icult for the bowman to balance himself in the
narrow car, as it bumped and clattered over rough ground. The two horses
were gaily decorated, and often wore plumes on their heads. The
charioteer sometimes twisted the reins round his waist, and could take a
hand in the fighting if his companion was hard pressed, guiding his
horses by swaying his body to one side or the other.

Round the Pharaoh himself, as he stood in his beautiful chariot, marched
the royal bodyguard. It was made up of men whom the Egyptians called
"Sherden"--Sardinians, probably, who had come over the sea to serve for
hire in the army of the great King. They wore metal helmets, with a
round ball on the top and horns at the sides, carried round bossed
shields, and were armed with great heavy swords of much the same shape
as those which the Norman knights used to carry. Behind the native
troops and the bodyguard marched the other mercenaries--regiments of
black Soudanese, with wild-beast skins thrown over their ebony
shoulders; and light-coloured Libyans from the West, each with a couple
of feathers stuck in his leather skull-cap.

Scouts went on ahead to scour the country, and bring to the King reports
of the enemy's whereabouts. Beside the royal chariot there padded along
a strange, but very useful soldier--a great tame lion, which had been
trained to guard his master and fight with teeth and claws against his
enemies. Last of all came the transport train, with the baggage carried
on the backs of a long line of donkeys, and protected by a
baggage-guard. The Egyptians were good marchers, and even in the hot
Syrian sunshine, and across a rough country where roads were almost
unknown, they could keep up a steady fifteen miles a day for a week on
end without being fagged out.

Let us follow the fortunes of an Egyptian soldier through one of the
great battles of the nation's history. Menna was one of the most skilful
charioteers of the whole Egyptian army--so skilful that, though he was
still quite young, he was promoted to be driver of the royal war-chariot
when King Ramses II. marched out from Zaru, the frontier garrison town
of Egypt, to fight with the Hittites in Northern Syria. During all the
long march across the desert, through Palestine, and over the northern
mountain passes, no enemy was seen at all, and, though Menna was kept
busy enough attending to his horses and seeing that the chariot was in
perfect order, he was in no danger. But as the arm