* As a literary example of what the conduct of a king was
like in his family circle, we may quote the description of
King Minîbphtah, in the story of Satni-Khâmoîs. 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.*

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

A considerable part of his time was taken up in war--in the east,
against the Libyans in the regions of the Oasis; in the Nile Valley to
the south of Aswan against the Nubians; on the Isthmus of Suez and in