TROPHIES. 45 



trophy. Along with the heap of hands thus laid before the 

 king, there is represented a phallic heap; and an accom 

 panying inscription, narrating the victory of Meneptah I. 

 over the Libyans, besides mentioning the &quot; cut hands of all 

 their auxiliaries/ 7 as being carried on donkeys following the 

 returning army, mentions these other trophies as taken 

 from men of the Libyan nation. And here a natural tran 

 sition brings us to trophies of an allied kind, the taking of 

 which, once common, has continued in the neighbourhood 

 of Egypt down to modern times. The great significance 

 of the account Bruce gives of a practice among the Abys- 

 sinians, must be my excuse for quoting part of it. He 

 says : 



At the end of a day of battle, each chief is obliged to sit at the 

 door of his tent, and each of his followers who has slain a man, pre 

 sents himself in his turn, armed as in fight, with the bloody foreskin 

 of the man he has slain. ... If he has killed more than one man, so 

 many more times he returns. . . . After this ceremony is over, each 

 man takes his bloody conquest, and retires to prepare it in the same 

 manner the Indians do their scalps. . . . The whole army ... on a 

 particular day of review, throws them before the king, and leaves 

 them at the gate of the palace.&quot; 



Here it is noteworthy that the trophy, first serving to dem 

 onstrate a victory gained by the individual warrior, is 

 subsequently made an offering to the ruler, and further be 

 comes a means of recording the number slain : facts verified 

 by the more recent French traveller (THericourt. That 

 like purposes were similarly served among the Hebrews, 

 proof is yielded by the passage which narrates Saul s en 

 deavour to betray David when offering him Michal to wife : 

 &quot; And Saul said, Thus shall ye say to David, The king de- 

 sireth not any dowry, but an hundred foreskins of the 

 Philistines, to be avenged of the king s enemies; &quot; and 

 David &quot; slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and 

 David brought their foreskins, and gave them in full tale to 

 the king.&quot; 



