That will be a vast temple which they are building. Look at the foundations—what enormously thick walls! It is probable that several generations of slaves will labor upon that temple before it is finished.
They do not work exactly as we do in the present day. The hod-carrier, who is bringing bricks from the background, has a very good way of carrying them; but those who are bearing a pile of bricks between them seem to make a very awkward business of it. And the man who is carrying mortar on his shoulder, as he ascends the ladder, might very profitably take a lesson from some of our Irish hod-carriers. An earthen pot with a round bottom is certainly a poor thing in which to carry mortar up a ladder.
The man who is apparently squaring a stone, and the one who is smoothing or trimming off some bricks, are using very peculiar chopping tools. But they may have answered their purpose very well. At any rate, most magnificent edifices were built by the men who used them, although it is probable that the poor fellows progressed very slowly with their work.
It may be, when three thousand years more have elapsed, that our country-houses and our methods of building may appear as strange as this mansion of the Egyptian gentleman, and the customs of the Egyptian bricklayers, seem to us.
But then we will be the ancient Americans, and it will make no sort of difference to us what the future moderns say about us.
