Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt Part 2

CHAPTER VI

CHILD-LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT

How did the boys and girls live in this quaint old land so many hundreds of years ago? How were they dressed, what sort of games did they play at, what sort of lessons did they learn, and what kind of school did they go to? If you could have lived in Egypt in those far-off days, you would have found many differences between your life of to-day and the life that the Egyptian children led; but you would also have found that there were very many things much the same then as they are now. Boys and girls were boys and girls three thousand years ago, just as they are now; and you would find that they did very much the same things, and even played very much the same games as you do to-day.

When you read in your fairy-stories about a little boy or girl, you often hear that they had fairy G.o.dmothers who came to their cradles, and gave them gifts, and foretold what was going to happen to the little babies in after years. Well, when little Tahuti or little Sen-senb was born in Thebes fifteen hundred years before Christ, there were fairy G.o.dmothers too, who presided over the great event; and there were others called the Hathors, who foretold all that was going to happen to the little boy or girl as the years went on. The baby was kept a baby much longer in those days than our little ones are kept. The happy mother nursed the little thing carefully for three years at all events, carrying it about with her wherever she went, either on her shoulder, or astride upon her hip.

If baby took ill, and the doctor was called in, the medicines that were given were not in the least like the sugar-coated pills and capsules that make medicine-taking easy nowadays. The Egyptian doctor did not know a very great deal about medicine and sickness, but he made up for his ignorance by the nastiness of the doses which he gave to his patients. I don't think you would like to take pills made up of the moisture sc.r.a.ped from pig's ears, lizard's blood, bad meat, and decaying fat, to say nothing of still nastier things. Often the doctor would look very grave, and say, "The child is not ill; he is bewitched"; and then he would sit down and write out a prescription something like this: "Remedy to drive away bewitchment. Take a great beetle; cut off his head and his wings, boil him, put him in oil, and lay him out. Then cook his head and his wings; put them in snake-fat, boil, and let the patient drink the mixture." I think you would almost rather take the risk of being bewitched than drink a dose like that!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 6 GRANITE STATUE OF RAMSES II. _Page_ 75 Note the hieroglyphics on base of statue. _Pages_ 68, 69]

Sometimes the doctor gave no medicines at all, but wrote a few magic words on a sc.r.a.p of old paper, and tied it round the part where the pain was. I daresay it did as much good as his pills. Very often the mother believed that it was not really sickness that was troubling her child, but that a ghost was coming and hurting him; so when his cries showed that the ghost was in the room, the mother would rise up, shaking all over, I daresay, and would repeat the verse that she had been taught would drive ghosts away:

"Comest thou to kiss this child? I suffer thee not to kiss him; Comest thou to quiet him? I suffer thee not to quiet him; Comest thou to harm him? I suffer thee not to harm him; Comest thou to take him away? I suffer thee not to take him away."

When little Tahuti has got over his baby aches, and escaped the ghosts, he begins to run about and play. He and his sister are not bothered to any great extent with dressing in the mornings. They are very particular about washing, but as Egypt is so hot, clothes are not needed very much, and so the little boy and girl play about with nothing at all on their little brown bodies except, perhaps, a narrow girdle, or even a single thread tied round the waist. They have their toys just like you. Tahuti has got a wonderful man, who, when you pull a string, works a roller up and down upon a board, just like a baker rolling out dough, and besides he has a crocodile that moves its jaws. His sister has dolls: a fine Egyptian lady and a frizzy-haired, black-faced Nubian girl. Sometimes they play together at ninepins, rolling the ball through a little gate.

For about four years this would go on, as long as Tahuti was what the Egyptians called "a wise little one." Then, when he was four years old, the time came when he had to become "a writer in the house of books,"

which is what the Egyptians called a school-boy; so little Tahuti set off for school, still wearing no more clothes than the thread tied round his waist, and with his black hair plaited up into a long thick lock, which hung down over his right ear. The first thing that he had to learn was how to read and write, and this was no easy task, for Egyptian writing, though it is very beautiful when well done, is rather difficult to master, all the more as there were two different styles which had to be learned if a boy was going to become a man of learning. I don't suppose that you think your old copy-books of much importance when you are done with them; but the curious thing is that among all the books that have come down to us from ancient Egypt, there are far more old copy-books than any others, and these books, with the teachers'

corrections written on the margins, and rough sketches scratched in here and there among the writing, have proved most valuable in telling us what the Egyptians learned, and what they liked to read; for a great deal of the writing consisted in the copying out of wise words of the men of former days, and sometimes of stories of old times.

These old copy-books can speak to us in one way, but if they could speak in another, I daresay they would tell us of many weary hours in school, and of many floggings and tears; for the Egyptian school-master believed with all his heart in the cane, and used it with great vigour and as often as he could. Little Tahuti used to look forward to his daily flogging, much as he did to his lunch in the middle of the day, when his careful mother regularly brought him three rolls of bread and two jugs of beer. "A boy's ears," his master used to say, "are on his back, and he hears when he is beaten." One of the former pupils at his school writing to his teacher, and recalling his school-days, says: "I was with thee since I was brought up as a child; thou didst beat my back, and thine instructions went into my ear." Sometimes the boys, if they were stubborn, got punishments even worse than the cane. Another boy, in a letter to his old master, says: "Thou hast made me buckle to since the time that I was one of thy pupils. I spent my time in the lock-up, and was sentenced to three months, and bound in the temple." I am afraid our schoolboys would think the old Egyptian teachers rather more severe than the masters with whom they have to do nowadays.

Lesson-time occupied about half the day, and when it came to an end the boys all ran out of the school, shouting for joy. That custom has not changed much, anyway, in all these hundreds of years. I don't think they had any home lessons to do, and so, perhaps, their school-time was not quite so bad as we might imagine from the rough punishments they used to get.

When Tahuti grew a little older, and had fairly mastered the rudiments of writing, his teacher set him to write out copies of different pa.s.sages from the best known Egyptian books, partly to keep up his hand-writing, and partly to teach him to know good Egyptian and to use correct language. Sometimes it was a piece of a religious book that he was set to copy, sometimes a poem, sometimes a fairy-tale. For the Egyptians were very fond of fairy-tales, and later on, perhaps, we may hear some of their stories, the oldest fairy-stories in the world. But generally the piece that was chosen was one which would not only exercise the boy's hand, and teach him a good style, but would also help to teach him good manners, and fill his mind with right ideas. Very often Tahuti's teacher would dictate to him a pa.s.sage from the wise advice which a great King of long ago left to his son, the Crown Prince, or from some other book of the same kind. And sometimes the exercises would be in the form of letters which the master and his pupils wrote as though they had been friends far away from one another. Tahuti's letters, you may be sure, were full of wisdom and of good resolutions, and I dare say he was just about as fond of writing them as you are of writing the letters that your teacher sometimes sets as a task for you.

When it came to Arithmetic, Tahuti was so far lucky that the number of rules he had to learn was very few. His master taught him addition and subtraction, and a very slow and clumsy form of multiplication; but he could not teach him division, for the very simple reason that he did not properly understand it himself. Enough of mensuration was taught him to enable him to find out, though rather roughly, what was the size of a field, and how much corn would go into a granary of any particular size.

And when he had learned these things, his elementary education was pretty well over.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate 7 NAVE OF THE TEMPLE AT KARNAK. _Pages_ 75, 76]

Of course a great deal would depend on the profession he was going to follow. If he was going to be only a common scribe, his education would go no farther; for the work he would have to do would need no greater learning than reading, writing, and arithmetic. If he was going to be an officer in the army, he entered as a cadet in a military school which was attached to the royal stables. But if he was going to be a priest, he had to join one of the colleges which belonged to the different temples of the G.o.ds, and there, like Moses, he was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was taught all the strange ideas which they had about the G.o.ds, and the life after death, and the wonderful worlds, above and below, where the souls of men lived after they had finished their lives on earth.

But, whether his schooling was carried on to what we should call a University training or not, there was one thing that Tahuti was taught with the utmost care, and that was to be very respectful to those who were older than himself, never to sit down while an older person was standing in the room, and always to be very careful in his manners.

Chief of the older people to whom he had to show respect were his parents, and above all, his mother, for the Egyptians reverenced their mothers more than anyone else in the world. Here is a little sc.r.a.p of advice that a wise old Egyptian once left to his son: "Thou shalt never forget what thy mother has done for thee. She bare thee, and nourished thee in all manner of ways. She nursed thee for three years. She brought thee up, and when thou didst enter the school, and wast instructed in the writings, she came daily to thy master with bread and beer from her house. If thou forgettest her, she might blame thee; she might lift up her hands to G.o.d, and He would hear her complaint." Children nowadays might do a great deal worse than remember these wise words of the oldest book in the world.

But you are not to think that the Egyptian children's life was all teaching and prim behaviour. When Tahuti got his holidays, he would sometimes go out with his father and mother and sister on a fishing or fowling expedition. If they were going fishing, the little papyrus skiff was launched, and the party paddled away, armed with long thin spears, which had two p.r.o.ngs at the point. Drifting over the quiet shallow waters of the marshy lakes, they could see the fish swimming beneath them, and launch their spears at them. Sometimes, if he was lucky, Tahuti's father would pierce a fish with either p.r.o.ng of the spear, and then there was great excitement.

But still more interesting was the fowling among the marshes. The spears were laid aside on this kind of expedition, and instead, Tahuti and his father were armed with curved throw-sticks, shaped something like an Australian boomerang. But, besides the throw-sticks, they had with them a rather unusual helper. When people go shooting nowadays, they take dogs with them to retrieve the game. Well, the Egyptians had different kinds of dogs, too, which they used for hunting; but when they went fowling they took with them a cat which was trained to catch the wounded birds and bring them to her master. The little skiff was paddled cautiously across the marsh, and in among the reeds where the wild ducks and other waterfowl lived, Sen-senb and her mother holding on to the tall papyrus plants and pulling them aside to make room for the boat, or plucking the beautiful lotus-lilies, of which the Egyptians were so fond. When the birds rose, Tahuti and his father let fly their throw-sticks, and when a bird was knocked down, the cat, which had been sitting quietly in the bow of the boat, dashed forward among the reeds and secured the fluttering creature before it could escape.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 8.

"AND THE GOOSE STOOD UP AND CACKLED."]

Altogether, it was great fun for the brother and sister, as well as for the grown folks, and Tahuti and Sen-senb liked nothing so well as when the gaily-painted little skiff was launched for a day on the marshes. I think that, on the whole, they had a very bright and happy life in these old days, and that, though they had not many of the advantages that you have to-day, the boys and girls of three thousand years ago managed to enjoy themselves in their own simple way quite as well as you do now.

CHAPTER VII

SOME FAIRY-TALES OF LONG AGO

The little brown boys and girls who lived in Egypt three thousand years ago were just as fond as you are of hearing wonderful stories that begin with "Once upon a time;" and I want in this chapter to tell you some of the tales that Tahuti and Sen-senb used to listen to in the evening when school was over and play was done--the oldest of all wonder-tales, stories that were old and had long been forgotten, ages before The Sleeping Beauty and Jack and the Beanstalk were first thought of.

One day, when King Khufu, the great King who built the biggest of the Pyramids, had nothing else to do, he called his sons and his wise men together, and said, "Is there anyone among you who can tell me the tales of the old magicians?" Then the King's son, Prince Baufra, stood up and said, "Your Majesty, I can tell you of a wonder that happened in the days of your father, King Seneferu. It fell on a day that the King grew weary of everything, and sought through all his palace for something to please him, but found nothing. Then he said to his officers, 'Bring to me the magician Zazamankh.' And when the magician came, the King said to him, 'O Zazamankh, I have sought through all my palace for some delight, and I have found none.' Then said Zazamankh, 'Let thy Majesty go in thy boat upon the lake of the palace, and let twenty beautiful girls be brought to row thee, and let their oars be of ebony, inlaid with gold and silver. And I myself will go with thee; and the sight of the water-birds, and the fair sh.o.r.es, and the green gra.s.s will cheer thy heart.' So the King and the wizard went down to the lake, and the twenty maidens rowed them about in the King's pleasure-galley. Nine rowed on this side, and nine on that, and the two fairest stood by the two rudders at the stern, and set the rowing song, each for her own side.

And the King's heart grew glad and light, as the boat sped hither and thither, and the oars flashed in the sunshine to the song of the rowers.

"But as the boat turned, the top of the steering-oar struck the hair of one of the maidens who steered, and knocked her coronet of turquoise into the water; and she stopped her song, and all the rowers on her side stopped rowing. Then his Majesty said, 'Why have you stopped rowing, little one?' And the maiden answered, 'It is because my jewel of turquoise has fallen into the water.' 'Row on,' said the King, 'and I will give you another.' But the girl answered, 'I want my own one back, as I had it before.' So King Seneferu called Zazamankh to come to him, and said, 'Now, Zazamankh, I have done as you advised, and my heart is light; but, behold, the coronet of this little one has fallen into the water, and she has stopped singing, and spoiled the rowing of her side; and she will not have a new jewel, but wants the old one back again.'

"Then Zazamankh the wizard stood up in the King's boat, and spoke wonderful words. And, lo! the water of one half of the lake rose up, and heaped itself upon the top of the water of the other half, so that it was twice as deep as it was before. And the King's bark rode upon the top of the piled-up waters; but beyond it the bottom of the lake lay bare, with the sh.e.l.ls and pebbles shining in the sunlight. And there, upon a broken sh.e.l.l, lay the little rower's coronet. Then Zazamankh leaped down and picked it up, and brought it to the King. And he spake wonderful words again, and the water sank down, and covered the whole bed of the lake, as it had done at first. So his Majesty spent a joyful day, and gave great rewards to the wizard Zazamankh."

When King Khufu heard that story, he praised the men of olden times. But another of his sons, Prince Hordadef, stood up, and said, "O King, that is only a story of bygone days, and no one knows whether it is true or a lie; but I will show thee a magician of to-day." "Who is he, Hordadef?"

said King Khufu. And Hordadef answered, "His name is Dedi. He is a hundred and ten years old, and every day he eats five hundred loaves of bread, and a side of beef, and drinks a hundred jugs of beer. He knows how to fasten on a head that has been cut off. He knows how to make a lion of the desert follow him, and he knows the plan of the house of G.o.d that you have wanted to know for so long."

Then King Khufu sent Prince Hordadef to bring Dedi to him, and he brought Dedi back in the royal boat. The King came out, and sat in the colonnade of the palace, and Dedi was led before him. Then said his Majesty, "Why have I never seen you before, Dedi?" And Dedi answered, "Life, health, strength to your Majesty! A man can only come when he is called." "Is it true, Dedi, that you can fasten on a head which has been cut off?" "Certainly I can, your Majesty." Then said the King, "Let a prisoner be brought from the prison, and let his head be struck off."

But Dedi said, "Long life to your Majesty; do not try it on a man. Let us try a bird or an animal."

So a goose was brought; its head was cut off; and the head was laid at the east side of the hall, and the body at the west. Then Dedi rose, and spoke wonderful words. And, behold! the body of the goose waddled to meet the head, and the head came to meet the body. They joined together before his Majesty's throne, and the goose stood up and cackled (Plate 8).

Then, when Dedi had joined to its body again the head that had been struck off from an ox, and the ox followed him lowing, King Khufu said to him, "Is it true, O Dedi, that you know the plans of the house of G.o.d?" "It is true, your Majesty; but it is not I who shall give them to you." "Who, then?" said the King. "It is the eldest of three sons who shall be born to the lady Rud-didet, wife of the priest of Ra, the Sun-G.o.d. And Ra has promised that these three sons shall reign over this kingdom of thine." When King Khufu heard that word, his heart was troubled; but Dedi said, "Let not your Majesty's heart be troubled. Thy son shall reign first, then thy son's son, and then one of these." So the King commanded that Dedi should live in the house of Prince Hordadef; and that every day there should be given to him a thousand loaves, a hundred jugs of beer, an ox, and a hundred bunches of onions!

When the three sons of Rud-didet were born, Ra sent four G.o.ddesses to be their G.o.dmothers. They came attired like travelling dancing-girls; and one of the G.o.ds came with them, dressed like a porter. And when they had nursed the three children awhile, Rud-didet's husband said to them, "My ladies, what wages shall I give you?" So he gave them a bushel of barley, and they went away with their wages. But when they had gone a little way, Isis, the chief of them, said, "Why have we not done a wonder for these children?" So they stopped, and made crowns, the red crown and the white crown of Egypt, and hid them in the bushel of barley, and sealed the sack, and put it in Rud-didet's store-chamber, and went away again.

A fortnight later, when Rud-didet was going to brew the household beer, there was no barley. And her maidservant said, "There is a bushel, but it was given to the dancing-girls, and lies in the store-room, sealed with their seal." So the lady said to her maid, "Go down and fetch it, and we shall give them more when they need it." The maid went down, but when she came to the store-room, lo! from within there came a sound of singing and dancing, and all such music as should be heard in a King's Court. So in fear she crept back to her mistress and told her, and Rud-didet went down and heard the royal music, and she told her husband when he came home at night, and their hearts were glad because their sons were to be Kings.

But after a time the lady Rud-didet quarrelled with her maid, and gave her a beating, as ladies sometimes did in those days; and the weeping maid said to her fellow-servants, "Shall she do this to me? She has borne three Kings, and I will go and tell it to his Majesty, King Khufu." So she stole away first to her uncle, and told him of her plot; but he was angry because she wished to betray the children to King Khufu, and he beat her with a scourge of flax. And as she went away by the side of the river a great crocodile came out of the water, and carried her off.... But here, alas! our story breaks off; the rest of the book is lost, and we cannot tell whether King Khufu tried to kill the three royal babies or not. Only we do know that the first three Kings of the race which succeeded the race of Khufu bore the same names as Rud-didet's three babies, and were called, like all the Kings of Egypt after them, "Sons of the Sun."

These, then, are absolutely the oldest fairy-stories in the world, and if they do not seem very wonderful to you, you must remember that everything has to have a beginning, and that the people who made these tales hadn't had very much practice in the art of story-telling.

CHAPTER VIII

SOME FAIRY-TALES OF LONG AGO (_Continued_)

Our next story belongs to a time several hundred years later, and I dare say it seemed as wonderful to the little Egyptians as the story of Sindbad the Sailor does to you. It is called "The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor," and the sailor himself tells it to a n.o.ble Egyptian.

"I was going," he says, "to the mines of Pharaoh, and we set sail in a ship of 150 cubits long and 40 cubits wide (225 feet by 60 feet--quite a big ship for the time). We had a crew of 150 of the best sailors of Egypt, men whose hearts were as bold as lions. They all foretold a happy voyage, but as we came near the sh.o.r.e a great storm blew, the sea rose in terrible waves, and our ship was fairly overwhelmed. Clinging to a piece of wood, I was washed about for three days, and at last tossed up on an island; but not one was left of all my shipmates--all perished in the waves.

"I lay down in the shade of some bushes, and when I had recovered a little, I looked about me for food. There was plenty on every hand--figs and grapes, berries and corn, with all manner of birds. When my hunger was satisfied, I lit a fire, and made an offering to the G.o.ds who had saved me. Suddenly I heard a noise like thunder; the trees shook, and the earth quaked. Looking round, I saw a great serpent approaching me.

He was nearly 50 feet long, and had a beard 3 feet in length. His body shone in the sun like gold, and when he reared himself up from his coils before me I fell upon my face.