THE PERSIAN ARMY. 59 



woman, and a high tiara encircled by a sky-blue tur- 

 ban. He lived in a prison of rich metal and dazzling 

 stone : around him stood the courtiers with their hands 

 wrapped in their robes, and covering their mouths lest 

 he should be polluted by their base born breath. Those 

 who desired to speak to his majesty prostrated them- 

 selves before him on the ground. If any one entered 

 uncalled, a hundred sabres gleamed in the air : un- 

 less the king stretched out his sceptre the intruder 

 would be killed. 



An army sat down to dinner in the palace every 

 day, and every day a herd of oxen was killed for them 

 to eat. These were only the household troops. But 

 when the great king went to war, the provinces sent 

 in their contingents, and then might be seen, as in 

 some great exhibition, a collection of warriors from the 

 four quarters of the earth. Then might be seen the 

 Immortals or Persian life-guards ; their arms were of 

 gold and silver, their standards were of silk : then 

 might be seen the heavy armed Egyptian troops, with 

 long wooden shields reaching to the ground ; the 

 Greeks from Ionia, with crested helmets and breast- 

 plates of bronze ; the fur-clad Tartars of the steppes, 

 who " raised hair " like the Red Indians, a people 

 probably belonging to the same race ; the Ethiopians 

 of Africa, with fleecy locks, clad in the skins of lions, 

 and armed with throw- sticks and with stakes, the 

 points of which had been hardened in the fire, or tipped 

 with horn or stone ; the Berbers in their four-horse 

 chariots ; the camel cavalry of Arabia, each camel 

 being mounted by two archers sitting back to back, 

 and thus prepared for the enemy on either side ; the 

 wild horsemen of the Persian hills who caught the 

 enemy with their lassoes ; the black-skinned but straight- 



