They well understood how to mark out neat flower-beds, plant groups of trees and shrubs in regular order, water the whole by aqueducts and fountains, arrange arbors and summerhouses, and even inclose the walks with artistically clipped hedges, and breed goldfish in stone basins.
At the garden gate Phanes stopped, looked around him carefully and listened; then shaking his head, "I do not understand what this can mean," he said.

"I hear no voices, there is not a single light to be seen, the boats are all gone, and yet the flag is still flying at its gay flag-staff, there, by the obelisks on each side of the gate." [Obelisks bearing the name of the owner were sometimes to be seen near the gates of the Egyptian country-houses.

Flags too were not uncommon, but these were almost exclusively to be found at the gates of the temples, where to this day the iron sockets for the flagstaff can still be seen.

Neither were flags unknown to the Greeks.

It appears from some inscriptions on the staffs of the Pylons, that if the former were not actually erected for lightning-rods, it had been noticed that they attracted the electricity.] "Rhodopis must surely be from home; can they have forgotten ?"--Here a deep voice suddenly interrupted him with the exclamation, "Ha! the commander of the body-guard!" "A pleasant evening to you, Knakais," exclaimed Phanes, kindly greeting the old man, who now came up.