household,
and for him who reads this. In the year 12 of the emperor Tiberius
Caesar, the 15 of Pauni."

The Egyptians, according to Pliny, claimed the honor of having
invented the art of curing diseases. Indeed, the study of medicine and
surgery appears to have commenced at a very early period in Egypt,
since Athothes, the second king of the country, is stated to have
written upon the subject of anatomy; and the schools of Alexandria
continued till a late period to enjoy the reputation, and display the
skill, they had inherited from their predecessors. Hermes was said to
have written six books on medicine, the first of which related to
anatomy; and the various recipes, known to have been beneficial, were
recorded, with their peculiar cases, in the memoirs of physic
inscribed among the laws deposited in the principal temples.

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HOUSES, VILLAS, FARMYARDS, ORCHARDS, GARDENS, ETC.

The monumental records and various works of art, and, above all, the
writings, of the Greeks and Romans, have made us acquainted with their
customs and their very thoughts; and though the literature of the
Egyptians is almost unknown, their monuments, especially the paintings
in the tombs, have afforded us an insight into their mode of life
scarcely to be obtained from those of any other people. The influence
that Egypt had in early times on Greece gives to every inquiry
respecting it an additional interest; and the frequent mention of the
Egyptians in the Bible connects them with the Hebrew Records, of which
many satisfactory illustrations occur in the sculptures of Pharaonic
times. Their great antiquity also enables us to understand the
condition of the world long before the era of written history; all
existing monuments left by other people are comparatively modern; and
the paintings in Egypt are the earliest descriptive illustrations of
the manners and customs of any nation.

It is from these that we are enabled to form an opinion of the
character of the Egyptians. They have been pronounced a serious,
gloomy people, saddened by the habit of abstruse speculation; but how
far this conclusion agrees with fact will be seen in the sequel. They
were, no doubt, less lively than the Greeks; but if a comparatively
late writer, Ammianus Marcellinus, may have remarked a "rather sad"
expression, after they had been for ages under successive foreign
yokes, this can scarcely be admitted as a testimony