"The positions they took in playing ball are the same that you will see at base-ball matches in America. There is one picture of a curious game, in which it was the custom for some of the players to mount on the backs of the others, probably on account of the latter failing to catch the ball when it was thrown at them, or for some other forfeit. They also had the trick of throwing two or more balls in the air and catching them, just as you see jugglers performing in our own time. If you want to believe that there is nothing new under the sun, you will go a long way toward it by studying the life and manners of the Egyptians of the days that are gone.
PLAYING CHECKERS.
"They had the game of draughts or checkers almost identical with the one we play to-day. They did not play at cards, so far as we know. In fact, cards were invented in comparatively modern days, and the tradition is that they were originally made for the amusement of an insane king. The Egyptians had the game of "mora," and from them it probably descended to the Italians, with whom it is a national amusement. They were skilful in what we call 'the Indian club exercise,' and one of the pictures represents men raising heavy weights, after the manner of the professors of gymnastics in New York or Chicago. Sometimes they used bags of sand instead of clubs or stones, but the result was the same in each case—an exhibition of strength.
SAND-BAG EXERCISE.
"There are pictures that show bull-fights and rowing-matches, together with other amusements of the same sort. Wrestlers were as numerous as they are to-day, and probably quite as skilful, and endowed with similar strength; but we have nothing to prove to us that they travelled with the circus, or that an Egyptian Barnum existed with his wonderful hippodrome. Many of the wrestlers were women, and some of the pictures represent them showing feats of strength of which the men might be proud."