Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/236

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FROM CAIRO TO THE SOUDAN

weariness to the student's soul. Rameses the Great in his chariot discharging volleys of arrows among the Hittites, with his charioteer visible in miniature between his legs; Rameses the Great destroying his defeated enemies, apparently in cold blood, where the great King has got a whole batch of them by the hair like a bunch of vegetables, and is menacing them with a weapon which looks at a distance like a life-preserver, but on a closer view is seen to possess the facilities of a scalping-knife; Rameses the Great returning in triumph; the King making offerings to Ammon-Ra, with an interminable train of Hittite captives behind him, each couple chained together on a different principle from the preceding one. There is just a little too much of it, and after a long course of victory over the Hittites it is quite refreshing to meet with the wall-painting of his degenerate successor, Rameses III., playing chess in his harem. There is, of course, nothing of this kind