The fuller, indeed, our knowledge is of the condition of Syria at the time of the Egyptian conquest, the more we are forced to recognise the mixture of races therein, and their almost infinite subdivisions. The mutual jealousies, however, of these elements of various origin were not so inveterate as to put an obstacle in the way, I will not say of political alliances, but of daily intercourse and frequent contracts. Owing to intermarriages between the tribes, and the continual crossing of the results of such unions, peculiar characteristics were at length eliminated, and a uniform type of face was the result. From north to south one special form of countenance, that which we usually call Semitic, prevailed among them. [Illustration: 218.jpg A CARICATURE OF THE SYRIAN TYPE] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph. The Syrian and Egyptian monuments furnish us everywhere, under different ethnical names, with representations of a broad-shouldered people of high stature, slender-figured in youth, but with a fatal tendency to obesity in old age. Their heads are large, somewhat narrow, and artificially flattened or deformed, like those of several modern tribes in the Lebanon. Their high cheek-bones stand out from their hollow cheeks, and their blue or black eyes are buried under their enormous eyebrows. The lower part of the face is square and somewhat heavy, but it is often concealed by a thick and curly beard. The forehead is rather low and retreating, while the nose has a distinctly aquiline curve. The type is not on the whole so fine as the Egyptian, but it is not so heavy as that of the Chaldaeans in the time of Gudea. The Theban artists have represented it in their battle-scenes, and while individualising every soldier or Asiatic prisoner with a happy knack so as to avoid monotony, they have with much intelligence impressed upon all of them the marks of a common parentage. [Illustration: 219.jpg] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original wooden object. One feels that the artists must have recognised them as belonging to one common family. They associated with their efforts after true and exact representation a certain caustic humour, which impelled them often to substitute for a portrait a more or less jocose caricature of their adversaries. On the walls of the Pylons, and in places where the majesty of a god restrained them from departing too openly from their official gravity, they contented themselves with exaggerating from panel to panel the contortions and pitiable expressions of the captive chiefs as they followed behind the triumphal chariot of the Pharaoh on his return from his Syrian campaigns.* * An illustration of this will be found in the line of prisoners, brought by Seti I. from his great Asiatic campaign, which is depicted on the outer face of the north wall of the hypostyle at Karnak.