If, however, we turn to Eastern lands, to the records of the earliest of historians, we shall find agriculture in a state of great advancement. Before the days of Moses, not only was wheaten bread in common use, but the art of leavening it was also well known. At that period Egypt was the storehouse of the world, and had been so, at least, from the days of Abraham; for, although we know from the monuments that corn was grown abundantly in Assyria, yet it was to Egypt that the patriarchs always resorted during those times of famine, which would appear to have been as frequent then in Mesopotamia as they have unfortunately been of late years in India, and it is worthy of remark that Egypt owed her comparative immunity from these terrible visitations, not only to the fertility caused by the annual overflow of the Nile, but to the wisdom of her rulers in instituting vast irrigation works, whereby that overflow was regulated and equalised by means of great reservoirs, wherein surplus water was stored, in order that it might be distributed over the land, through a network of canals when the rise of the Nile was deficient. The first direct mention of meal and bread in the Bible is in Genesis xviii. 5, 6, where Abraham invites the angel to take a morsel of bread, and tells Sarah to 'make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.' This, it may be observed, was subsequent to the time when famine had driven them into Egypt, and although we are told that Adam was sent forth from Paradise to till the ground from whence he was taken, and also find it recorded that Cain was a tiller of the soil, yet it is abundantly evident that the patriarchs were pastoral nomads like the Arabs of the present day, and in no sense of the word agriculturists, and that if we wish to trace the early history of cereals we must look rather to archaeological than to Biblical records.

We know what the bread of ancient Egypt was like, for it has been found in tombs, and may be seen in the British Museum. The authorities say it was chiefly barley cakes, but we learn from the Bible, as well as from the records of the tombs, that wheat was largely grown, and also that leaven was used in the making of bread, for the children of Israel, when they departed out of Egypt, took their 'kneading troughs with the dough before it was leavened.' This was the origin of the Jewish feast of unleavened bread. The leaven employed was doubtless a piece of stale dough, ' hidden in the meal till the whole was leavened,' and this is still used in some countries, but it causes an unpleasant sourness, very unpalatable to those unaccustomed to it. The Jews, however, evidently made cakes upon the hearth, of meal mixed with oil, but it does not seem quite clear whether the meal was of wheat or barley.

We know, also by actual specimens, what sort of bread was used by the old Swiss Lake dwellers, who built their pile houses out into the lakes, but who cultivated wheat, barley, and rye on the mainland, and, as time went on, oats also. When their houses were burnt by some enemy to the water's edge, the food they had stored in them was burnt also, and, with a lot of articles of domestic use, sank down to the bottom of the lake, where it lay unheeded and unknown for many centuries, until discovered by accident only a few years ago.

Another specimen of bread comes down to us after having been buried for centuries - this time by the ashes of a volcano; for among the relics of Pompeii we find loaves of bread, as put into the oven on the day when the rain of fiery ashes fell and caused the baker to fly for his life, leaving his loaves to await customers until this nineteenth century, when they have been withdrawn from the oven to prove to admiring antiquaries that Pompeian bakers knew how to set up a batch of bread almost in the same form as those of London; but bread was often baked in moulds, which have been found in Herculaneum, and these loaves were all divided into portions by a cross, like scones at the present day. Doubtless, all these ancient breads were what we should now call of whole meal, for there were no millers in those early days to sift away the most nutritious portion of the meal. The corn was mostly crushed on a hollow stone by means of another stone, as we know by the many specimens of these primitive mills which have been found; or it was passed between two stones fastened together to form what is called a quern, with two sticks to serve as handles, which two women sitting passed round to each other from hand to hand, thus grinding the corn as it was poured in through a hole in the centre, as in a coffee-mill. References to this kind of hand-mill are frequent in the Bible. Even now hand-mills are in use in India and in many Eastern countries; whilst the primitive form of winnowing the grain - in which a woman stands in a doorway and pours the grain down from a vessel held as high as she can, the wind carrying away the chaff, the heavier corn falling to the ground - is still retained in some parts of Europe, as, for example, among the dwellers in Alpine valleys; but water-mills are said to have been invented in the reign of Augustus, and, long after that, in Rome, mills were turned by asses and sometimes freemen, who worked thus for a living, whilst slaves were sometimes punished by being sent to work in the mills, being afterwards known as asinus. The poor donkeys enjoyed a holiday during the summer festival, being then turned loose and adorned with garlands.

The variety of bread at present in use is astonishing, every country has some peculiarity, but I only purpose here to mention a few of the wheaten breads of Europe, leaving others to be treated of later.

The bread of Great Britain and Ireland is too well known to need description, but in Scotland the white bread is too white and deficient in crust to please our palate, whilst the brown is superior to anything we get in London. The bread of Devonshire and Cornwall calls also for a passing notice, being baked in an iron pot, which makes it rather close and of a peculiar shape. It is, however, very sweet and good. When we cross over to France, we find wheaten bread of various qualities and forms, but characterised chiefly by length, so that to buy bread by the yard is not a mere facon de parler. The finer French rolls are well known, but the waiter in a restaurant frequented by the poorer classes does not present such luxuries to his customers. With two or three yards of coarse bread under his arm, he slices off thick rounds to serve with each plate of bouilli. Journeying on to Spain, we find the bread excellent, and used alike by rich and poor. It is very white, and fashioned something like a door-knocker - thick in the centre, and tapering off so as to be fastened together with a kind of knob. In Italy the native bread is not good, although it looks tempting. Made in the shape of a ball, and covered with crusty knobs, it is as the apples of Sodom, so dry and sour that none but natives can eat it with relish. There is, however, a bread peculiar to North Italy which is palatable enough, but too fanciful for everyday use. This bread is called grizzini, and is made in long tubes a little larger than macaroni, and baked quite brown. When placed before you it resembles a bundle of sticks, and when fresh and crisp is very good, although not very satisfying. The best is made in Turin and Genoa. It is not known in South Italy, where macaroni may be said almost to take the place of bread, especially among the lower orders, who beg for money to eat macaroni instead of asking for bread. Macaroni is a stiff paste of flour and eggs, forced through holes so as to form long pipes; it is then hung across strings in the porches or windows of the houses to dry. In Naples it is eaten boiled in oil, and always with grated Parmesan cheese.