so as to surround the lake on the east, and fall on the enemy’s flank; the corps of Seth, composed of men from lower Egypt, was sent on to Arnam to form the centre; the king himself, with the flower of the chariot-guard, proposed to follow the road through the valley, which Paaker’s report represented as a safe and open passage to the plain of the Orontes.  Thus, while the other divisions occupied the enemy, he could cross the Orontes by a ford, and fall on the rear of the fortress of Kadesh from the north-west.  The corps of Amon, with the Ethiopian mercenaries, were to support him, joining him by another route, which the pioneer’s false indications represented as connecting the line of operations.  The corps of Ptah remained as a reserve behind the left wing.

The soldiers had not gone to rest as usual; heavily, armed troops, who bore in one hand a shield of half a man’s height, and in the other a scimitar, or a short, pointed sword, guarded the camp,

     [Representations of Rameses’ camp are preserved on the pylons of the
     temple of Luxor and the Ramesseum.]

where numerous fires burned, round which crowded the resting warriors.  Here a wine-skin was passed from hand to hand, there a joint was roasting on a wooden spit; farther on a party were throwing dice for the booty they had won, or playing at morra.  All was in eager activity, and many a scuffle occurred amoung the excited soldiers, and had to be settled by the camp-watch.

Near the enclosed plots, where the horses were tethered, the smiths were busily engaged in shoeing the beasts which needed it, and in sharpening the points of the lances; the servants of the chariot-guard were also fully occupied, as the chariots had for the most part been brought over the mountains in detached pieces on the backs of pack-horses and asses, and now had to be put together again, and to have their wheels greased.  On the eastern side of the camp stood a canopy, under which the standards were kept, and there numbers of priests were occupied in their office of blessing the warriors, offering sacrifices, and singing hymns and litanies.  But these pious sounds were frequently overpowered by the loud voices of the gamblers and revellers, by the blows of the hammers, the hoarse braying of the asses, and the neighing of the horses.  From time to time also the deep roar of the king’s war-lions

     [See Diodorus, 1. 47.  Also the pictures of the king rushing to the
     fight.]

might be heard; these beasts followed him into the fight, and were now howling for food, as they had been kept fasting to excite their fury.