We are thus enabled to realise the great part played by the fan alike in the military, civil, and religious life of Egypt. As an instrument in the hands of private persons, or even of slaves in attendance on individuals, it is less in evidence on the monuments, although we may naturally assume that in a climate such as Egypt this instrument would be in constant requisition. We strain the eye of imagination to the very earliest period of the history of this mystic land, and see in fancy the Queen of Menes the Thinite, surrounded by slaves only a little less fair than herself, waving the fan of square form actually appearing on a cylinder in the Louvre; we see, also in fancy, the famed and beautiful Queen Nitôcris, the handsomest woman of her time, builder of the third Pyramid, reclining upon her couch, the air being rendered less oppressive by the waving of the soft feather fan with which the monuments have made us familiar. Lastly, have we not Shakespeare’s glowing picture of the fanning of the voluptuous ‘serpent of old Nile,’ Cleopatra? [Illustration: UMBRELLA OR CANOPY OF THE CHARIOT OF RAMESES III.] ‘For her owne person, It begger’d all description: she did lye In her Pavillion, Cloth of Gold, of tissue, O’er-picturing that Venus, where we see The fancie out-worke nature; on each side her Stood pretty-Dimpled boyes, like smiling Cupids, With divers-colour’d fannes whose winde did seem To glowe the delicate cheekes which they did coole, And what they undid, did.’ FANS OF THE ANCIENTS—_Continued_ ASSYRIA [Illustration] The employment of the fan in the religious ceremonies of Assyria has already been hinted at. There can be no possibility of doubt that the ceremonies and customs, both sacred and secular, connected with the fan, were common to all the countries of the East, these being the offspring of similar conditions and necessities. Thus we have in Assyrian sculpture frequent representations of the fly-whisk. On a bas-relief from Nimroud King Sennacherib is standing in his chariot superintending the moving of a colossal figure at the building of his palace at Kouyunjik, two attendants behind the chariot bearing an umbrella and fly-whisk; on another relief we see Assur-bani-pal standing, bow and arrow in hand, pouring out a libation over four dead lions before an altar, his umbrella-bearer and fly-flapper being in attendance. We are also introduced to the garden or palm-grove of Assur-bani-pal’s palace, wherein the king is being entertained by his queen at a banquet; the queen holding in her left hand what is evidently a small fan and of the shape and general appearance of the pleated fan, but probably rigid.