Figures were also introduced on the blank walls in the sitting-rooms, or scenes from domestic life, surrounded by ornamental borders, and surmounted by deep cornices of flowers and various devices richly painted; and no people appear to have been more fond of using flowers on every occasion. In their domestic architecture they formed the chief ornament of the mouldings; and every visitor received a bouquet of real flowers, as a token of welcome on entering a house. It was the pipe and coffee of the modern Egyptians; and a guest at a party was not only presented with a lotus, or some other flower, but had a chaplet placed round his head, and another round his neck; which led the Roman poet to remark the "many chaplets on the foreheads" of the Egyptians at their banquets. Everywhere flowers abounded; they were formed into wreaths and festoons, they decked the stands that supported the vases in the convivial chamber, and crowned the wine-bowl as well as the servants who bore the cup from it to the assembled guests. The villas of the Egyptians were of great extent, and contained spacious gardens, watered by canals communicating with the Nile. They had large tanks of water in different parts of the garden, which served for ornament, as well as for irrigation, when the Nile was low; and on these the master of the house occasionally amused himself and his friends by an excursion in a pleasure-boat towed by his servants. They also enjoyed the diversion of angling and spearing fish in the ponds within their grounds, and on these occasions they were generally accompanied by a friend, or one or more members of their family. Particular care was always bestowed upon the garden, and their great fondness for flowers is shown by the number they always cultivated, as well as by the women of the family or the attendants presenting bouquets to the master of the house and his friends when they walked there.