In this porch were seats of handsome polished stone, as in the palace of Nestor at Pylos, which, to render them more shining, would appear to have been rubbed with oil.[279] Similar seats are found to this day before the houses of the wealthy at Cairo and other cities of the East, where in the cool of the evening old men habitually take their station, and are joined for the purpose of gossip by their neighbours. In the larger towns of Nubia an open space planted with dates, palms, or the Egyptian fig-tree, more shady and spreading than the oak, and furnished with wooden seats, collects together the elders, who there enjoy what the Englishman seeks in his club, and the Greek found in his lesche—the pleasure of comparing his opinions with those of his neighbours. When, in after times, this plain porch had been succeeded by a magnificent peristyle or colonnade, the primitive custom of sleeping in the open air was abandoned; but here the master of the house with his guests took their early walk to enjoy the morning sun. It was customary among all ranks at Athens to rise betimes, as it generally is still in the warm countries of the South. Socrates and his young friend, the sophist-hunter,[280] coming to the house of Callias, soon after day-break, find its owner taking the air with several of his guests in the colonnade, the young men moving in the train of their elders, and making way for them as they turn round to retrace their steps. There was usually at Athens a similar peristyle on both sides of the house—one for summer the other for winter, and a door generally opened from the women’s apartment into that communicating with the garden, where the ladies enjoyed the cool air in the midst of laurel copses, fountains, and patches of green sward,[281] interspersed with rose-trees, violet-beds, and other sweet shrubs and flowers. ----- Footnote 279: Odyss. γ. 406, sqq. Cf. π. 343, seq. Footnote 280: Plat. Protag. t. i. p. 160. Footnote 281: Plat. Epist. t. viii. p. 403. Athen. v. 25. Poll. ix. 466. ----- The town-houses of Homeric times had generally no aulè, but the porch opened directly into the street, since it is here that, in the description of the shield, we find the women standing to behold the dancers and enjoy the music of the nuptial procession.[282] Afterwards, as the taste for magnificence advanced, the whole façade of the corps de logis[283] was richly ornamented, while the outer gates were purposely left open, that the passers-by might witness the splendour of the owner. Occasionally, likewise, the great door, leading from the portico into the house, was concealed by costly purple hangings,[284] which, being passed, you entered a broad passage, having on either side, doors[285] leading into the apartments on the ground floor, and conducting to an inner court, surrounded by a peristyle, where the gynæconitis,[286] or harem, commenced. ----- Footnote 282: Il. σ. 496. Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 93. Footnote 283: