The story of Mycerinus, the Egyptian King, is grandly told by Mr. Arnold, in his popular volume of poems; and, succinctly, by Herodotus. An incident of the story connects it with our subject. Mycerinus was persecuted by the gods for rendering Egypt happy, instead of oppressing it, like his predecessors, and as the oracles had declared it should be oppressed for many years to come. In punishment for such impious piety, as his offence may be called, poor Mycerinus was told by the oracle at Buto, that he should live only six years longer. “When Mycerinus heard this, seeing that his sentence was now pronounced against him, he ordered a great number of lamps to be made, and, having lighted them, whenever night came on, he drank and enjoyed himself, never ceasing night or day, roaming about the marshes and groves, wherever he could hear of places most suited for pleasure; and he had recourse to this artifice for the purpose of convicting the oracle of falsehood, that by turning the nights into days, he might live twelve years instead of six.” Poor fool! He probably succeeded in his object, but after a sorry fashion. It may be good poetry to say that—
“The best of all ways
To lengthen our days
Is to take a few hours from night, my dear;”
but it is bad in principle, and universally unsuccessful in practice.
A recent describer of his travels in Egypt has said, that nothing is so easy as to show that the Egyptians gave jovial banquets within the sepulchral hall of tombs. I think that nothing would be so difficult as to prove this. The nearest approach to it would be the case of the skeleton that was carried about at Egyptian banquets, the bearer, at the same time, warning the guests that, eat, drink, and laugh as they might, to that “complexion they must come” at last. The assertion, however, was probably made, in part, to excuse a barbarous festival, at which the writer was present, in the tombs of Eilythyias. The locale was one of the huge halls, whose colossal columns serve to support the huger mountain that is above. The dinner, we are told, was laid out between the columns, with strings of small lamps suspended in festoons over head.
The civilized and Christian ladies and gentlemen who were the guests at this feast, broke up the coffins of the pagan and barbarian Kings and Queens, in order to procure wood to boil their vegetables! They laughed, joked, and sang joyous songs, and wondered what the buried majesty of Misraim would say, could it burst its cerements, and see northern men of unknown tongues drinking Champagne at its august feet. And if, for a moment, a reflecting guest contrasted the savage revelry with the ensigns hung out by the King of Terrors to intimate his irresistible dominion over the company,—why, reflection was soon banished by the appearance of the Awalim and Ghawazi girls, whom strong coffee and more potent brandy had primed for their lascivious dancing. “O Father Abraham! what these Christians are!”
These tombs are full of instruction to those who can read them. They show us that the chief butler and cook—the “keeper of the drinks,” and the Prince (sar) of his cooks—were probably Princes of the blood of Pharaoh. In all pictorial representations of banquets, it is the eldest son who hands the viands to his father, the eldest daughter to the mother. The bill of fare of the trimestrial banquet of the dead, held in the noble hall of the tomb of Nahrai at Benihassan, is still extant. It is as long as that of a score of Lord Mayors’; and hundreds of men were fed from what remained. All the retainers of Nahrai, who was a Prince in Egypt a full century before the time of Joseph, were buried in the vaults beneath the hall; and every one who could claim kindred with them had a right to partake of the feast. The manner of service appears to have been after this fashion:—The youngest children of the house received the viands from the cooks, and those children passed them on to the elder, until they reached the first-born, who placed the dish at the feet of his sire, by whom a portion was cut off, which the daughters, according to their age, transferred from one to the other till it reached the separate table of their mother. All remained standing, at these festival-dinners, until the two seniors of the house had finished the first dishes of the repast. Portions from these were then served to the children, when the whole party sat down together; the children eating of the remains of the first dish, while “the governor” and his lady partook of the integral second; and so on, through a long service. On the wall of a tomb at Ghizeh,—that of Eimei, one of the Princes of the Saphis,—the bill of fare directs ninety-eight dishes to be placed, at once, on the table, at the fortnightly banquets which glad survivors held in honour of the departed, who appear to me always to enjoy an immense advantage over those whom they leave behind them.
But now let us look in upon the modern Egyptian. If he be the master of a house, while he is at ablutions and prayers, his wife is making his coffee; and it is to be hoped that she is allowed the privilege alluded to in the Augustinian sentiment, orat qui laborat. The cup of coffee and pipe, taken early, generally suffice the Egyptian till noon, at which hour comes the actual breakfast, usually consisting of bread, butter, eggs, cheese, clotted cream, or curdled milk, with, perhaps, a thin pastry, saturated with butter, folded like a pancake, and sprinkled with sugar. A dish of horse-beans (terrific dish!) sometimes adorns the table. They have been slowly simmering through a whole night in an earthen vessel, buried up to the neck in the hot ashes of an oven; and the sauce for this indigestible dish is linseed oil or butter, and, perhaps, a little lime-juice. Those to whom butter is difficult of procuring, or to whom good dinners are rarities, often make a meal, and are content, upon dry bread dipped in a mixture of salt, pepper, wild marjoram, with various other herbs, pungent seeds, and a quantity of chickpeas. The bread is dipped into this ragoût, and so eaten.
The supper is the principal meal in Egypt. The cooking is especially for this repast; and what remains is appropriated for the next day’s dinner, despite the apophthegm of Boileau, that—