horses were harnessed, was fastened to the other extremity of the pole.  The Asiatics placed three men in a chariot, but the Egyptians only two; the warrior—­sinni—­whose business it was to fight, and the shield-bearer—­qazana—­who protected his companion with a buckler during the engagement.  A complete set of weapons was carried in the chariot—­lances, javelins, and daggers, curved spear, club, and battle-axe—­while two bow-cases as well as two large quivers were hung at the sides.  The chariot itself was very liable to upset, the slightest cause being sufficient to overturn it.  Even when moving at a slow pace, the least inequality of the ground shook it terribly, and when driven at full speed it was only by a miracle of skill that the occupants could maintain their equilibrium.  At such times the charioteer would stand astride of the front panels, keeping his right foot only inside the vehicle, and planting the other firmly on the pole, so as to lessen the jolting, and to secure a wider base on which to balance himself.  To carry all this into practice long education was necessary, for which there were special schools of instruction, and those who were destined to enter the army were sent to these schools when little more than children.  To each man, as soon as he had thoroughly mastered all the difficulties of the profession, a regulation chariot and pair of horses were granted, for which he was responsible to the Pharaoh or to his generals, and he might then return to his home until the next call to arms.  The warrior took precedence of the shield-bearer, and both were considered superior to the foot-soldier; the chariotry, in fact, like the cavalry of the present day, was the aristocratic branch of the army, in which the royal princes, together with the nobles and their sons, enlisted.  No Egyptian ever willingly trusted himself to the back of a horse, and it was only in the thick of a battle, when his chariot was broken, and there seemed no other way of escaping from the melee, that a warrior would venture to mount one of his steeds.  There appear, however, to have been here and there a few horsemen, who acted as couriers or aides-de-camp; they used neither saddle-cloth nor stirrups, but were provided with reins with which to guide their animals, and their seat on horseback was even less secure than the footing of the driver in his chariot.

[Illustration:  318.jpg AN EGYPTIAN LEARNING TO RIDE, FROM A BAS-RELIEF IN THE BOLOGNA MUSEUM]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Flinders Petrie.

The infantry was divided into platoons of six to ten men each, commanded by an officer and marshalled round an ensign, which represented either a sacred animal, an emblem of the king or of his double, or a divine figure placed upon the top of a pike; this constituted an object of worship to the group of soldiers to whom it belonged.  We are unable to ascertain how many of these platoons, either of infantry or of chariotry,