relatively so vast, has represented on it a series of scenes, remarkably alike for the style of their execution, the diversity of their subject-matter, the number of the persons introduced, and the nature of the acts which they accomplish. . . .  The scenes, however, are not, as some have imagined, a series of detached fantastic subjects, arbitrarily chosen and capriciously grouped, a mere confused melee of men, animals, chariots, and other objects; on the contrary, they form a little history, a plastic idyll, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.  It is a narrative divided into nine scenes.” (1) An armed hero, mounted in a car driven by a charioteer, quits in the morning a castle or fortified town.  He is going to hunt, and carries his bow in his left hand.  Over his head is an umbrella, the badge of his high rank, and his defence against the mid-day sun.  A quiver hangs at the side of his chariot.  He wears a conical cap, while the driver has his head bare, and leans forwards over the front of the car, seeming to shake the reins, and encourage the horses to mend their pace. (2) After the car has proceeded a certain distance, the hunter espies a stag upon a rocky hill.  He stops his chariot, gets down, and leaving the driver in charge of the vehicle, ensconces himself behind a tree, and thus screened lets fly an arrow against the quarry, which strikes it midway in the chest. (3) Weak and bleeding copiously, the stag attempts to escape; but the hunter pursues and takes possession of him without having to shoot a second time. (4) The hour is come now for a rest.  The sportsman has reached a wood, in which date-bearing palms are intermingled with trees of a different kind.  He fastens his game to one of them, and proceeds to the skinning and the disembowelling.  Meanwhile, his attendant detaches the horses from the car, relieves them of their harness, and proceeds to feed them from a portable manger.  The car, left to itself, is tilted back, and stands with its pole in the air. (5) Food and drink having been prepared and placed on two tables, or altars, the hunter, seated on a throne under the shadow of his umbrella, pours a libation to the gods.  They, on their part, scent the feast and draw near, represented by the sun and moon—­a winged disk, and a crescent embracing a full orb.  The feast is also witnessed by a spirit of evil, in the shape of a huge baboon or cynocephalous ape, who from a cavern at the foot of a wooded mountain, whereon a stag and a hare are feeding, furtively surveys the ceremony. (6) Remounting his chariot the hunter sets out on his return home, when the baboon quits his concealment, and rushes after him, threatening him with a huge stone.  Hereupon a winged deity descends from heaven, and lifting into the air chariot, horses, charioteer, and hunter, enfolds them in an embrace and saves them. (7) The ape, baffled, pursues his way; the chariot is replaced on the earth.  The hunter prepares his bow, places an arrow on the string, and hastily pursues his enemy, who is speedily overtaken and thrown to the ground by the horses. (8) The hunter dismounts, puts his foot upon the prostrate ape, and gives him the coup de grace with a heavy axe or mace.  A bird of prey hovers near, ready to descend upon the carcase. (9) The hero remounts his chariot, and returns to the castle or city which he left in the morning.[783]