(1) Worship offered to Amon, that he may grant life, prosperity, and health to the person of the king's envoy into all lands, the companion (2) of the lord of the land, of the friend of Hor (i.e. the king) in his house, the first commander of the war-chariots of his Majesty, (3) who understood his purpose, when the king came, to exalt (him) the king's son of Kush, (4) Seti, upon his throne (or, the throne of his father?) in the first year of the lord of the land, Ramessu Siptah.'

On the summit of a group of rocks on the island of Sehêl, in the neighbourhood of Phila, there remains the following inscription of the same Seti, annexed to the name of his king :

In the year 3, Pachons, day 21. Honour to thy name, O king! May it attest the acknowledgments of the person of the commander of the chariots, and the King's son of Kush, and the governor of the southern lands, Seti.'

Underneath is an inscription nearly to the same

effect:

The hereditary prince, bearer of the fan, King's son of Kush, governor of the southern lands, Seti-'

We cannot tell what other historical information the inscriptions and papyrus rolls of these rival and anti-kings might have been ready to give us (i.e. if they had not been cancelled by the successful rival). On the last visit which we paid at Thebes, a year ago, to the grave of the great queen and lady of the land, the princess of Upper and Lower Egypt, Ta-user,' we were able again to corroborate the fact, that the names of her husband Siptah are seen at its entrance, while in the interior, on the piece which was laid on to cover the names of the queen, the royal shields of Setnakht meet the spectator in a re-engraving.

Setnakht took possession of his predecessor's sepulchre, or rather that of his wife, without in a single case replacing the feminine grammatical signs in the inscriptions by the corresponding masculine forms. His rival having been driven out, Setnakht could deal with the tomb at his pleasure.

Nor was it only against native claimants of the throne, that Setnakht had to maintain a conflict for the double crown: foreigners also contributed their efforts to turn Egypt upside down. A certain Khal, or Phoenician, had seized the throne, maintained himself on it for some time, driven the Egyptians into banishment, and grievously oppressed those left in the land. This is that Arisu or Alisu, Arius or Alius, whom the great Harris papyrus first made known to us. We conclude with a translation of the part of this record of the nineteenth dynasty which refers to him, while we regret our inability to suppress the remark, that the translations hitherto put forth by several scholars have completely mistaken the sense of the document just in its most important passages.1

King Ramses III., the son of Setnakht, gives, by way of introduction to his own reign, the following summary of the events immediately before his accession to the throne :

1 The most recent translation of the 'Great Harris Papyrus,' by Professor Eisenlohr and Dr. Samuel Birch, is given in the Records of the Past, vols. vi. and viii. The historical part here referred to, forming the last five of the seventy-nine leaves into which the papyrus was divided by Mr. Harris (Plates 75-79 of the British Museum publication), begins at vol. vi., p. 45 (see Dr. Bugsch's mention of the B. M. edition in his Preface).-ED.

'Thus says king Ramessu III., the great god, to the princes and leaders of the land, to the warriors and to the chariot soldiers, to the Shairdana, and the numerous foreign mercenaries, and to all the living inhabitants of the land of Ta-mera :-Hearken! I make you to know my glorious deeds, which I have performed as king of men.

The people of Egypt lived in banishment abroad. Of those who lived in the interior of the land, none had any to care for him. So passed away long years, until other times came. The land of Egypt belonged to princes from foreign parts. They slew one another, whether noble or mean.

'Other times came on afterwards, during years of scarcity. Arisu, a Phœnician, had raised himself among them to be a prince, and he compelled all the people to pay him tribute. Whatever any had gathered together, that his (ie. the Phoenician's) companions robbed them of. Thus did they.

'The gods were treated like the men. appointed sin-offerings in the temples.

They went without the

Then did the gods turn this state of things to prosperity. They restored to the land its even balance, such as its condition properly required. And they established their son, who had come forth from their body, as king of the whole land on their exalted throne. This was king Setnakht Merer Miamun.

'He was like the person of Set when he is indignant. He took care for the whole land. If rebels showed themselves, he slew the wicked who made a disturbance in the land of Ta-mera.

'He purified the exalted royal throne of Egypt, and so he was the ruler of the inhabitants on the throne of the sun-god Tum, while he raised up their faces. Such as showed themselves refusing to acknowledge any one as a brother, were locked up.1

'He restored order to the temples, granting the sacred revenues for the due offerings to the gods, as their statutes prescribe.

'He raised me up as heir to the throne on the seat of the earth-god Seb, to be the great governor of the Egyptian dominions

1 Literally, walled up. That this punishment was sometimes inflicted by the kings, I can prove as an eye-witness. When Mariette-Bey opened the sepulchres of the Apis-bulls in the Serapeum, in 1850, there was found in one of the walls the skeleton of a culprit who had been walled up in ancient times.

in care for the whole people, who have found themselves united together again.

'And he went to his rest out of his orbit of light, like the company of the celestials. The (funeral) rites of Osiris were accomplished for him. He was borne (to his grave) in his royal boat over the river, and was laid in his everlasting house on the west side of Thebes.

'And my father Amon, the lord of the gods, and Ra, and Ptah with the beautiful face, caused me to be crowned as lord of the land on the throne of my parent.

'I received the dignities of my father amidst shouts of joy. The people were content and delighted because of the peace. They rejoiced in my countenance as king of the land, for I was like Horus, who was king over the land on the throne of Osiris. Thus was I crowned with the Atef-crown, together with the Uræusserpents; I put on the ornament of the double plumes, like the god Tatanen; thus I reposed myself on the throne-seat of Hormakhu; thus was I clothed with the robes of state, like Tum.”

King Ramses, the third of the name, opened the long series of Pharaohs of the succeeding dynasty. With him also we begin a new chapter of our History of Egypt.

CHAPTER XV.

THE TWENTIETH DYNASTY.

RAMSES III. HAQ-ON. B.C. 1200.

As this king's official name was User-ma-ra Miamun, he is only distinguished from Ramses II. by the title Haq-On, that is, Prince of Heliopolis.' Among the people, as is proved by the monuments, he bore the appellation of Ramessu-pa-nuter, or pa-nuti, that is, 'Ramses the god,' from which the Greeks formed the well-known name of Rhampsinitus. And, as his name, so also his deeds-nay even his wealth in the blessing of children—remind us of Ramses Sesostris, whom he evidently honoured as the ideal type and model of a great Pharaoh.

The miserable state of Egypt before his accession could not be better described than in his own words, cited in the last chapter. The same Harris papyrus, which has enabled us to lay before our readers such valuable information on the condition of the land of the Pharaohs at the time referred to, proceeds to give a general view of the glorious deeds' of this Ramses. It is a comprehensive outline of his eventful life, of

1 Herod. ii. 121.