" His education finished, he is sent away to
a distance, to Syria or Ethiopia, and fresh troubles overtake him. "His
victuals and his supply of water are about his neck like the burden of
an ass,--and his neck and throat suffer like those of an ass,--so that
the joints of his spine are broken.--He drinks putrid water, keeping
perpetual guard the while." His fatigues soon tell upon his health
and vigour: "Should he reach the enemy,--he is like a bird which
trembles.--Should he return to Egypt,--he is like a piece of old
worm-eaten wood.--He is sick and must lie down, he is carried on an
ass,--while thieves steal his linen,--and his slaves escape." The
charioteer is not spared either. He, doubtless, has a moment of
vain-glory and of flattered vanity when he receives, according to
regulations, a new chariot and two horses, with which he drives at a
gallop before his parents and his fellow-villagers; but once having
joined his regiment, he is perhaps worse off than the foot-soldier.
"He is thrown to the ground among thorns:--a scorpion wounds him in
the foot, and his heel is pierced by its sting.--When his kit is
examined,--his misery is at its height." No sooner has the fact been
notified that his arms are in a bad condition, or that some article has
disappeared, than "he is stretched on the ground--and overpowered with
blows from a stick." This decline of the warlike spirit in all classes
of society had entailed serious modifications in the organisation of
both army and navy. The native element no longer predominated in most
battalions and on the majority of vessels, as it had done under the
XVIIIth dynasty; it still furnished those formidable companies of
archers--the terror of both Africans and Asiatics--and also the most
important part, if not the whole, of the chariotry, but the main body
of the infantry was composed almost exclusively of mercenaries,
particularly of the Shardana and the Qahaka. Ramses began his reforms
by rebuilding the fleet, which, in a country like Egypt, was always
an artificial creation, liable to fall into decay, unless a strong
and persistent effort were made to keep it in an efficient condition.
Shipbuilding had made considerable progress in the last few centuries,
perhaps from the impulse received through Phoenicia, and the vessels
turned out of the dockyards were far superior to those constructed under
Hatshopsitu. The general outlines of the hull remained the same, but
the stem and stern we