My Winter on the Nile

It should be said, however, that the ancient Egyptians found the agricultural conditions beset with some vexations. A papyrus in the British Museum contains a correspondence between Ameneman, the librarian of Rameses II, and his pupil Pentaour, who wrote the celebrated epic upon the exploits of  that king on the river Orontes. One of the letters describes the life of the agricultural people:—“Have you ever conceived what sort of life the peasant leads who cultivates the soil? Even before it is ripe, insects destroy part of his harvest.. . Multitudes of rats are in the field; next come invasions of locusts, cattle ravage his harvest, sparrows alight in flocks on his sheaves. If he delays to get in his harvest, robbers come to carry it off with him; his horse dies of fatigue in drawing the plow; the tax  collector arrives in the district, and has with him men armed with sticks, negroes with palm-branches. All say, ‘Give us of your corn,’ and he has no means of escaping their exactions. Next the unfortunate wretch is seized, bound, and carried off by force to work on the canals; his wife is bound, his children are stripped. And at the same time his neighbors have each of them his own trouble.”

2

The Great Hall measures one hundred and seventy feet by three hundred and twenty-nine; in this space stand one hundred and thirty-four columns; twelve of these, forming the central avenue of one hundred and seventy feet, are sixty-two feet high, without plinth and abacus, and eleven feet six inches in diameter; the other one hundred and twenty-two columns are forty-two feet five inches in height and about nine feet in diameter. The great columns stand only fifteen or sixteen feet apart.

3

The following are some of the measurements of one of these giants:—height of figure sixty-six feet; pedestal on which it sits, ten; leg from knee to heel, twenty; great toe, one and a half feet thick; ear, three feet, five inches long; fore-finger, three feet; from inner side of elbow-joint to end of middle finger, fifteen feet.

4

Lenormant’s Epitome.

5

Total length of Canal, 100 miles. Width of water-line, where banks are low, 328 feet; in deep cuttings, 190; width at base, 2; depth, 26.