n Empire each emperor was a Caesar.

The Pharaohs had unlimited power in their own dominions, and forced
their subjects to work for them as they pleased without giving them any
payment. By some means we can't understand these mighty blocks of
sandstone composing this temple and many others were brought from a
place farther up the river. It is supposed that they were put on great
rafts and floated down at flood-time, but the handling of them is still
a mystery. The men who dealt with them had no steel tools, no driving
force of steam or electricity at their backs, yet they reared buildings
which we to-day, with all our appliances, think masterpieces.

Rameses II. was called the Great; he reigned for over sixty years, and
he has a peculiar interest for us because he is believed to have been
the Pharaoh who oppressed the Israelites, while his son and successor,
Menepthah, was the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

Walk up the great aisle of giant columns into the courtyard at the end,
there, between the pillars, stand massive images of granite, most of
them headless, but one perfect except for the ends of the fingers and
toes.

[Illustration: STATUE OF RAMESES II. AT LUXOR.]

Sit down on this fallen block and look at that marvellous image; it is
the mighty Rameses himself! There is a repressed energy and indomitable
purpose about him that tells in every line of a man who never let go and
never allowed himself to be thwarted. His almond-shaped eyes and full
lips, the proud tilt of his head, are not merely conventional, they are
an actual likeness of the man taken from life. He is every inch a king.
His successor, who was his thirteenth son, was probably of the same
type, and one can well imagine his scornful indignation at being asked
to yield up that nation of slaves, the Israelites, whom he treated as we
would not treat animals nowadays. The miracle is that Moses was not
instantly slain for his boldness in proposing it; he was, of course,
screened by his relationship to Pharaoh's daughter, but that would have
counted little had he not been protected by a power far above that of
the king of Egypt.

Close down under the knee of the standing Rameses is the figure of a
plump woman, his favourite wife, Nefertari. The Egyptians had the rather
childish idea that size meant importance, and to them now, as well as
then, women seemed of much less importance than men, so the wife was
represented as being about as high as her husband's kn