to every student of ancient scenes.  Presently the funeral will issue forth, and the men will sing that solemn yet cheery tune which never fails to call to mind the far-famed Maneros—­that song which Herodotus describes as a plaintive funeral dirge, and which Plutarch asserts was suited at the same time to festive occasions.  In some other house a marriage will be taking place, and the singers and pipers will, in like manner, recall the scenes upon the monuments.  The former have a favourite gesture—­the placing of the hand behind the ear as they sing—­which is frequently shown in ancient representations of such festive scenes.  The dancing girls, too, are here to be seen, their eyes and cheeks heavily painted, as were those of their ancestresses; and in their hands are the same tambourines as are carried by their class in Pharaonic paintings and reliefs.  The same date-wine which intoxicated the worshippers of the Egyptian Bacchus goes the round of this village company, and the same food stuff, the same small, flat loaves of bread, are eaten.

Passing out into the fields the traveller observes the ground raked into the small squares for irrigation which the prehistoric farmer made; and the plough is shaped as it always was.  The shadoof, or water-hoist, is patiently worked as it has been for thousands of years; while the cylindrical hoist employed in Lower Egypt was invented and introduced in Ptolemaic times.  Threshing and winnowing proceed in the manner represented on the monuments, and the methods of sowing and reaping have not changed.  Along the embanked roads, men, cattle, and donkeys file past against the sky-line, recalling the straight rows of such figures depicted so often upon the monuments.  Overhead there flies the vulture goddess Nekheb, and the hawk Horus hovers near by.  Across the road ahead slinks the jackal, Anubis; under one’s feet crawls Khepera, the scarab; and there, under the sacred tree, sleeps the horned ram of Amon.  In all directions the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians pass to and fro, as though some old temple-inscription had come to life.  The letter m, the owl, goes hooting past.  The letter a, the eagle, circles overhead; the sign ur, the wagtail, flits at the roadside, chirping at the sign rekh, the peewit.  Along the road comes the sign ab, the frolicking calf; and near it is ka, the bull; while behind them walks the sign fa, a man carrying a basket on his head.  In all directions are the figures from which the ancients made their hieroglyphical script; and thus that wonderful old writing at once ceases to be mysterious, a thing of long ago, and one realises how natural a product of the country it was.

[Illustration:  PL.  IV.  In the palm-groves near Sakkara, Egypt.]

[Photo by E. Bird.