198 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



wine. . . . Beer has always been the favourite beverage of the 

 people. . . . The beer-houses contain stores of as many varieties 

 of beer as of different qualities of wine. If you enter you are 

 scarcely seated before a slave or a maid-servant hastens forward 

 and accosts you : ' Drink unto rapture, let it be a good day, Hsten 

 to the conversation of thy companions, and enjoy thyself.' Every 

 moment the invitation is renewed : ' Drink, do not turn away, for 

 I will not leave thee until thou hast drunk.' The formula 

 changes, but the refrain is always the same — drink, drink, and 

 again drink. The regular customers do not hesitate to reply to 

 these invitations by jokes. ... ' Come, now, bring me eighteen 

 cups with thine own hand. I will drink till I am happy, and the 

 mat under me is a good straw bed upon which I can sleep myself 

 sober.' ^ They discuss together the different effects produced by 

 wine and beer. The wine enlivens and produces benevolence 

 and tenderness ; beer makes men dull, stupefies them, and renders 

 them liable to fall into brutal rages. A man tipsy from wine falls 

 on his face, but any one intoxicated by beer falls and lies on his 

 back" ("Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria," p. 28 et seq., by 

 G. Maspero, late Director of Archaeology in Egypt, etc. Trans- 

 lated by Alice Morton. Chapman & Hall, 1892). 



" the Festival of the Dead. On the night of the 37th 



of Thoth, the priests kindled before the statues in the sanctuaries 



and sepulchral chapels the fire for the use of the gods 



almost at the same moment the whole country was lit up from 

 one end to the other ; there was scarcely a family who did not 



spend the night in feasting 'The gods of heaven 



exclaim " Ah I Ah ! " in satisfaction, the inhabitants of the earth 



are full of gladness all those who are gathered together 



in the town are drunk with wine . . ' (Diimichen, Dendera pi. 

 xxxviii. II, 15, 19). The people of Dendera crudely enough 

 called this the '■Feast of Drunkenness.' From what we know 

 of the eariier epochs, we are justified in making this description 

 a general one, and in applying it, as I have done here, to all the 



' The remarks of the drinkers are taken from a scene of a funeral meal in 

 the tomb of Ranni, at El-Kab. 



