osure, carefully leveled, used for splendid military displays.
Terraces, one above the other, which must have employed for years the
thirty nations led away into slavery, formed a frame _en relief_ for
the gigantic parallelogram; sloping walls built of crude bricks lined
these terraces; their tops were covered, several rows deep, by
hundreds of thousands of Egyptians, whose white or brightly colored
costumes blazed in the sun with that perpetually restless movement
which characterizes a multitude, even when it appears motionless;
behind this line of spectators the cars, chariots, and litters, with
their drivers, grooms, and slaves, looked like the encampment of an
emigrating nation, such was their immense number; for Thebes, the
marvel of the ancient world, counted more inhabitants than did some
kingdoms.

The fine, even sand of the vast arena, bordered with a million heads,
gleamed like mica dust beneath the light, falling from a sky as blue
as the enamel on the statuettes of Osiris. On the south side of the
field the terraces were broken, making way for a road which stretched
towards Upper Ethiopia, the whole length of the Libyan chain. In the
corresponding corner, the opening in the massive brick walls prolonged
the roads to the Rhamses-Maiamoun palace....

A frightful uproar, rumbling, deep, and mighty as that of an
approaching sea, arose in the distance and drowned the thousand
murmurs of the crowd, like the roar of the lion which hushes the
barking of the jackals. Soon the noise of instruments of music could
be distinguished amidst this terrestrial thunder, produced by the
chariot wheels and the rhythmic pace of the foot-soldiers. A sort of
reddish cloud, like that raised by the desert blasts, filled the sky
in that direction, yet the wind had gone down; there was not a breath
of air, and the smallest branches of the palm-trees hung motionless,
as if they had been carved on a granite capital; not a hair moved on
the women's moist foreheads, and the fluted streamers of their
head-dresses hung loosely down their backs. This powdery fog was
caused by the marching army, and hung over it like a fallow cloud.

The tumult increases; the whirlwinds of dust opened, and the first
files of musicians entered the immense arena, to the great
satisfaction of the multitude, who in spite of its respect for his
Majesty were beginning to tire of waiting beneath a sun which would
have melted any other skulls than those of the Egyp