sacrifice, or to the dealers in various wares. Builders dragged blocks
of 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 the
runners, that the heavily loaded and dried wood should not take fire.

All these working men were driven with sticks by their overseers, and
sang at their labor; but the voices of the leaders sounded muffled and
hoarse, though, when after their frugal meal they enjoyed an hour of
repose, they might be heard loud enough. Their parched throats refused
to sing in the noontide of their labor.

Thick clouds of gnats followed these tormented gangs, who with dull and
spirit-broken endurance suffered alike the stings of the insects and the
blows of their driver. The gnats pursued them to the very heart of the
City of the dead, where they joined themselves to the flies and wasps,
which swarmed in countless crowds around the slaughter houses, cooks'
shops, stalls of fried fish, and booths of meat, vegetable, honey, cakes
and drinks, which were doing a brisk business in spite of the noontide
heat and the oppressive atmosphere heated and filled with a mixture of
odors.

The nearer one got to the Libyan frontier, the quieter it became, and the
silence of death reigned in the broad north-west valley, where in the
southern slope the father of the reigning king had caused his tomb to be
hewn, and where the stone-mason of the Pharaoh had prepared a rock tomb
for him.