[33] Archæologische Zeitung, 1876, p. 90. Die Griechische Kunst in Indien.
[34] The Louvre has lately acquired some curious examples of this art.
[35] Histoire de l'Art; Huber's preface to his translation, p. xxxii.
[36] The word "plastic" is used throughout this work in its widest significance, and is not confined to works "in the round."—Ed.
[37] Herodotus, ii. 7.
[38] Mariette, Itineraire de la haute Égypte, p. 10 (edition of 1872, 1 vol. Alexandria, Mourès).
[39] The river should rise to this height upon the Nilometer at Cairo if there is to be a "good Nile." In upper Egypt the banks of the river are much higher than in middle Egypt. In order to flow over those banks it must rise to a height of some eleven or twelve metres, and unless it rises more than thirteen metres it will not have a proper effect.
[40] This work of Champollion's, to which we are greatly indebted, is entitled: Monuments de l'Égypte et de la Nubie, 4 vols. folio. It contains 511 plates, partly coloured, and was published between the years 1833 and 1845. The drawings for the plates were made by members of the great scientific expedition of which Champollion was the head. Many of those drawings were from the pencil of Nestor L'Hôte, one of those who have most sympathetically rendered the Egyptian monuments.
[41] This advantage was thoroughly appreciated by the ancients. Diodorus Siculus, speaking of the Egyptians, says that "At the beginning of all things, the first men were born in Egypt, in consequence of the happy climate of the country and the physical properties of the Nile, whose waters, by their natural fertility and their power of producing various kinds of aliment, were well fitted to nourish the first beings who received the breath of life.... It is evident that from the foundation of the world Egypt was, of all countries, the most favourable to the generation of men and women, by the excellent constitution of its soil" (i. 10).
[42] In all ages the rod has, in Egypt, played an important part in the collection of the taxes. In this connection M. Lieblein has quoted a passage from the well-known letter from the chief guardian of the archives of Ameneman to the scribe Pentaour, in which he says: "The scribe of the port arrives at the station; he collects the tax; there are agents with rattans, and negroes with branches of palm; they say 'Give us some corn!' and they are not to be repulsed. The peasant is bound and sent to the canal; he is driven on with violence, his wife is bound in his presence, his children are stripped; as for his neighbours, they are far off and are busy over their own harvest." (Les Récits de Recolte dans l'ancienne Égypte, comme Éléments chronologique, in Recueil de Travaux relatifs à la Philologie et à l'Archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes, t. i. p. 149).