Page:A History of Art in Ancient Egypt Vol 2.djvu/33

 The Palace. 13 offices and granaries. They were built round courtyards which were arrancred in long succession on all four sides of the principal buildino- in which the sovereign and his family dwelt. When, in the course of a long reign, the family of the king became very numerous (Rameses II. had a hundred and seventy children, fifty- nine of whom were sons), and it became necessary to provide accommodation for them in the royal dwelling, it was easy to encroach upon the surrounding country, and to extend both buildings and trardens at will. Although the great inclosure at Karnak was spacious enough for its purpose, the families of the Pharaohs would hardly have had elbow room in it. They would soon have felt the restraint of the high and impassable barriers insupportable, and the space within them too narrow for their pursuits. The palaces of the East have always required wider and more flexible limits than these. If we examine their general aspect we shall find it the same from the banks of the Ganges to those of the Bosphorus. The climate, the harem, and the extreme subdivision of labour, gave, and still gives, a multiplex and difiuse character to royal and princely dwellings ; memories of Susa and Persepolis, of Babylon and Nineveh, agree in this with the actual condition of the old palaces at Agra, Delhi, and Constantinople. They were not com- posed, like the modern palaces of the West, of a single homo- geneous edifice which can be embraced at a glance ; they in no way resembled the Tuileries or Versailles.^ They consisted of many structures of unequal importance, built at different times and by difterent princes ; their pavilions were separated by gardens and courts ; they formed a kind of royal village or town, surrounded and guarded by a high wall. In that part of the interior nearest the entrance there were richly-decorated halls, in which the sovereign condescended to sit enthroned at stated times, to receive the homage of his subjects and of foreign ambassadors. Around these chambers, which were open to a certain number of privileged individuals, swarmed a whole population of officers, soldiers, and servants of all kinds. This part of the palace was as M. Perrot seems to suggest. The curious assemblage of buildings of different ages and styles which forms the eastern facade of the dwelling of Louis XIV. does not greatly differ in essentials from the confused piles of Delhi or the old Seraglio. — Ed.
 * The contrast between the palaces of the East and Versailles is hardly so strong