Flowers and shrubs ornamented the flat roofs, on which the Egyptians loved to spend the evening hours, unless indeed, they preferred ascending the mosquito-tower with which nearly every house was provided.
These troublesome insects, engendered by the Nile, fly low, and these little watch-towers were built as a protection from them.
The young Persians admired the great, almost excessive cleanliness, with which each house, nay, even the streets themselves, literally shone.

The door-plates and knockers sparkled in the sun; paintings, balconies and columns all had the appearance of having been only just finished, and even the street-pavement looked as if it were often scoured.
[The streets of Egyptian towns seem to have been paved, judging from the ruins of Alabastron and Memphis.

We know at least with certainty that this was the case with those leading to the temples.] But as the Persians left the neighborhood of the Nile and the palace, the streets became smaller.

Sais was built on the slope of a moderately high hill, and had only been the residence of the Pharaohs for two centuries and a half, but, during that comparatively short interval, had risen from an unimportant place into a town of considerable magnitude.
On its river-side the houses and streets were brilliant, but on the hill-slope lay, with but few more respectable exceptions, miserable, poverty-stricken huts constructed of acacia-boughs and Nile-mud.

On the north-west rose the royal citadel.
"Let us turn back here," exclaimed Gyges to his young companions.