em a handsome reward, induced
them to take up the sack and to follow her. The Israelites, preceded by
Thamar, went down the streets of Thebes, reached the waste places
studded with mud huts and placed the sack in one of them. Thamar paid
them grumblingly the promised reward.

Meanwhile Tahoser had been installed in a splendid apartment, a regal
apartment as beautiful as that of the Pharaoh. Elegant pillars with
lotus capitals upbore the starry roof, framed in by a cornice of blue
palm-branches painted upon a golden background. Panels of a tender
lilac-colour with green lines ending in flower buds showed symmetrically
on the walls; fine matting covered the stone slabs of the flooring;
sofas, inlaid with plates of metal alternating with enamels, and covered
with black stuffs adorned with red circles, armchairs with lions' feet,
with cushions that fell over the back, stools formed of swans' necks
interlaced, piles of purple leather cushions filled with thistle-down,
seats which could hold two persons, tables of costly woods supported by
statues of Asiatic captives,--formed the furniture of the room.

On richly carved pedestals rested tall porcelain vases and great golden
bowls, the workmanship of which was even more precious than the
material. One of them with a slender base, was supported by two horses'
heads with fringed hoods and harness. The handles were formed of two
lotus stalks gracefully falling over two rose ornaments; on the cover
were ibises with erect ears and sharp horns, and on the body of the vase
were represented gazelles flying from the dogs amid stalks of papyrus.
Another, no less curious, had for cover a monstrous Typhon head, adorned
with palms and grimacing between two vipers. The sides were ornamented
with leaves and denticulated bands.

One of the bowls, supported by two figures wearing mitres and dressed in
robes with broad borders, with one hand upbearing the handle and with
the other the foot, amazed by its huge size and the perfection and
finish of the ornamentation. The other, smaller and more perfect in
shape perhaps, spread out gracefully; the slender and supple bodies of
jackals whose paws rested upon the edge as if the animals sought to
drink, formed the handles. Metal mirrors, framed with deformed faces, as
though to give the beauty who looked into them the pleasure of contrast,
coffers of cedar or sycamore wood painted and ornamented, caskets of
enamelled ware, flagons of alabaster, onyx