This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Georg Ebers
The night during which the Princess Bent-Anat and her followers hadknocked at the gate of the House of Seti was past.
The fruitful freshness of the dawn gave way to the heat, which began topour down from the deep blue cloudless vault of heaven. The eye could nolonger gaze at the mighty globe of light whose rays pierced the finewhite dust which hung over the declivity of the hills that enclosed thecity of the dead on the west. The limestone rocks showed with blindingclearness, the atmosphere quivered as if heated over a flame; each minutethe shadows grew shorter and their outlines sharper.
All the beasts which we saw peopling the Necropolis in the evening hadnow withdrawn into their lurking places; only man defied the heat of thesummer day. Undisturbed he accomplished his daily work, and only laidhis tools aside for a moment, with a sigh, when a cooling breath blewacross the overflowing stream and fanned his brow.
The harbor or clock where those landed who crossed from eastern Thebeswas crowded with barks and boats waiting to return.
The crews of rowers and steersmen who were attached to priestlybrotherhoods or noble houses, were enjoying a rest till the parties theyhad brought across the Nile drew towards them again in long processions.
Under a wide-spreading sycamore a vendor of eatables, spirituous drinks,and acids for cooling the water, had set up his stall, and close to him,a crowd of boatmen, and drivers shouted and disputed as they passed thetime in eager games at morra.
[In Latin "micare digitis." A game still constantly played in the
south of Europe, and frequently represented by the Egyptians. The
games depicted in the monuments are collected by Minutoli, in the
Leipziger Illustrirte Zeitung, 1852.]
Many sailors lay on the decks of the vessels, others on the shore; herein the thin shade of a palm tree, there in the full blaze of the sun,from those burning rays they protected themselves by spreading the cottoncloths, which served them for cloaks, over their faces.
Between the sleepers passed bondmen and slaves, brown and black, in longfiles one behind the other, bending under the weight of heavy burdens,which had to be conveyed to their destination at the temples forsacrifice, or to the dealers in various wares. Builders dragged blocksof stone, which had come from the quarries of Chennu and Suan,
[The Syene of the Greeks, non, called Assouan at the first
cataract.]
on sledges to the site of a new temple; laborers poured water under therunners, that the heavily loaded and dried wood should not take fire.
All these working men were driven with sticks by their overseers, andsang at their labor; but the voices of the leaders sounded muffled andhoarse, though, when after their frugal meal they enjoyed an hour ofrepose, they might be heard loud enough. Their parched throats refusedto sing in the noontide of their labor.
Thick clouds of gnats followed these tormented gangs, who with dull andspirit-broken endurance suffered alike the stings of the insects and theblows of their driver. The gnats pursued them to