CHAP. XV. TRIUMPH OF THE KING. 285 



the different nations, who had shared the dangers 

 of the field and the honour of victory. In the 

 centre marched the body guards, the king's sons, 

 the military scribes, the royal arm-bearers, and 

 the staff corps, in the midst of whom was the mo- 

 narch himself, mounted in a splendid car, attended 

 by his fan-bearers on foot, bearing over him the 

 state flabella. Next followed other regiments of in- 

 fantry, with their respective banners, and the rear 

 was closed by a body of chariots. The prisoners, 

 tied together with ropes, were conducted by some 

 of the king's sons, or by the chief officers of the 

 staff, at the side of the royal car. The king him- 

 self frequently held the cord which bound them, as 

 he drove slowly in the procession ; and two or more 

 chiefs were sometimes suspended beneath the axle 

 of his chariot*, contrary to the usual humane prin- 

 ciples of the Egyptians, who seem to have refrained 

 from unnecessary cruelty to their captives, extend- 

 ing this feeling so far as to rescue, even in the heat 

 of battle, a defenceless enemy from a watery grave.f 

 Having reached the precincts of the temple, the 

 guards and royal attendants selected to be the re- 

 presentatives of the whole army entered the courts, 

 the rest of the troops, too numerous for admission, 

 being drawn up before the entrance; and the king, 

 alighting from his car, prepared to lead his captives 

 to the shrine of the God. Military bands played 

 the favourite airs of the country ; and the numerous 

 standards of the diflf'erent regiments, the banners 



* Vide Vol. I. (1st Series) p. 106. Plate 1. 

 -f- Vide supra. Vol. I. (1st Series) p. 392. 



