I acceded to this courteous invitation, and followed the mother and son up the mud-brick steps leading to the rude terrace; and though anything but clean, it was a great improvement on what we had left, and with genuine kindliness the old woman brought out an old but well-preserved carpet and spread it for me.

From the First Dynasty, say from 3300 B.C. down, as soon as the Egyptian had mastered the use of mud-brick and wood, we gain the certainty of an idea which could only be guessed at in the primitive period.

The mud-brick tombs of the early part of the First Dynasty, like the pre-dynastic graves, had only one chamber, limited in size by the length of logs obtainable to form the roof.

A little blind village nestled there, with mud-brick huts, a watch-tower and a tiny minaret; date-grounds and fields of corn, melons, and other vegetables spread a green fringe among the groves.