soldiers as proofs of their success. Three thousand five hundred and thirty-five hands and tongues form part of the registered returns; and two other heaps, and a third of tongues, containing each a somewhat larger number, are deposited under the superintendence of the chief officers, as trophies of victory. The monarch then alights from his chariot, and distributes rewards to his troops.

"In the next compartment, the king's military secretaries draw up an account of the number of spears, bows, swords, and other arms taken from the enemy, which are laid before them and mention seems to be made in the hieroglyphics of the horses that have been captured.

"Remeses then proceeds in his car, having his bow and sword in one hand, and his whip in the other, indicating that his march still lies through an enemy's country. The van of his army is composed of a body of chariots; the infantry in close order, preceding the royal car, constitute the centre; and other similar corps form the flank and rear.

"They are again summoned by sound of trumpet to the attack of another Asiatic enemy*; and, in the next compartment, the Egyptian monarch gives orders for the charge of the hostile army, which is drawn up in the open plain. Assisted by their allies, the Shairetana, a maritime people armed with round. bucklers and spears, they fall upon the undisciplined

*This people are called Fekkaros by M. Champollion. I am ignorant of the force of the first character, and of his reasons for adopting the F. May they not be the Tochari ? —“ a large tribe," according to Ptolemy, on the north-east of Bactria, and at no great distance from the Rhibii. If any of the sculptures of Thebes refer to the rebellion of the Bactrians, they are here.

troops of the enemy, who, after a short conflict, are routed, and retreat in great disorder. The women endeavour to escape with their children on the first approach of the Egyptians, and retire in plaustra drawn by oxen.t The flying chariots denote the greatness of the general panic, and the conquerors pursue them to the interior of the country. Here, while passing a large morass, the king is attacked by several lions ‡, one of which, transfixed with darts and arrows, he lays breathless beneath his horse's feet; another attempts to fly towards the jungle, but, receiving a last and fatal wound, writhes in the agony of approaching death. § A third springs up from behind his car, and the hero prepares to receive it and check its fury with his

spear.

"Below this group is represented the march of the Egyptian army, with their allies, the Shairetana, the Sha . . . ., and a third corps, armed with clubs, whose form and character are but imperfectly preserved. ||

*They were used in Egypt from the earliest times, and are mentioned in Genesis, xlv. 19, &c. Strabo also speaks of them, lib. xvii. They are the more remarkable here, as putting us in mind of a custom, very prevalent among some Eastern nations, of posting their wagons in the rear when going to battle. The Tartars of later times were noted for this

custom.

With the hump of Indian cattle. They seem to have been formerly very common in Egypt also, as they are at present in Kordofán and Sennár.

One modern author has supposed this to represent a lion chase, another has discovered in it the lion of Osymandyas, which assisted him in battle. We have frequently known sportsmen shoot their own dogs, but nothing justifies a similar opinion with regard to the king on this

occasion.

The position of the lion is very characteristic of the impotent fury of the disabled animal. Of the third little is seen but part of the forepaw the attitude of the king supplies the rest. Vide suprà, Vol. I.

p. 287.

"The enemy, having continued their rapid retreat, take refuge in the ships of a maritime nation*, to whose country they have retired for shelter. The Egyptians attack them with a fleet of galleys. ., and bearing down their opponents, succeed in boarding them and taking several prisoners. One of the hostile gallies is upset; and the slingers in the tops, with the archers and spearmen on the prows, spread dismay among the few who resist. The king, trampling on the prostrate bodies of the enemy, and aided by a corps of bowmen, discharges from the shore a continued shower of arrows; and his attendants stand at a short distance with his chariot and horses, and await his return. Below this scene, the conquering army leads in triumph the prisoners of the two nations they have captured in the naval fight, and the amputated hands of the slain are laid in heaps before the military chiefs..

In the next compartment, the king distributes rewards to his victorious troops, and then proceeding to Egypt, he conducts in triumph the captive Rebo and Tokkari, whom he offers to the Theban triad, Amun, Maut, and Khonso.

"In the compartments above these historical scenes, the king makes suitable offerings to the gods of Egypt; and, on the remaining part of the east wall, to the south of the second propylon, another war is represented.

"In the first picture, the king alighted from his

*The Shairetana; part of the same people who joined the Egyptians as allies in this war. The expression maritime people' may imply merely that they lived near a large lake.

chariot, armed with his spear and shield, and trampling on the prostrate bodies of the slain, besieges the fort of an Asiatic enemy, whom he forces to sue for peace. In the next, he attacks a larger town surrounded by water. The Egyptians fell the trees in the woody country which surrounds it, probably to form testudos and ladders for the assault. Some are applied by their comrades to the walls; and, while they reach their summit, the gates are broken open, and the enemy are driven from the ramparts, or precipitated over the parapet by the victorious assailants, who announce by sound of trumpet the capture of the place.

"In the third compartment, on the north face of the first propylon, Remeses attacks two large towns, the upper one of which is taken with but little resistance, the Egyptian troops having entered it and gained possession of the citadel. In the lower one, the terrified inhabitants are engaged in rescuing their children from the approaching danger, by raising them from the plain beneath to the ramparts of the outer wall. The last picture occupies the upper or north end of the east wall, where the king presents his prisoners to the gods of the temple. The western wall is covered by a large hieroglyphical tablet, recording offerings, made in the different months of the year, by Remeses III."

This may serve to give an idea of the profusion of sculpture on the walls of an Egyptian temple. The whole was coloured; and this variety served as a relief to the otherwise sombre appearance of

of Egyptian temples. All the architectural details were likewise painted; and though a person unaccustomed to see the walls of a large building so decorated, might suppose the effect to be far from pleasing, no one who understands the harmony of colours will fail to admit that they perfectly understood their distribution and proper combinations, and that an Egyptian temple was greatly improved by the addition of painted sculptures.

In a work of so limited a scale as the present, it is impossible to give an adequate notion of a large temple, whose details are so made up, or to give the general effect of this kind of clair-obscur; but an idea may be conveyed of some of the parts, from the capitals of the columns, which I have introduced in the frontispiece of this volume.

The introduction of colour in architecture was not peculiar to the Egyptians; it was common to the Etrurians, and even to the Greeks. For though the writings of ancient authors afford no decided evidence of the practice in Greece, and the passages adduced in support of it from Vitruvius*, Pliny and Pausanias ‡, are neither satisfactory, nor conclusive, the fact of colour having been found on the monuments of Attica and Sicily is so well

Vitruv. iv. 2. "Tabellas ita formatas, uti nunc fiunt triglyphi, contra tignorum præcisiones in fronte fixerunt, et eas cerâ cærulea depinxerunt." Vide also lib. vii. c. 9. and c. 5., where he shows the bad taste of the Romans in their mode of painting their houses.

+ Plin. xxxvi. 23. "In Elide ædes est Minervæ, in qua frater Phidiæ Pannæus, tectorium induxit lacte et croco subactum." Vide also lib. xxxv. c. 8. where he again mentions Pannæus ; and, after saying Phidias was originally a painter, adds that Pannæus assisted in painting the figure of Olympian Jupiter.

Pausan. lib. v. Elis. c. xi. He mentions the works of the brother of Phidias, whom he calls Panénus.