Edwards, Amelia B.: A thousand miles up the Nile (New York, [1888])

274 A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE.

The relief is unusually low, and the surface, having origi-
nally been covered with stucco, is purposely roughened all
over with tiny chisel marks, which painfully confuse the
details. Nor is this all. Owing to some kind of saline
ooze in that part of the rock, the stucco has not only
peeled off, but the actual surface is injured. It seems to
have been eaten away, just as iron is eaten by rust. A few
patches adhere, however, in places, and retain the original
coloring. The river is still covered with blue and white
zigzags, to represents water; some of the fighting groups
are yet perfect; and two very beautiful royal chariots, one
of which is surmounted by a richly ornamented parasol-
canopy, are fresh ami brilliant as ever.

The horses throughout are excellent. The chariot frieze
is almst Panathenaic in its effect of multitudinous move-
ment ; while the horses in the camp of Barneses, for natu-
ralness and variety of treatment, are perhaps the best that
Egyptian art has to show. It is worth noting, also, that
a horseman, that vara avis, occurs some four or five times
in different parts of the picture.

The scene of the campaign is laid in Syria. The river
of blue and white zigzags is the Orontes ;* the city of the
beseiged Kadesh or Kades ;f the enemy are the Kheta.
The whole is, in fact, a grand picture-epic of the events
immortalized in the poem of Pentaur—that poem which
M. de Kongo has described as "a sort of Egyption Iliad."
The comparison would, however, apply to the picture
with greater force than it applies to the poem. Pentaur,
who was in the first place a courtier and in the second
place a poet, has sacrificed everything to the prominence
of his central figure. lie is intent upon the glorification
of the king ; and his poem, which is a mere paean of
jn-aise, begins and ends with the prowess of llameses Mer-
Amen. If, then, it is to be called an Iliad, it is an Iliad

* In Egyptian, Aaranatu.

f In Egyptian, Katesliu. "Aujourdlmi encore il existe une villo
de Kades pres d'une courbe <le 1'Oronte dans le voisinage de Horns."
Lceons de M. de Rouge, Professiesau College de France. See "Me-
langes d'Aiolieologie," Egyp. and Assyr., vol. ii, p. 209. Also a
valuable paper, entitled "The Campaign of Rameses II Against
Kadesh," by the Rev. G. IT. Tomkins, "Trans, of the Soc. of Bib.
Arch., vol. viii, part 3, 1882. The bend of the river is actually given
in the bas-reliefs,