The account transmitted to us of the gold mines of Egypt may probably throw some light on the practice which prevailed among the Greeks. In them we find an almost exact type of the degrading toil and disregard of danger and decency recently brought to light among our own subterranean population. There, indeed, the workmen were forced to their task by the direct compulsion of a tyrannical government; while in Great Britain the constraint is enveloped by a cloud of circumstances which conceal, though they scarcely soften, the stern laws of necessity. The Egyptian gold mines were situated in the great eastern desert, on the shores of the Red Sea. They had been worked from the remotest antiquity; in proof of which it is related, that copper pickaxes were frequently found in the deserted shafts and galleries, beside incredible heaps of human bones, relics of the multitudes who had perished there by malaria, or fire-damps, or the falling of rocks, or more probably from the incessant oppression to which they were subjected.[976] In fact the benevolent historian,[977] to whom we are indebted for nearly all we know on this curious subject, felt so strongly for the sufferings of these wretched artificers of Egyptian grandeur, that he pronounced death in their case to be more desirable than life.[978] But the most miserable possess resources and springs of gratification unknown to philosophers and the professors of literature; and, we may be sure, that even those outcasts who brought up gold from the bowels of the earth to adorn the thrones and palaces of the Pharaohs, knew how to extract from their bitter employment some few sweets of sufficient efficacy to render life endurable. ----- Footnote 976: The same excessive waste of human life has been observable in all countries where mines have been worked on a large scale: “Juan Gonzales de Alzevedo assuroit en 1609, que le nombre des indigènes étoit diminué de moitié dans les environs des mines du Pérou, et d’un tiers en d’autres endroits, depuis 1581.” Schneider, Observations sur Ulloa, t. ii. p. 264. Footnote 977: Agatharchid. ap. Phot. Biblioth. Cod. 250. p. 447. a. sqq. Footnote 978: Οὗτοι πάντες οἱ τὸν εἰρημένον τῆς τύχης κλῆρον ὑπελθόντες ποθεινότερον ἔχουσι τοῦ βίου τὸν θάνατον. Id. p. 448. a. 38. -----