ed with colored fringes, were
interspersed among the crowd of half-naked, sinewy men, whose only
clothing consisted of an apron, the costume of the lower classes. Naked
children crowded, pushed and fought to get the best places. Mothers in
short cloaks were holding their little ones up to see the sight, which by
this means they entirely lost themselves; and a troop of dogs and cats
were playing and fighting at the feet of these eager sight-seers, who
took the greatest pains not to tread on, or in any way injure the sacred
animals.

[According to various pictures on the Egyptian monuments. The
mothers are from Wilkinson III. 363. Isis and Hathor, with the
child Horus in her lap or at her breast, are found in a thousand
representations, dating both from more modern times and in the Greek
style. The latter seem to have served as a model for the earliest
pictures of the Madonna holding the infant Christ.]

The police kept order among this huge crowd with long staves, on the
metal heads of which the king's name was inscribed. Their care was
especially needed to prevent any of the people from being pushed into the
swollen Nile, an arm of which, in the season of the inundations, washes
the walls of Sais.

On the broad flight of steps which led between two rows of sphinxes down
to the landing-place of the royal boats, was a very different kind of
assembly.

The priests of the highest rank were seated there on stone benches. Many
wore long, white robes, others were clad in aprons, broad jewelled
collars, and garments of panther skins. Some had fillets adorned with
plumes that waved around brows, temples, and the stiff structures of
false curls that floated over their shoulders; others displayed the
glistening bareness of their smoothly-shaven skulls. The supreme judge
was distinguished by the possession of the longest and handsomest plume
in his head-dress, and a costly sapphire amulet, which, suspended by a
gold chain, hung on his breast.

The highest officers of the Egyptian army wore uniforms of gay colors,97
and carried short swords in their girdles. On the right side of the steps
a division of the body-guard was stationed, armed with battleaxes,
daggers, bows, and large shields; on the left, were the Greek
mercenaries, armed in Ionian fashion. Their new leader, our friend
Aristomachus, stood with a few of his own officers apart from the
Egyptians, by the colossal statues of Psamtik I., which had been