Those who sued for mercy and laid down their arms, were spared and sent bound from the field; and the hands of the slain being cut off, and placed in heaps before the king, immediately after the action, were counted by the military secretaries in his presence, who thus ascertained and reported to him the account of the enemy’s slain. Sometimes their tongues, and occasionally other members, were laid before him in the same manner; in all instances being intended as authentic returns of the loss of the foe: for which the soldiers received a proportionate reward, divided among the whole army, the capture of prisoners probably claiming a higher premium, exclusively enjoyed by the captor. The arms, horses, chariots, and booty, taken in the field or in camp, were also collected, and the same officers wrote an account of them, and presented it to the monarch. The booty was sometimes collected in an open space, surrounded by a temporary wall, indicated in the sculptures by the representation of shields placed erect, with a wicker gate, on the inner and outer face of which a strong guard was posted, the sentries walking to and fro with drawn swords. It was forbidden to the Spartan soldier, when on guard, to have his shield, in order that, being deprived of this defence, he might be more cautious not to fall asleep; and the same appears to have been a custom of the Egyptians, as the watch here on duty at the camp-gates are only armed with swords and maces, though belonging to the heavy-armed corps, who, on other occasions, were in the habit of carrying a shield. A system of regular fortification was adopted in the earliest times. The form of the fortresses was quadrangular; the walls of crude brick fifteen feet thick, and often fifty feet high, with square towers at intervals along each face. But though some were kept up after the accession of the XVIIIth Dynasty, the practice of fortifying towns seems to have been discontinued, and fortresses or walled towns were not then used, except on the edge of the desert, and on the frontiers where large garrisons were required. To supply their place, the temples were provided with lofty pyramidal stone towers, which, projecting beyond the walls, enabled the besieged to command and rake them, while the parapet-wall over the gateway shielded the soldiers who defended the entrance; and the whole plan of an outer wall of circumvallation was carried out by the large crude brick enclosure of the _temenos_, within which the temple stood. Each temple was thus a detached fort, and was thought as sufficient a protection for itself and for the town as a continuous wall, which required a large garrison to defend it; and neither Thebes nor Memphis, the two capitals, were walled cities. [Illustration: AN EGYPTIAN BOWMAN]