from the north, wines from the south, wines provincial,
and wines foreign. Beer, made of barley, was also drunk very largely,
and this beverage is heartily commended by the early writers. Indeed,
the wine and beer-bibber was so common an offender against the dignity
of the nation, that every moralist who arose had a word to say against
him. Thus, for example, in the Maxims of Ani one finds the moralist
writing--

"Do not put thyself in a beer-house. An evil thing are
words reported as coming from thy mouth when thou dost
not know that they have been said by thee. When thou
fallest thy limbs are broken, and nobody giveth thee a
hand. Thy comrades in drink stand up, saying, 'Away with
this drunken man.'"

The less thoughtful members of society, however, considered drunkenness
as a very good joke, and even went so far as to portray it in their tomb
decorations. One sees men carried home from a feast across the shoulders
of three of their companions, or ignominiously hauled out of the house
by their ankles and the scruff of their neck. In the tomb of Paheri at
El Kab women are represented at a feast, and scraps of their
conversation are recorded, such, for instance, as "Give me eighteen cups
of wine, for I should love to drink to drunkenness: my inside is as dry
as straw." There are actually representations of women overcome with
nausea through immoderate drinking, and being attended by servants who
have hastened with basins to their assistance. In another tomb-painting
a drunken man is seen to have fallen against one of the delicate
pillars of the pavilion with such force that it has toppled over, to the
dismay of the guests around.

In the light of such scenes as these one may picture the life of an
Egyptian in the elder days as being not a little depraved. One sees the
men in their gaudy raiment, and the women luxuriously clothed, staining
their garments with the wine spilt from the drinking-bowls as their
hands shake with their drunken laughter; and the vision of Egyptian
solemnity is still further banished at the sight. It is only too obvious
that a land of laughter and jest, feasting and carouse, must be situated
too near a Pompeian volcano to be capable of endurance, and the
inhabitants too purposeless in their movements to avoid at some time or
other running into the paths of burning lava. The people of Egypt went
merrily through the radiant valley in which they lived, employing all