eting hall, three rows of pavilions of different
sizes extended in symmetrical order. They were connected with each other
by colonnades, or by little bridges, under which flowed canals, that
watered the gardens and gave the palace-grounds the aspect of a town
built on islands.

The principal part of the castle of the Pharaohs was constructed of light
Nile-mud bricks and elegantly carved woodwork, but the extensive walls
which surrounded it were ornamented and fortified with towers, in front
of which heavily armed soldiers stood on guard.

The walls and pillars, the galleries and colonnades, even the roofs,
blazed in many colored paints, and at every gate stood tall masts, from
which red and blue flags fluttered when the king was residing there. Now
they stood up with only their brass spikes, which were intended to
intercept and conduct the lightning.--[ According to an inscription first
interpreted by Dumichen.]

To the right of the principal building, and entirely surrounded with
thick plantations of trees, stood the houses of the royal ladies, some
mirrored in the lake which they surrounded at a greater or less distance.
In this part of the grounds were the king's storehouses in endless rows,
while behind the centre building, in which the Pharaoh resided, stood the
barracks for his body guard and the treasuries. The left wing was
occupied by the officers of the household, the innumerable servants and
the horses and chariots of the sovereign.

In spite of the absence of the king himself, brisk activity reigned in
the palace of Rameses, for a hundred gardeners watered the turf, the
flower-borders, the shrubs and trees; companies of guards passed hither
and thither; horses were being trained and broken; and the princess's
wing was as full as a beehive of servants and maids, officers and
priests.

Nefert was well known in this part of the palace. The gate-keepers let
her litter pass unchallenged, with low bows; once in the garden, a lord
in waiting received her, and conducted her to the chamberlain, who, after
a short delay, introduced her into the sitting-room of the king's
favorite daughter.

Bent-Anat's apartment was on the first floor of the pavilion, next to the
king's residence. Her dead mother had inhabited these pleasant rooms, and
when the princess was grown up it made the king happy to feel that she
was near him; so the beautiful house of the wife who had too early
departed, was given up to her, and at th