At length the Persian monarchs conquered the country. About two hundred and seventy years before the time of Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, in his wars with Darius, had taken possession of Egypt; and at his death, in the division of his empire amongst his generals, Egypt fell to the share of one of them named Ptolemy. This was the commencement of the dynasty of the Ptolemies, who were Greek princes, reigning over this Egyptian empire, formerly governed by a long line of native kings, reaching back in history to the year 3000 B.C., and including the famous lines of Cheops, Thotmosis, Rameses, and others, known under the general name of the Pharaohs. We cannot give any particulars of these reigns in this sketch, and will only mention some of the customs of the ancient Egyptians previous to the time of Cleopatra. Egypt contained about five millions of people, who were divided into various castes. Plato tells us that in Egypt not only were the priests, the soldiers, and artisans habitually separated, but that every particular trade and manufacture was carried on by its own craftsmen, who handed down the trade from father to son. The entire cultivated land of Egypt was about twelve millions of acres. The clothing of the Egyptians consisted mostly of linen, made from the flax which grew abundantly in the delta of the Nile. Wool was but little employed, as the soil was not fitted for grazing sheep. Cotton was first mentioned in the reign of Amasis, about 566 B.C. It was also this Amasis who allowed his wife, the Egyptian queen, to receive the large income from the royal fishery at the flood-gates to the lake of Moeris, to meet the expenses of her toilet; and a century later the reigning monarch added the taxes of the city of Anthylla to the former income to keep his queen in sandal-strings; the sum obtained from the fisheries being a talent a day, or upwards of 70,700 pounds a year: and when this formed only a portion of the pin-money of the Egyptian queens, to whom the revenues of the city of Anthylla, famous for its wines, were also given, it will be seen that the Egyptian kings were at least very generous to their wives in this respect, even though they were not very particular about cutting off their heads or giving them a cup of poison if they failed to please their royal lords. Although wool and cotton were sometimes employed as articles of clothing, the preference was given to linen. Herodotus mentions some Egyptian dresses of linen, bordered with a fringe, over which was worn a cloak of white wool, similar to the _bornouse_ worn at the present day in Egypt and Barbary.