and thus the expansion of Egypt commenced. To their already famed infantry the Egyptians had learnt from the Hyksos to add cavalry and chariots. Their armies invaded Asia, overran Syria, Judæa, and Arabia, advancing as far as Mesopotamia.

And commerce followed their flag: the emerald mines of Berenice and the gold mines of Midian enriched the capital of the Pharaohs; white and yellow alabaster, red porphyry, and green diorite were brought from the hills beyond Rohanou and from the Wady Hammamat. The labour of establishing their authority, and thus extending their empire, left little time to these three first Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty to devote to the arts of peace; but Amenhoteb I. constructed a portion of the temple of Karnac, and Tutmes I. built in front of its sanctuary those halls, pylons, and obelisks which adorn the southern side.

The death of Tutmes I., followed in a very short time by that of his son, B.C. 1630. Tutmes II., placed Egypt under the rule of a female sovereign, who had already

acted as regent, the Queen Hatasou, whose reign

perhaps marks the period of Egypt's greatest
material prosperity, if not of military splendour.
Her efforts seem to have been mainly devoted to
the extension of commercial relations with neigh-
bouring states, and more particularly with the
coasts of the Red Sea. The temple of Deir el
Bahari was raised to commemorate her successful
expedition into Pount (Arabia Felix). On the
walls we see her sending her troops to collect such
treasures as could be found in the land of spices;
we see them successful, the soldiers drawn up on
the coast of the Red Sea, the water of which is
apparently so transparent that the fishes are visible;
the inhabitants of Pount leave their cupola-roofed
dwellings and bring the scented gum in heaps;
the Egyptian fleet is receiving the valuable cargo,
consisting of bales of goods, earthen jars, and live
animals; journeying with sail and oar, they reach Thebes, and the different
items are counted out at the feet of the Queen, in the presence of the god
Ammon, who congratulates her Majesty.

At this time the nation seems to have returned to the luxurious habits which had been prevalent prior to the invasion of the Hyksos. Sumptuous feasts

B.C. 1600 (c).

B.C. 1546 (c).

were apparently the order of the day; singers, musicians, and dancers contributed to the entertainment, while slaves handed the guests the different dishes crowned with flowers. Enormous sums were consumed in funeral ceremonies; the funeral barge was hidden beneath the luxurious offerings; professional mourners and slaves stood on the decks; and the embalming art, assisted by the spices and aromatic perfumes from Arabia and the Sommali Coast, reached its perfection.

The Queen Hatasou was worthily succeeded by her second brother, Tutmes III., who is said to have undertaken thirteen campaigns in his reign of fifty-four years. His conquering armies reached Cape Guardafui and the Indian Ocean; Babylon, Tyre, and the Lebanon paid him tribute; and large numbers of prisoners were employed to till the fields in place of the children of the soil, enrolled as soldiers. Nor did the glories of foreign conquest prevent him from adding to the treasures of his capital; he erected a temple on the left bank, adorned several Egyptian towns with the obelisks which now disgrace the principal cities of Europe; and he enlarged Karnac, of which he sketched out the general plan. Upon its walls we find a list of 115 cities subdued by Tutmes, possessing peculiar interest because they furnish a table of the Promised Land, made 270 years before the Exodus. Among the cities are Kadesh, Megiddo, Damascus, Beyrout, Acre, Jaffa, Migdol, and Rehoboth. An authority who cannot be suspected of sectarian prejudice, the late Mariette Bey, says: "No doubt whatever can exist. If these limits are not precisely the same as the tenth chapter of Exodus assigns to the land of Canaan, at all events these hundred and fifteen names carry us to the very centre and heart of that farfamed country. The data are certainly very precise with regard both to chronology and geography."

At the death of the great Tutmes, the Syrians seem to have thought the opportunity favourable for a revolt, which was suppressed with considerable severity by his successor, Amenhoteb II. Of his successor, Tutmes IV., we know little beyond the legend on the Sphinx, telling of his good intention to restore that monument. He was probably a mighty hunter, like Amenhoteb III., who succeeded him, and who is reported to have killed a hundred lions with his own hands during his reign. But the third Amenhoteb was more than a shekarri; he carried his victorious arms far into the Soudan, and continued to exact tribute from Mesopotamia. He built also the whole of the southern portion of the temple of Luxor, the northern temple of Ammon, the temple of Mout, the alley of Sphinxes leading to the temple of Khons, and the imposing edifice which stood behind the two Colossi on the west bank, both of

which represent himself seated in the hieratic posture. The upper part of the more northerly of the two was destroyed by an earthquake twenty-seven years before Christ, and the accident added a spurious celebrity to its deserved fame. From the headless trunk came forth, with the first rays of the morning sun, a ringing sound like the human voice. Hard science may now explain it as due to the cracking of the stone, wet by the morning dew and heated by the sun, but the more imaginative Greeks and Romans heard in it the voice of their favourite Memnon appealing to his divine mother, Eos, the Dawn. There came from all parts of the known world pilgrims to behold the miracle, and to write their testimony to its truth at the foot of the god. Among other autographs is that of Sabina Augusta, consort to Cæsar Augustus, and of Vitalinus Epistrateges of the Thebaid, who brought his wife, Publia Sosis, and of two poetical gentlemen, an Italian, Petroniamus Dillius, and one Gamella, who, as a good père de famille, brings also his "beloved spouse Rafilla and his children." Alas! the miracle only lasted two centuries; for Septimius Severus thought, as others have thought since with equal success, that he would work a great reform in Egypt. He would improve on Memnon; he would impart beauty and clearness to the voice. What could be easier? A few blocks of sandstone, and it was done. The reform was effected, but the sound was effectually smothered, and the god remained for ever silent. O Septimius Severus, first of occidental reformers! thy successors exist in the nineteenth century!

Of Amenhoteb IV. we only find traces in a singular religious revolution at the instance of his foreign mother, Aten. He seems to have returned to the more primitive sun-worship of his forefathers, and changed his name from Amenhoteb, Peace of Ammon, to Khuenaten (Reflection of the Sun), to have effaced the name of Ammon, and substituted that of Aten on the monuments, and to have transferred the capital some 150 miles north to a city he founded and called Khosaten, now Tel-el-Amarna, where he and two or three successors reigned. But Horus or Horemheb, last of the eighteenth dynasty, re-established the cult of Ammon at the capital of Thebes, building the two southern pylons and the avenue of Sphinxes, which connects the first pylon with the temple of Mout.

Still the authority of the eighteenth dynasty seems to have suffered a shock, and the people, tired of their rulers for nearly 250 years, appear to have made an internal revolution, which resulted in the accession of the great family of Ramses and the nineteenth dynasty.

B.C. 1452 (c).

CHAPTER XV.

History-The Ramesides—Ramses I.-Seti I.-Ramses II.—An heroic exploit and mild
rebuke-Seti II.—The first Judenhetze-Moses a general in the Soudan-The
exodus in Scripture and papyrus—Ramses III. at home-At war—
-A naval battle
-Rise of the Priestly power-Priest-kings of San-Egypt the bone of contention
between Ethiopia and Assyria-Assyrian conquest-Thebes pillaged-Dodecharchy
-Saite Dynasty-Prophetic warning against Suez Canal-Persian conquest—
Visits of Herodotus and Plato-Alexander the Great-The Trinity of Thebes.

F the Ramses who established the nineteenth dynasty, little is known beyond the fact that he was the father of Seti I., Merenptah (Beloved of Ptah), and that he probably designed, though his son completed, the famous hypostyl hall at Karnac. Upon its walls are recorded the campaigns of Seti against the Armenians, the Arabs, the Assyrians, and the Hittites. The Armenians are depicted felling timber for the conqueror, who drives in his chariot a horse. named "Strength of the Thebaid." Here he pursues and pierces with arrows the flying Arabs, who take refuge in a fortress; and here, returning victorious from his campaigns, he is receiving on the banks of the Nile the principal functionaries of his kingdom, who have come to welcome him. Seti was the first who appears to have conceived, and even probably carried out, the idea of connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. He gave particular attention to the education of his son, the great Ramses, whom he caused to be instructed with other young Egyptian nobles, and possibly with Moses; for we may assume that the princess who adopted the future lawgiver was a daughter B.C. 1420 (c). of either the first Ramses or his son Seti. Ramses II., the Great, the legendary Sesostris of the Greeks, succeeded his father, probably about 1420 B.C., and reigned for sixty-seven years. If other periods were equally prosperous, this at least must be considered as the reign during which Egypt reached her highest military renown. Throughout Egypt, and beyond it, we meet the records of his victorious The empire stretched to Dongola in the south, to the Tigris in the east, and to Asia Minor itself. Probably little of his long reign was spent in his magnificent capital, but he completed the temple of Goornah, the hypostyl hall of Karnac, built the surrounding wall of the temple, added something to Luxor, and left in the Ramesium a monument not unworthy of the glorious son of Seti.

arms.

The walls of Karnac and of the Ramesium are covered with the records of his exploits. Here, in the Ramesium, we find him engaged in battle with the Hittites on the borders of the river Orontes, near to Kaderu. The Egyptian generals do not exactly appear to have distinguished themselves, unless, indeed, they were conspiring to assure the renown of their sovereign. At all events, they have left him alone, even deserted by his escort, and surrounded by his enemies. Nothing daunted, he charges

alone the chariots; the enemy fly in terror; some are crushed under the wheels of the chariot and the feet of his horses; others are killed with arrows from the king's own hand, among them "the chief of the vile Hittites," and the rest are drowned in the river. On the opposite side of the bank is the scene after the battle. Ramses is seated on his throne, none the worse for his singlehanded fight against a host. His officers, showing some moral if not physical courage, come to tender him their congratulations, and are received with a reproach which we cannot deem too strong for the circumstances. "Not one among you," he says plaintively, "has behaved well in thus deserting me, and leaving me alone in the midst of the enemy. The princes and captains did not join hands with me in fight; by myself have I done battle; I

Bazaar in Luxor.

have put to flight thousands of nations, and I was all alone." Ramses appears to have been very proud of his exploit, as well he might be. To put to flight a nation is something; but to put to flight thousands of nations is not, he fancies, an everyday exploit; so he reproduces it again upon the second pylon, and at Luxor, at Karnac, and at Ipsamboul. And that there