Leaving beards for awhile, we may remark upon the law processes of the Egyptians. In civil suits, the number of judges—or, rather, the jury—was thirty; and it is worthy of notice, that their president wore a breast-plate adorned with jewels, upon which the word Truth appeared strongly emblazoned. The eight books of the laws were spread open in court; the pleadings of the advocates were in writing, in order that the feelings of the judges might not be improperly biased by the eloquence of the orator. The president delivered the sentence of his colleagues by touching the successful party with the mysterious symbol of truth and justice, which adorned his person.
In their battles, the Egyptians were very ferocious, and after they were over, exercised many barbarities, by the immolation of their prisoners. An admirable representation of a battle-field is found on the walls of the great Temple of Medinet Habou. The South, and part of the East wall is covered with a battle scene, where the cruel punishment of the vanquished, by cutting off their hands and maiming their bodies, is performed in the presence of the Chief, who has seated himself in repose, on the back part of his chariot, to witness the execution of this horrid sentence. Heaps of amputated hands are counted over before him, and an equal number of scribes, with scrolls in their hands, are writing down the account: as many rows of prisoners stand behind, to undergo a similar mutilation in their turns. Their hands are bound behind their backs, or lashed over their heads, or thrust into eye-shaped manacles. Some of their heads are twisted completely round; and some of them are turned back to back, and their arms lashed together round the elbows, and thus they are marched up to punishment.
In ancient times, the Egyptian system, as now, was one of the most cruel tyranny. Large masses of men were ordered, at the will of a despot, to “labour, in the sweat of their brow,” to their death. The slavery of the lower orders gave birth to the Pyramids. What masses were employed, and how human life was wasted, is evinced by the manner in which Necho made his canal, connecting the Nile with the Red Sea. Things are now much the same in that country. Mehemet Ali, the Pacha of Egypt, obliged 150,000 men—chiefly Arabs from Upper Egypt—to work on his canal, connecting the Nile with the Sea at Alexandria; 20,000 of that number perished during the execution of the work. The construction of the railroad from Cairo to Alexandria is not, however, conducted on this wicked principle; and things are beginning to wear the appearance of humanity.
One of the great labours of the ancient Egyptians was brick-making. The bricks were made of the clay of the district, or mud of the Nile; and in the Egyptian monuments, we have many representations, not only of the manner in which brick-making was carried on, but also of the application of bricks in the construction of houses. When Moses commenced his mission, the Hebrews were chiefly occupied in making these large bricks, dried in the sun, and compacted with straw, such as may be seen in the Nimroud ruins. These bricks were often made use of in the upper parts of houses, and in process of time, the weather, and the heat of the sun, destroyed the more fragile part of a building, and buried the strong foundations of it beneath their ruins. In the engraving I have here introduced, the mode of making the brick is delineated; some of the brick-makers are cutting the clay—others are moulding it into parallelepipedom forms, and placing the bricks in a row for drying. In the drawing, the bricks appear to be one above another, but this appearance is given in consequence of the Egyptians using no perspective in their drawings. The mode of arranging them was in rows, flat upon the ground; they were then baked by the heat of the sun, and the long dry weather, which lasts for months in this part of the world.
In building their houses, the Egyptians arranged the bricks much after the same manner as we do at present, and had a kind bitumenous cement for mortar. In the engraving, copied from one of the Egyptian tombs, we have, first the taskmaster, sitting in the usual Egyptian custom, with a long rod or stick in his hand; below him is a slave, who has just brought some bricks to be used on the building; before him is another slave, with masses of cement or bitumen, and below this figure are others, building up a wall, or side of a house.
