later than was ordered. To complete every evil the female dancers and
singers, on seeing the desert, not at all dreadful in that place, were
terrified and fell to weeping. To calm these women it was necessary to
hasten with the night camp, pitch tents, arrange a spectacle, and a
feast afterward.

The night amusement in the cool, under the starry sky, with wild nature
for a background, pleased dancers and singers exceedingly; they
declared that they would travel thenceforth only through the desert.
Meanwhile Prince Ramses sent an order to turn all women back to Memphis
at the earliest and urge the march forward.

His dignity Herhor, minister of war, was with the staff, but only as a
spectator. He had not brought singers himself, but he made no remarks
to officers. He gave command to carry his litter at the head of the
column, and accommodating himself to its movements, advanced or rested
under the immense fan with which his adjutant shaded him.

Herhor was a man of forty and some years of age, strongly built,
concentrated in character. He spoke rarely, and looked at people as
rarely from under his drooping eyelids. He went with arms and legs
bare, like every Egyptian, his breast exposed; he had sandals on his
feet, a short skirt about his hips, an apron with blue and white
stripes. As a priest, he shaved his beard and hair and wore a panther-
skin hanging from his left shoulder. As a soldier, he covered his head
with a small helmet of the guard; from under this helmet hung a
kerchief, also in blue and white stripes; this reached his shoulders.
Around his neck was a triple gold chain, and under his left arm a short
sword in a costly scabbard. His litter, borne by six black slaves, was
attended always by three persons: one carried his fan, another the mace
of the minister, and the third a box for papyrus. This third man was
Pentuer, a priest, and the secretary of Herhor. He was a lean ascetic
who in the greatest heat never covered his shaven head. He came of the
people, but in spite of low birth he occupied a high position in the
state; this was due to exceptional abilities.

Though the minister with his officials preceded the staff and held
himself apart from its movements, it could not be said that he was
unconscious of what was happening behind him. Every hour, at times
every half hour, some one approached Herhor's litter, now a priest of
lower rank, an ordinary "servant of the gods," a marauding soldier, a
freedman