papyrus.

After a short lunch the bride took her seat in a costly litter borne by
eight officials of the province. Before her went music and singers;
around the litter were dignitaries, and behind them an immense crowd of
people. All this procession moved toward the temple of Amon, through
the most beautiful streets of the city, amid a throng of people almost
as numerous as that which had attended the funeral of the pharaoh.

At the temple the people remained outside the walls while the bride and
groom, the pharaoh and dignitaries, entered the hall of columns. There
Hebron burned incense before the veiled statue of Amon, priestesses
performed a sacred dance, and Tutmosis read the following act from a
papyrus:

"I, Tutmosis, commander of the guard of his holiness Ramses XIII, take
thee, Hebron, daughter of Antefa the nomarch of Thebes, as wife. I give
thee now the sum of ten talents because Thou hast consented to marry
me. For thy robes I designate to thee three talents yearly, and for
household expenses one talent a month. Of the children which we may
have the eldest son will be heir to the property which I possess now
and which I may acquire hereafter. If I should not live with thee, but
divorce myself and take another wife, I shall be obliged to pay thee
forty talents, which sum I secure with my property. Our son, on
receiving his estate, is to pay thee fifteen talents yearly. Children
of another wife are to have no right to the property of our first-born
son." [Authentic]

The chief judge appeared now and read an act in which the bride
promised to give good food and raiment to her husband, to care for his
house, family, servants, slaves, and cattle, and to entrust to that
husband the management of the property which she had received or would
receive from her father.

After the acts were read Herhor gave Tutmosis a goblet of wine. The
bridegroom drank half, the bride moistened her lips with it, and then
both burned incense before the purple curtain.

Leaving the temple of Amon the young couple and their splendid retinue
passed through the avenue of sphinxes to the pharaoh's palace. Crowds
of people and warriors greeted them with shouts, scattering flowers on
their pathway.

Tutmosis had dwelt up to that time in the chambers of the pharaoh, but
on the day of his marriage Ramses presented him with a beautiful little
villa in the depth of the gardens, surrounded by a forest of fig trees,
myrtles and baobabs, whe