dancing in their open court by moonlight, to the music of clapping hands or the castanets, until bedtime, using their houses only to sleep in; and such is the happy life of half the Egyptians of their grade. The grander mansions, less than palaces, are not only stuccoed within and without, but painted with artistic and tasteful combinations of brilliant tints. They have numerous paved courts, with fountains and decorated walls, and are adorned with beautiful architectural devices, copied from the sacred emblems and symbols in the temples, and arranged and combined in forms or groups in the most attractive style. Over the doors of many houses are handsome shields or tablets, charged with the hieroglyph of the master, inscribed with some sentence. Over that of the house of the chief weigher of metals, opposite my palace window in On, was written "The House of the Just Balance." Over another "The good house;" and over a third, "The friend of Rathoth, the royal scribe, liveth here." Any distinction, or long journey, or merit, or attribute, gives occasion for an inscription over the entrances. The beauty of a house depends on the taste, caprice, or wealth of its builders. The priests and lords of Egypt live in luxurious abodes, and a display of wealth is found to be useful in maintaining their power, and securing the respect and obedience of the under classes. "The worldly possessions of the priest," said an Egyptian scribe of the temple of Apis, "are very great, and as a compensation for imposing upon themselves at times abstemiousness, and occasionally limiting their food to certain things, they are repaid by improved health, and by the influence they acquire thereby. Their superior intelligence enables them," he continued, ironically, "to put their own construction on regulations and injunctions emanating from their sacred body, with the convenient argument, that what suits them does not suit others." The windows of the houses are not large, and freely admit the cool breezes, but are closed at night by shutters. The apartments are usually on the ground-floor, and few houses, except perhaps in Thebes, exceed two stories in height. They are accessible by an entrance court, often having a columnar portico decked with banners or ribbons, while larger porticos have double rows of columns, with statues between them. When there is an additional story, a terrace surmounts it, covered by an awning, or by a light roof supported upon graceful columns. Here the ladies often sit by day: and here all the family gather at the close of the afternoon to enjoy the breeze, and the sight of the thronged streets and surrounding scene,--for it is open on all sides to the air. In the trades' streets the shops are on the ground-floor, and the apartments for families are above. As it scarcely ever rains, the tops of the houses, terraced, and covered with a handsomely fringed awning, are occupied at all hours, and even at night as sleeping-places by the "lord of the