While the guests were entertained with music and the dance dinner was prepared; but as it consisted of a considerable number of dishes, and the meat was killed for the occasion, as at the present day in Eastern and tropical climates, some time elapsed before it was put upon table. An ox, kid, wild goat, gazelle or an oryx, and a quantity of geese, ducks, teal, quails and other birds, were generally selected; but mutton was excluded from a Theban table. Plutarch even states that "no Egyptians would eat the flesh of sheep, except the Lycopolites," who did so out of compliment to the wolves they venerated; and Strabo confines the sacrifice of them to the Nome of Nitriotis. But though sheep were not killed for the altar or the table, they abounded in Egypt and even at Thebes; and large flocks were kept for their wool, particularly in the neighborhood of Memphis. Sometimes a flock consisted of more than 2,000; and in a tomb below the Pyramids, dating upwards of 4,000 years ago, 974 rams are brought to be registered by his scribes, as part of the stock of the deceased; implying an equal number of ewes, independent of lambs. A considerable quantity of meat was served up at those repasts, to which strangers were invited, as among people of the East at the present day; whose _azooma_, or feast, prides itself in the quantity and variety of dishes, in the unsparing profusion of viands, and, whenever wine is permitted, in the freedom of the bowl. An endless succession of vegetables was also required on all occasions; and, when dining in private, dishes composed chiefly of them were in greater request than joints, even at the tables of the rich, and consequently the Israelites, who, by their long residence there, had acquired similar habits, regretted them equally with the meat and fish of Egypt. Their mode of dining was very similar to that now adopted in Cairo and throughout the East; each person sitting round a table, and dipping his bread into a dish placed in the centre, removed on a sign made by the host, and succeeded by others, whose rotation depends on established rule, and whose number is predetermined according to the size of the party, or the quality of the guests.