants cast grains
of nard and cinnamon upon the red-hot coals of the censers.

When the dishes and the boxes carved in