After a sounding discourse on the dignity of knowledge, a discourse which Egyptian pupils had heard without change for three millenniums, the master took chalk and on the alabaster wall began to write the alphabet. Each letter was expressed through a number of hieroglyphs, or a number of demotic characters. The picture of an eye, a bird, or a panther signified _A_, a sheep or a pot _B_, a man standing or a boat _K_, a serpent _R_, a man sitting or a star _S_. The abundance of signs expressing each sound made the art of reading or writing extremely laborious. Rameses was wearied by mere listening, during which the only relief was when the teacher commanded some pupil to draw, or to name some letter, and beat him with a cane when he failed in his effort. Taking farewell of the teacher and the pupils, the prince from the school of scribes passed to the school of surveyors. There they taught youth to draw plans of fields which were for the most part rectangular, also to take the elevation of land by means of two laths and a square. In this department also they explained the art of writing numbers no less involved in hieroglyphic or demotic characters. But pure arithmetical problems formed a higher course, and were solved by means of bullets. Rameses had enough of this, and only after some days would he visit the school of medicine. This was also a hospital, or rather great garden containing a multitude of fragrant plants and trees. Patients passed whole days in the open air and in sunlight, on beds where strips of stretched canvas took the place of mattresses. The greatest activity reigned when the prince entered. Some patients were bathing in a pond of running water; attendants were rubbing one man with fragrant ointments, and burning perfumes before another. There were some whom they had put to sleep by looking at them and by stretching out their bodies; one patient was groaning while they were setting his sprained ankle. To a certain woman who was grievously sick the priest was giving some mixture from a goblet, while uttering an enchantment which had power in connection with this remedy,-- "Go, cure, go, drive that out of my heart, out of my members."[11] [11] Authentic. Then the prince in company with a great leech went to the pharmacy, where one of the priests was preparing cures from plants, honey, olive oil, from the skins of serpents and lizards, from the bones and fat of beasts. When Rameses questioned him, the man did not take his eyes from the work. He looked continually, and ground the materials, uttering a prayer as he did so,-- "Thou hast cured Isis, thou hast cured Isis, thou hast cured Horus--O Isis, great enchantress, make me well, free me from all evil, from harmful red things, from fever of the god, from fever of the goddess[12]-- [12] Authentic. "O Shauagat, eenagate, synie! Erukate! Kauaruchagate! Paparauka paparaka paparura." "What is he saying?" asked the prince.