was a band of musicians stationed upon the deck.  This music guided the oarsmen, as they kept time to it in their rowing; and, soft as the melody was, the strains were heard far and wide over the water and along the shores, as the beautiful vessel advanced on its way.  The performers were provided with flutes, lyres, viols, and all the other instruments customarily used in those times to produce music of a gentle and voluptuous kind.

[Illustration:  MEETING OF CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY.]

In fact, the whole spectacle seemed like a vision of enchantment.  Tidings of the approach of the barge spread rapidly around, and the people of the country came down in crowds to the shores of the river to gaze upon it in admiration as it glided slowly along.  At the time of its arrival at Tarsus, Antony was engaged in giving a public audience at some tribunal in his palace, but everybody ran to see Cleopatra and the barge, and the great triumvir was left consequently alone, or, at least, with only a few official attendants near him.  Cleopatra, on arriving at the city, landed, and began to pitch her tents on the shores.  Antony sent a messenger to bid her welcome, and to invite her to come and sup with him.  She declined the invitation, saying that it was more proper that he should come and sup with her.  She would accordingly expect him to come, she said, and her tents would be ready at the proper hour.  Antony complied with her proposal, and came to her entertainment.  He was received with a magnificence and splendor which amazed him.  The tents and pavilions where the entertainment was made were illuminated with an immense number of lamps.  These lamps were arranged in a very ingenious and beautiful manner, so as to produce an illumination of the most surprising brilliancy and beauty.  The immense number and variety, too, of the meats and wines, and of the vessels of gold and silver, with which the tables were loaded, and the magnificence and splendor of the dresses worn by Cleopatra and her attendants, combined to render the whole scene one of bewildering enchantment.

The next day, Antony invited Cleopatra to come and return his visit; but, though he made every possible effort to provide a banquet as sumptuous and as sumptuously served as hers, he failed entirely in this attempt, and acknowledged himself completely outdone.  Antony was, moreover, at these interviews, perfectly fascinated with Cleopatra’s charms.  Her beauty, her wit, her thousand accomplishments, and, above all, the tact, and adroitness, and self-possession which she displayed in assuming at once so boldly, and carrying out so adroitly, the idea of her social superiority over him, that he yielded his heart almost immediately to her undisputed sway.