The Pillar of Fire; or, Israel in Bondage

by J. H. Ingraham

Remeses drew up his horses, and from the chariot I cast my eyes over the vast level which embraced half a square league.

"These fields, Sesostris," said the prince, "are where the brick are made which are to erect the walls of the treasure-city, one of the towers of which you behold two miles distant. The city itself will take the years of a generation of this people to complete, if the grand design is carried out. On the left of the tower you see the old palace, for this is not a new city we are building so much as an extension of the old on a new site, and with greater magnificence. It is my mother's pride to fill Egypt with monuments of architecture that will mark her reign as an era."

The scene that I beheld from the height of the chariot I will attempt to describe, my dear mother. As far as I could see, the earth was dark with people, some stooping down and with wooden mattocks digging up the clay; others were piling it into heaps; others were chopping straw to mix with the clay; others were treading it with their feet to soften it. Some with moulds were shaping the clay into bricks. Another stood by with the queen's mark, and stamped each brick therewith, or the one which was to be the head of a course when laid. There were also the strongest men employed in raising upon the shoulders of others a load of these bricks, which they bore to a flat open space to be dried in the sun; and a procession of many hundreds was constantly moving, performing this task. Some of the slaves carried yokes, which had cords at each end, to which bricks were fastened; and many of the young men conveyed masses of clay upon their heads to the moulders. Those who carried the brick to the smoothly swept ground where they were to be dried, delivered them to women, who, many hundreds in number, placed them side by side on the earth in rows—a lighter task than that of the men. The borders of this busy plain, where it touched the fields of stubble wheat, were thronged with women and children gathering straw for the men who mixed the clay. It was an active and busy spectacle. Yet throughout the vast arena not a voice was heard from the thousands of toilers; only the sharp authoritative tones of their taskmasters broke the stillness, or the creaking of carts with wooden wheels, as, laden with straw from distant fields, they moved slowly over the plain.

The laborers were divided into companies or parties of from a score to one hundred persons, over whom stood, or was seated, an Egyptian officer. These taskmasters were not only distinguishable from the laborers by their linen bonnet or cap with a cape descending to the neck, but by a scarlet or striped tunic, and a rod or whip of a single thong or of small cords. These men watched closely the workmen, who, naked above the waist, with only a loin-cloth upon many of them, worked each moment in fear of the lash. The taskmasters showed no mercy; but if the laborer sunk under his burden, he was punished on the spot, and left to perish, if he were dying, and his burden transferred to the shoulders of another. So vast was the multitude of these people, that the death of a score a day would not have been regarded. Indeed, their increase already alarms the Egyptians, and their lives, therefore, are held in little estimation.

The vast revenue, however, accruing to the crown from this enslaved nation of brick-makers, leads to regulations which in a great measure check the destructive rigor of the taskmasters; for not only are thousands building cities, but tens of thousands are dispersed all over Lower Egypt, who make brick to sell to nobles and citizens, the crown having the monopoly of this branch of labor. Interest alone has not prompted the queen to make laws regulating their treatment, and lessening the rigor of their lot; but also humanity, which is, however, an attribute, in its form of pity, little cultivated in Egypt. Under the preceding Pharaohs, for seventy years, the condition of these Hebrews was far more severe than it has been under the milder reign of the queen. I am assured that she severely punishes all unnecessary cruelty, and has lightened the tasks of the women, who also may not be punished with blows.

I surveyed this interesting and striking scene with emotions of wonder and commiseration. I could not behold, without the deepest pity, venerable and august looking old men, with gray heads and flowing white beards, smeared with clay, stooping over the wooden moulds, coarsely clad in the blue and gray loin-cloth, which scarcely concealed their nakedness: or fine youths, bareheaded and burned red with the sun, toiling like cattle under heavy burdens, here and there upon a naked shoulder visible a fresh crimson line where the lash or the rod of an angered officer had left its mark! There were young girls, too, whose beautiful faces, though sun-burned and neglected, would have been the envy of fair ladies in any court. These, as well as the others of their sex, wore a sort of tight gown of coarse material tied at the neck, with short close sleeves reaching to the elbow. Their black or brown hair was tied in a knot behind, or cut short. And occasionally I saw a plain silver or other metallic ring upon a small hand, showing that even bondage has not destroyed in woman the love of jewels.

As we rode along, those Egyptians who were near the road bowed the knee to the prince, and remained stationary until he passed. We rode for a mile and a half through this brick-field, when at its extremity we came upon a large mean town of huts composed of reeds and covered with straw.

"There," said Remeses, "are the dwellings of the laborers you have seen."

These huts formed long streets or lanes which intersected each other in all directions. There was not a tree to shade them. The streets and doors were crowded with children, and old Hebrew women who were left to watch them while their parents were in the field. There seemed to be a dozen children to every house, and some of five and six years were playing at brick-making, one of their number acting as a taskmaster, holding a whip which he used with a willingness and frequency that showed how well the Egyptian officers had taught the lesson of severity and cruelty to the children of their victims. In these huts dwelt forty thousand Hebrews, who were engaged either in making brick, or conveying them to Raamses, close at hand, or in placing them in mortar upon the walls.

We passed through the very midst of this wretched village of bondmen, whose only food in their habitations is garlic, and leeks, and fish or flesh, their drink the turbid water of the Nile, unfiltered from its impurities by means of porous stone and paste of almonds—a process of art so well known to the Egyptians. On the skirts of the village was a vast burial-place, without a tomb or stone; for these Hebrews are too poor and miserable to embalm their dead, even if customs of their own did not lead them to place them in the earth. The aspect of this melancholy place of sepulture was gloomy enough. It had the look of a vast ploughed plain; but infinitely desolate and hideous when the imagination pictured the corruption that lay beneath each narrow mound. I felt a sensation of relief when we left this spot behind, and drove upon a green plateau which lay between it and the treasure-city of the king. The place we were crossing had once been the garden of Hermes or Iosepf, the celebrated prince who about one hundred and thirty years ago saved the inhabitants of Egypt from perishing by famine, having received from the god Osiris knowledge of a seven years' famine to befall the kingdom, after seven years of plenty. This Prince Iosepf or Joseph was also called Hermes, though he wrote not all the books attributed to Hermes, as we in Phœnicia understand of that personage.