For those whose incomes permitted, the garden was the favorite spot. This we would naturally expect in a country where out of door life is interrupted only in the middle of the day by the intense heat. In the garden, trees, shrubs, and many kinds of flowers were planted. Its size depended upon the prosperity of the owner. Sometimes the court, however tiny, provided all the garden plot he possessed; sometimes extensive grounds included flower-gardens, date orchards, and sycamore groves, while summer houses and artificial ponds were scattered over wide areas. Small wonder was it that the "pious Egyptian hoped his soul, as its supreme felicity, would return to sit under the trees he had planted, by the side of the ponds he had dug, there to enjoy the refreshing breeze from the north."
The Egyptians were passionately fond of flowers. They grew them in their gardens, filled their houses with the blossoms, used them lavishly at their feasts and carved them on their tombs and in their temples. They sought ever to increase their varieties, originally few, and we have seen that the kings often prized new specimens found in other lands above their tribute.
"Everywhere on the monuments we meet with flowers; bouquets of flowers are presented to the gods; the coffins are covered with wreaths of flowers; flowers form the decoration of the houses, and all the capitals of the pillars are painted in imitation of their colored petals. The Egyptian also loved shady trees. He not only prayed that the 'Nile should bestow every flowering plant in their season' upon his departed soul, but also that his soul might sit 'on the boughs of the trees that he had planted, and enjoy the cool air in the shade of his sycamore.' The arable fields, the shadeless woods of palms, the bare mud soil, scarcely provided the scenery which he most admired; he therefore tried to supply the want by landscape gardening. In the oldest periods there were parks and gardens; and the gentleman of ancient Egypt talked with pride of his shady trees, his sweet-smelling plants, and his cool tanks. All the sentiments with which we regard the woods and meadows of nature, the Egyptian felt towards his well kept garden; to him it was the dwelling place of love, and his trees were the confidants of lovers.
"On the 'festival day of the garden,' that is on the day when the garden was in full bloom, the wild fig-tree calls to the maiden to come into the shade of the fig leaves as a trysting place:
"The little Sycamore,
Which she planted with her hand
She begins to speak,
And her (words are as) drops of honey.
She is charming, her bower is green,
Greener than the (papyrus).
She is laden with fruit,
Redder than the ruby,
The color of her leaves is as glass,
Her stem is as the color of the opal....
It is cool in her shadow.
She sends her letter by a little maiden,
The daughter of her chief gardener
She makes her haste to her beloved:
Come and linger in the (garden) ...
The servants who belong to thee
Come with the dinner things;
They are bringing beer of every (kind),
With all manner of bread,
Flowers of yesterday and of today,
And all kinds of refreshing fruit.
Come, spend this festival day
And tomorrow and the day after tomorrow
Sitting in my shadow.
Thy companion sits at thy right hand,
Thou dost make him drink,
And then thou dost follow what he says....
I am of a silent nature
And I do not tell what I see
I do not chatter."[1]
Having attractive grounds as a setting, the houses of the wealthy Egyptians were also attractive indoors. The dining room was the important room of the house. Guests generally sat on stools when dining. When ladies gathered for a banquet, they frequently sat on costly rugs spread upon the floor. Servants or slaves served those assembled from a large table loaded with tempting viands.
The Egyptian seems no longer far away and mummy-like when we learn that he was fond of good things to eat. Roast goose was a favorite dish; bread and beer were constantly in demand, quite as they are in Germany today. In naming over the dishes he hoped to supply his departed, in a tomb we may read: five kinds of birds, sixteen kinds of bread and cake, six varieties of wine, and eleven different fruits. The bread, molded into fancy shapes, was made of barley and wheat. Grapes were generally grown, and fig trees too. Tame monkeys were trained to go into the high branches of the fig trees and throw down the fruit.
Many specimens of ancient household furniture have been found in Egyptian tombs, such as chairs, couches, tables and bedsteads. In the sleeping apartments, high couches were reached by steps. Wooden headrests took the place of pillows. These were used in order that the wigs and elaborate head dresses might not be disturbed while the wearers slept.
The student who would make an exhaustive study of the Egyptian house and its contents must go to the museums where discovered articles have been preserved, or at least to the detailed descriptions of these given by Maspero and other Egyptologists. We could not well leave a consideration of the subject however, without giving brief attention to the dwellings of the poor, who in every age and country have made up a large part of the population.
The fellah of today lives much as did the peasant of antiquity. His dwelling was a hut built of mud and roofed with palm leaves. While the poorest had but one room, those who were more industrious, perhaps, might have two or three. Once or twice in a century, rain would fall. Then these huts would dissolve and flow away. When the storm ceased, all the family would set to work, level off the spot and construct a new dwelling from sun-dried mud, which after being exposed to the heat of a few days, would be as good as ever. This leveling of huts, whether caused by storms, or because it was easier to build a new house than cleanse the old one, has elevated the land in many parts of Egypt. Frequently it is the case that peasants have dwelt so long on the sites of buried cities, that the explorer who today would reach the original settlement must tunnel down through many layers of sun-dried mud, once the dwellings of the poor.