into a spacious hall or open court (B,) in the midst of which stood a room (c,) for the reception of visitors. This room was supported by bannered columns, and being closed only at the lower part by panels between

the columns, allowed the refreshing breeze to circulate through it. From the court (B,) three doors (b, d, d,) lead into a still more spacious court (E,) ornamented on each side with a row of trees. A

central and lateral door (F, f, gave a back entrance into the court from another street. On each side of the great court a triple door (G, G,) opened into a corridor H, H,) supported by a colonnade, and adorned with trees. The two corridors were alike in their arrangement; into each opened twelve narrow rooms, six on each side, the doors of one series facing those of the other. These were appropriated as cellars, for the preservation of copious stores of provisions, both solid and liquid, with other valuables.

At the farther end of the left corridor, was a small isolated sitting room (1,) intended doubtless for privacy and retirement; immediately behind which two doors (J, J,) gave egress from this corridor into the street, without any communication with the rest of the building.

It was probably such a room as this that constituted the "summer parlour" of Eglon the king of Moab, "which he had for himself alone;" and in which he received the fatal message of Ehud the left-handed Benjamite and we see how it was that the avenging champion could "go forth through the porch, having shut the doors of the parlour upon him, and locked them," " and was able to effect his escape beyond the reach of pursuit, before the attendants of the king were aware that the audience was ended.

The upper parts of the house were probably over the store-rooms only: the courts and corridors being entirely open to the sky, or screened from the sun merely by a temporary awning. It was in the court, called by

* Judg. iii. 15-26.

the Evangelist, "the midst," as being the centre of the house, that the Lord Jesus was sitting, teaching, when the friends of the palsied man, in that faith which triumphs over difficulties, succeeded in introducing him into the Saviour's presence. "When they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the house-top, and let him down through the tiling, with his couch, into the midst, before Jesus."* The "tiling" of this passage was, doubtless, the light awning of linen, or of matting, which could be lifted at one side without any damage, and with but little difficulty.

In the time of the restoration of the Jewish polity under Nehemiah, we find the people keeping the feast of tabernacles, by making booths of branches of trees" in their courts," which implies that these courts were unroofed.

In the court of a modern Egyptian house it is not uncommon to have a well, as was the case with that in which the messengers of David were concealed from their pursuers in the unnatural rebellion of Absalom. "They went both of them away quickly, and came to a man's house in Bahurim, which had a well in his court, whither they went down."+

As a contrast to the spacious mansion above described, we present the reader with a copy of a model of a small house, brought from Egypt by Mr. Salt, and now in the British Museum. "It solely consisted of a court-yard, and three small store-rooms

*Luke iv. 19.

Neh. viii. 16.

2 Sam. xvii. 18.

on the ground-floor, with a staircase leading to a room belonging to the store-keeper, which was furnished with a narrow window or aperture opposite

the door, rather intended for the purposes of ventilation than to admit the light. In the court a woman was represented making bread, as is sometimes done at the present day in Egypt, in the open air; and the store-rooms were not only full of grain when the model was found, but would still have preserved their contents uninjured, had they escaped the notice of a rat in the lazaretto of Leghorn, which in one night destroyed what ages had respected. How readily would an Arab exclaim, on learning the fate which awaited them, "Every thing is written!"

"The chamber on the top of the house appears, from its dimensions, to be little calculated for comfort either in the heat of summer, or the cold of winter; but it may only have been intended as a shelter from the sun during the day, while the inmate attended to the business of the servants, or the peasants. It cannot, however, fail to call to mind the memorable proverb, 'It is better to dwell in a corner of the house top, than with a brawling woman in a wide house;'* though that character does not apply to the quiet and industrious female in the court below."+

In the same collection there is another model of

an Egyptian house, in stone. It is much smaller