The officers of the king's household, the eunuchs, the servants, and the slaves, informed of the approach of His Majesty by the blare of the trumpets and the roll of the drums, had proceeded to meet him, and waited, kneeling and prostrate, in the court paved with great stone slabs. Captives, of the despised race of Scheto, bore urns filled with salt and olive oil, in which was dipped a wick, the flame of which crackled bright and clear. These men stood ranged in line from the basalt gate to the entrance of the first court, motionless like bronze lamp-bearers. Soon the head of the procession entered the pylon and the bugles and the drums sounded with a din which, repeated by the echoes, drove the sleeping ibises from the entablatures. The bearers stopped at the gate in the facade between the two pavilions; slaves brought a footstool with several steps and placed it by the side of the litter. The Pharaoh rose with majestic slowness and stood for a few moments perfectly motionless. Thus standing on a pedestal of shoulders, he soared above all heads and appeared to be twelve cubits high. Strangely lighted, half by the rising moon, half by the light of the lamps, in a costume in which gold and enamels sparkled intermittently, he resembled Osiris, or Typhon rather. He descended the steps as if he were a statue, and at last entered the palace. A first inner court, framed in by a row of huge pillars covered with hieroglyphs, that bore a frieze ending in volutes, was slowly crossed by the Pharaoh in the midst of a crowd of prostrate slaves and maids. Then appeared another court surrounded by a covered cloister, and short columns, the capitals of which were formed of a cube of hard sandstone, on which rested the massive architrave. The imprint of indestructibility marked the straight lines and the geometric forms of this architecture built with pieces of mountains. The pillars and the columns seemed to strike firmly into the ground in order to upbear the weight of the mighty stones placed on the cubes of their capitals, the walls to slope inwards so as to have a firmer foundation, and the stones to join together so as to form but one block; but polychromous decorations and _bassi-relievi_ hollowed out and enriched with more brilliant tints added, in the daytime, lightness and richness to these vast masses, which when night had fallen, recovered all their imposing effect. Under the cornice, in the Egyptian style, the unchanging lines of which formed against the sky a vast parallelogram of deep azure, quivered, in the intermittent breath of the breeze, lighted lamps placed at short distances apart. The fish-pond in the centre of the court mingled, as it reflected them, their red flashes with the blue gleams of the moon. Rows of shrubs planted around the basin gave out a faint, sweet perfume. At the back opened the gate of the harem and of the private apartments, which were decorated with peculiar magnificence.