THE SOURCE OF THE NILE 279 
permitted to fee the king ; which regulation was as ancient 
as the time of Semiramis, whofe fon, Ninyas, is faid to have 
grown old in the palace, without ever having been known 
by being feen out of it. 
Tus abfurd ufage gave rife to many abufes. In Perfia* 
it produced two officers, who were called the king’s eyes, 
and the king’s ear, and who had the dangerous employ- 
ment, I mean dangerous for the fubject, of feeing and hear- 
ing for their fovereign. In Abyflinia, as I have juft faid, it 
created an officer called the king’s mouth, or voice, for, being 
feen by nobody, he fpoke of courfe in the third perfon, 
© Hear what the king fays to you, which is the ufual form of all 
regal mandates in Abyflinia; and what follows has the force 
of law. In the fame ftile, Jofephus thus begins an edic& 
of Cyrus king of Perfia, “ Cyrus the king fays t,’—And fpeak- 
ing of Cambyfes’s refcript, “ Cambyfes the ding /ays thus,’—-. 
And Ffdras alfo, “ Thus faith Cyrus king of Perfia +,”— 
And Nebuchadnezzar fays to Holofernes, “'Thus faith the 
Great King, Lord of the whole earth$;”—and this was pro- 
bably the origin of edits, when writing was little ufed by 
fovereigns, and little underftood by the fubject.. 
SoLEMN hunting-matches were always in ufe both with 
the kings of Abyffinia and thofe of Perfia ||. In both king- 
doms it was a crime for a fubject to ftrike the game till 
fuch time as the king had thrown his lance at it. This ab- 
furd cuftom was repealed by Artaxerxes Longimanus in one 
kingdom 3) 
*Dio. Chryfoft..Orat. 3. pro regno. + Jofeph. lib. xi. cap. 1. t Efdras, cap, 5.. 
§ Judith, cap. 2. || Ctefias in Perficis. Xenephon, lib. i.. 
