An abundance of minor matters, but full of historical interest and instruction, may be gleaned from the same source. We find, for instance, that 3,350 years ago the principle and the use of the arch were familiar to the Egyptians; for there are several arches of that date in the tombs. Glass-blowing was practised. The syphon was understood, and used. In their entertainments the presence of both sexes was usual; and perfumes and flowers were on these occasions regarded as indispensable. The shadoof, the simplest and most effective application of a small amount of power to produce a considerable result, was as universally at work on the banks of the river, and of the canals, as at the present day; indeed, we cannot doubt but that it was much more so. But it is unnecessary to add here to these particulars. CHAPTER XVIII. THEBES—THE TEMPLE-PALACES. Cur invidendis postibus, et novo Sublime ritu moliar atrium?—HORACE. We will now, having left the tombs, turn our attention to the temples. Some we find upon the edge of the _Háger_, others a little way back upon it. The greater number of those that were once here have been completely razed to the ground, nothing now remaining of them except fragments of statues, the foundations of walls, and the bases of pillars; all of which are buried in rubbish heaps. There are, however, some singularly interesting exceptions which demand particular notice. Fortunately, though it hardly looks like chance, the temple-palaces of Sethos, of the great Rameses, and of Rameses III., are still standing. These were built by the two great conquerors of the nineteenth, and the great conqueror of the twentieth dynasties. Why did not other Pharaohs erect similar structures? The reason is not far to seek. It is here present in the case of these three kings, and is absent from the cases of other kings. The funds necessary for such structures had to be procured by looting Asia, and a great part of the work had to be done by captives taken in war. And we know that at this time it was the custom for those kings of Egypt, who contemplated great works, to begin their reigns with raids into Asia, for the express purpose of collecting the gold and the slaves that would enable them to carry out their designs. It was the good old rule, the simple plan, that those should take who had the power. These great and famous expeditions, in truth, were only imperial slave hunts, and imperial brigandage, in which not petty tribes of African negroes, but the (for those times) civilized nations of Asia, and not a few travellers, but the inhabitants of great cities and kingdoms, were the victims. These great builders, administrators, and soldiers, who believed of themselves that they had already been received into the hierarchy of heaven, could not have understood in what sense they could have done ill in building themselves a wide house, and large chambers, and ceiling it