menclators, and which was
now advancing with a roar as of great waters.
After the musicians came the barbarian captives, strangely formed,
with brutish faces, black skins, woolly hair, resembling apes as much
as men, and drest in the costume of their country, a short skirt above
the hips, held by a single brace, embroidered in different colors. An
ingenious and whimsical cruelty had suggested the way in which the
prisoners were chained. Some were bound with their elbows drawn behind
their backs; others with their hands lifted above their heads, in a
still more painful position; one had his wrists fastened in wooden
cangs (instruments of torture, still used in China); another was
half-strangled in a sort of pillory; or a chain of them were linked
together by the same rope, each victim having a knot round his neck.
It seemed as if those who had bound these unfortunates had found a
pleasure in forcing them into unnatural positions; and they advanced
before their conqueror with awkward and tottering gait, rolling their
large eyes and contorted with pain. Guards walked beside them,
regulating their step by beating them with staves....
A wide gorget with seven rows of enamels, precious stones, and golden
beads fell over the Pharaoh's chest and gleamed brightly in the
sunlight. His upper garment was a sort of loose shirt, with pink and
black squares; the ends, lengthening into narrow slips, were wound
several times about his bust and bound it closely; the sleeves, cut
short near the shoulder, and bordered with intersecting lines of gold,
red, and blue, exposed his round, strong arms, the left furnished with
a large metal wristband, meant to lessen the vibration of the string
when he discharged an arrow from his triangular bow; and the right,
ornamented by a bracelet in the form of a serpent in several coils,
held a long gold scepter with a lotus bud at the end. The rest of his
body was wrapt in drapery of the finest linen, minutely plaited, bound
about the waist by a belt inlaid with small enamel and gold plates.
Between the band and the belt his torso appeared, shining and polished
like pink granite shaped by a cunning workman. Sandals with returned
toes, like skates, shod his long narrow feet, placed together like
those of the gods on the temple walls.
His smooth beardless face, with large clearly cut features, which it
seemed beyond any human power to disturb, and which the blood of
common life did not color, with its
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