Among the lower orders, vegetables constituted a very great part of their ordinary food, and they gladly availed themselves of the variety and abundance of esculent roots growing spontaneously, in the lands irrigated by the rising Nile, as soon as its waters had subsided; some of which were eaten in a crude state, and others roasted in the ashes, boiled or stewed: their chief aliment, and that of their children, consisting of milk and cheese, roots, leguminous, cucurbitaceous and other plants, and the ordinary fruits of the country. Herodotus describes the food of the workmen who built the Pyramids, to have been the "_raphanus_, onions and garlic;" the first of which, now called _figl_, is like a turnip-radish in flavor; but he has omitted one more vegetable, lentils, which were always, as at the present day, the chief article of their diet; and which Strabo very properly adds to the number. The nummulite rock, in the vicinity of those monuments, frequently presents a conglomerate of testacea imbedded in it, which, in some positions, resemble small seeds; and Strabo imagines they were the petrified residue of the lentils brought there by the workmen, from their having been the ordinary food of the laboring classes, and of all the lower orders of Egyptians. Much attention was bestowed on the culture of this useful pulse, and certain varieties became remarkable for their excellence, the lentils of Pelusium being esteemed both in Egypt and in foreign countries. That dinner was served up at mid-day, may be inferred from the invitation given by Joseph to his brethren; but it is probable that, like the Romans, they also ate supper in the evening, as is still the custom in the East. The table was much the same as that of the present day in Egypt: a small stool, supporting a round tray, on which the dishes are placed; but it differed from this in having its circular summit fixed on a pillar, or leg, which was often in the form of a man, generally a captive, who supported the slab upon his head; the whole being of stone, or some hard wood. On this the dishes were placed, together with loaves of bread, some of which were not unlike those of the present day in Egypt, flat and round as our crumpets. Others had the form of rolls or cakes, sprinkled with seeds. It was not generally covered with any linen, but, like the Greek table, was washed with a sponge, or napkin, after the dishes were removed, and polished by the servants, when the company had retired; though an instance sometimes occurs of a napkin spread on it, at least on those which bore offerings in honor of the dead.