called in to complete the banquet. The house was surrounded by a garden,
if possible, near the river. It was open to the air and sun. The
Egyptian loved the country, with its fresh air and sunshine, as well as
its outdoor amusements--hunting and fishing, fowling and playing at
ball. Like his descendants to-day, he was an agriculturist at heart. The
wealth and very existence of Egypt depended on its peasantry, and though
the scribes professed to despise them and to hold the literary life
alone worth living, the bulk of the nation was well aware of the fact.
Even the walls of the tombs are covered with agricultural scenes. In one
of them--that of Pa-heri, at El-Kab--the songs of the labourers have
been preserved. Thus the ploughmen sing at the plough: "'Tis a fine day,
we are cool, and the oxen are drawing the plough; the sky is doing as we
would; let us work for our master!" and of the reapers we read: "In
answering chant they say: 'Tis a good day, come out to the country, the
north wind blows, the sky is all we desire, let us work and take heart."
The best known, however, of the songs, is that sung by the driver of the
oxen who tread out the corn, which was first deciphered by Champollion--

"Thresh away, oxen, thresh away faster,
The straw for yourselves, and the grain for your master!"

Such were the Egyptians and such was Egypt where the childhood of Israel
was passed. It was a land of culture, it was a land of wealth and
abundance, but it was also a land of popular superstition and idolatry,
and the idolatry and culture were too closely associated in the minds of
the Israelites to be torn apart. In turning their backs on the Egyptian
idols, it was necessary that they should turn them on Egyptian
civilisation as well. Hence it was that intercourse with Egypt was
forbidden, and the King of Israel who began by marrying an Egyptian
princess and importing horses from the valley of the Nile, ended by