sanctuary and themselves announced their will; more frequently they were content to indicate it by a gesture.  When they were consulted on some particular subject and returned no sign, it was their way of signifying their disapprobation.  If, on the other hand, they significantly bowed their head, once or twice, the subject was an acceptable one, and they approved it.  No state affair was settled without asking their advice, and without their giving it in one way or another.

The monuments, which throw full light on the supernatural character of the Pharaohs in general, tell us but little of the individual disposition of any king in particular, or of their everyday life.  When by chance we come into closer intimacy for a moment with the sovereign, he is revealed to us as being less divine and majestic than we might have been led to believe, had we judged him only by his impassive expression and by the pomp with which he was surrounded in public.  Not that he ever quite laid aside his grandeur; even in his home life, in his chamber or his garden, during those hours when he felt himself withdrawn from public gaze, those highest in rank might never forget when they approached him that he was a god.  He showed himself to be a kind father, a good-natured husband,* ready to dally with his wives and caress them on the cheek as they offered him a flower, or moved a piece upon the draught-board.

* As a literary example of what the conduct of a king was like in his family circle, we may quote the description of King Minibphtah, in the story of Satni-Khamois.  The pictures of the tombs at Tel-el-Amarna show us the intimate terms on which King Khuniaton lived with his wife and daughters, both big and little.

He took an interest in those who waited on him, allowed them certain breaches of etiquette when he was pleased with them, and was indulgent to their little failings.  If they had just returned from foreign lands, a little countrified after a lengthy exile from the court, he would break out into pleasantries over their embarrassment and their unfashionable costume,—­kingly pleasantries which excited the forced mirth of the bystanders, but which soon fell flat and had no meaning for those outside the palace.  The Pharaoh was fond of laughing and drinking; indeed, if we may believe evil tongues, he took so much at times as to incapacitate him for business.  The chase was not always a pleasure to him, hunting in the desert, at least, where the lions evinced a provoking tendency to show as little respect for the divinity of the prince as for his mortal subjects; but, like the chiefs of old, he felt it a duty to his people to destroy wild beasts, and he ended by counting the slain in hundreds, however short his reign might be.*

     Amenothes III. had killed as many as a hundred and two
     lions during the first ten years of his reign.