Of the use of fur both among civilized and barbarous people there are many traces. Thus we have notices of the employment of the skins of sables, ermine, and squirrels, with various contrivances to produce a variegated surface. The practice is supposed to be of Oriental origin, and the tent of Sapor to supply the earliest instance of this parti-colored arrangement. Tacitus, however, describes the same fashion of variegating furs to have been in use among the German tribes at a still earlier period.
The costume of the people who live in cities attains to the highest elegance, splendor, and gorgeousness of which it is capable. Here we discover all that properly belongs to rank, with the means of appeasing an insatiable vanity. Oriental women, in every age, have been distinguished by a passion for dress, personal decoration constituting one of the chief occupations and pleasures of their life. Variety becomes, therefore, an element of delight as well as splendor. But rare and costly garments are also highly prized by the other sex, who frequently regard an immense wardrobe as indicative of rank and taste.
“Solomon made for himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon. He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, and the covering of it of purple;” and the city is traversed by the varied equipages of an opulent people, in which many of the arts are clearly discernible. War-chariots, observable among other nations, were not to be seen among the forces of the Hebrews, whose great men used them chiefly for purposes of state.
Even the tents in which the modern princes of the East often spend the season of summer are arrayed in beauty and magnificence, of which such a fabric might scarcely be deemed susceptible. One belonging to a late king of Persia is said to have cost two millions of money. It was called “the house of gold,” because it was everywhere resplendent with the precious metal. An inscription on the cornice or the antechamber described it as “the throne of the second Solomon.”
The Dewan Khass of the far-famed Shah Allun is a building situated at the upper end of a spacious square, elevated upon a terrace of marble. In former times it was adorned with excessive magnificence. It is about a hundred and fifty feet in length, and forty in breadth. The flat roof is supported by numerous columns of fine white marble, which have been richly ornamented with inlaid flowered work of different colored stones, the cornices and borders having been decorated with a frieze and sculptured work. Formerly the ceiling was encrusted, throughout its whole extent, with a rich foliage of silver. The compartments of the walls were inlaid with the greatest delicacy. Around the exterior of the cornice are the following lines, written in letters of gold, on a ground of white marble—“If there be a paradise upon earth, it is this, it is this.”
In some Oriental edifices, the lower part of the walls is adorned with rich hangings or damask, tinged with the liveliest colors, and investing the apartments “with purpureal gleams.” In the royal garden at Shushan there were “white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble.” Ingenious devices, as wreaths and festoons in stucco and fretwork, are the ornaments of the upper part of the walls. In the days of Jeremiah, we read of apartments “ceiled with cedar and painted with vermilion;” and since then, costly and fragrant wood, on which exquisite decorations in colors and gold are displayed, have been frequently employed. Painted tiles or slabs of the finest marble have formed the floors, reminding us of the palace of Ahasuerus, where “the beds,” or couches “were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red and blue, and white and black marble;” and all the furniture of the house was in full accordance with the imperial state of the sovereign.
Some of the edifices of the East are thus associated in our minds with the greatest splendor and magnificence. The choicest marble, granite and porphyry form their walls, columns, and floors; silver and gold supply some of their decorations, while others are adorned with the costliest gems. The effect of light falling on such resplendent materials is indescribably dazzling and imposing. The allusions to such buildings in the prophecies of Isaiah, and the Revelation of “the beloved disciple,” will at once occur to those who are familiar with the Scriptures.
The remains of the departed greatness of Egypt, which the congeniality of its climate has contributed so remarkably to perpetuate, consist generally of places for civil assemblies and religious ceremonies. In Upper or Southern Egypt, the site of almost every memorable city is marked by the ruins of a temple, or palace-temple, which was appropriated to both these purposes. The visitor cannot fail to be struck by the vastness of the edifice, or the solemn air by which its ruins are pervaded. The walls bear upon them the records of the past. Covered with reliefs, which are generally colored, the idols appear receiving the homage of the sovereign who founded the structure, together with the battles, sieges, and other events of the wars, out of the spoils of which the majestic pile was reared. Sometimes the king is portrayed returning as a conqueror in triumph, and dragging a long series of captives of different nations to the feet of the presiding divinity. These pictures frequently cover a large extent of surface, and are crowded with figures in action, executed with great spirit and fidelity; the peculiar features and color of the different people being strictly preserved. Explanatory inscriptions in the hieroglyphics of Egypt accompany these reliefs. Some of these halls are six hundred feet both in length and breadth, and are crowded throughout their entire area with massive columns of majestic height. On first surveying the immense cavern temple at Ipsambul, in Nubia, the spectator might well imagine, from the whiteness of its walls, the sharpness of its figures, their brilliant hues, and especially from the parts where the tracings and first outlines appear, showing that this stupendous edifice was never completed, that the artists had only just left their work. But as his eye falls on the deep, black dust, covering the rocky floor on which he treads, into which have mouldered the doors, the door-posts, and all the inner fittings of the temple, he feels that ages have rolled away since the artisans were numbered among the dead.
The art of design, whether apparent in painting or sculpture, was used in Egypt, as must already have appeared, not to excite the imagination, but to inform the understanding. According to Clement of Alexandria, an Egyptian temple was “a writing,” addressing itself, like a volume, to the mind. Accordingly, their artists imitated nature only so far as to convey the intended idea clearly and precisely; generally they did not aim at beauty and grace. When, however, they wished to give a portrait of any particular individual, we find so exact a representation that the features of several of the Pharaohs may be easily recognized. But it is evident that they were ignorant of perspective, and that they did not feel the necessity of studying light and shade in the use of colors. Analogous to the practice of the Egyptians is that of the Chinese, in reference to the rooms of their dwellings, in our own day; for they are adorned with pictorial characters, conveying wise sayings and moral precepts; combining in the person of one artist the work of the scribe, the painter, and the engraver.
Recent discoveries enable us to call up before the mind Nineveh, that “exceeding great city,” where the arts of life attained their utmost elevation. Passing a ponderous and richly-sculptured gate, we see, at certain distances within the walls, other gates flanked by towers adorned by sculptures, or gigantic figures, as winged bulls or lions. Lofty pyramidal structures arise, which served as watch-towers. Tents, often visible within the walls of Oriental cities, occupy open spaces. Other spaces, without the great public edifices, are covered by private houses, standing in the midst of gardens, and built at a distance from each other, or forming streets, which inclose gardens and even arable land, and stretch out to a vast extent.