and, what was of the first importance, to give the needful attention to the formation of wells in the midst of the parched mountain regions, from which the gold was to be won. To these regions belonged the stretch of desert on the eastern side of the Nile, opposite Edfou, which at this day bears the name of Redesieh, and contains the remains of an old-Egyptian rock temple. It marks the site of one of the resting-places on the great road of commerce, which in ancient days led straight through the desert from the town of Coptos, on the Nile, to the harbour of Berenice on the Red Sea. The inscriptions on the temple date from the times of Seti. They not only establish the existence of gold ore in the interior of the mountain, but also the position of a well (hydreuma, as the Greeks called it), made at the command of the king. They relate how, in the ninth year of King Seti, in the month Epiphi, on the 20th day, the Pharaoh undertook a journey to the solitary mountain region, as it was his wish himself to see the gold-mines which existed there. After he had mounted up many miles, he made a halt, to take counsel with himself and to come to a conclusion upon the information he had received, that the want of water made the road almost impassable, and that travellers by it died of thirst in the hot season of the year. At a proper place a well was bored deep in the rocky ground, and a small rock-temple was made there, to the name of King Seti,' by the express order of the Pharaoh. Thereupon everything was done to carry on the gold-washing with success. The people who followed this laborious occupation were placed

under the supervision of a hir-pit or overseer of the foreign peoples,' and all other measures were taken to ensure for all future time the keeping up of the temple and the worship of its divine inhabitants, Osiris, Isis, and Horus, besides the three great divinities of the country, Amon of Thebes, Ptah of Memphis, and Hormakhu of Thebes.

That the inhabitants of the country were highly pleased with this work is declared by the inscriptions of the temple :

King Seti did this for his memorial for his father Amon-Ra and his company of gods, namely, he built anew for them a house of god, in the interior of which the divinities dwell in full contentment. He had the well bored for them. Such a thing was never done before by any king, except him, the king. Thus did King Seti do a good work, the beneficent dispenser of water, who prolongs life to his people; he is for everyone a father and a mother. They speak from mouth to mouth, "Amon grant him (a long existence), increase to him an everlasting duration. Ye gods of the well! assure to him your length of life, since he has made for us the road to travel upon, and has opened what lay shut up before our face. Now can we travel up with ease, and reach the goal and remain living. The difficult road lies open there before us, and the way has become good. Now the gold can be carried up, as the king and lord has seen. All the living generations, and those which shall be hereafter, will pray for an eternal remembrance for him. May he celebrate the thirty years' jubilee-feasts like Tum, may he flourish like Horus of Apollinopolis, because he has founded a memorial in the lands of the gods,' because he has bored for water in the mountains.'

1 I will here call the attention of the reader to the fact, that in this and other places, for example, in the rock inscriptions of Hammamât, the Arabian desert and the coast adjoining it, on the Red Sea, is designated as 'the land of the gods,'

In the carrying out of the work, the utility of which the inhabitants of the country so frequently recognise, Ani, the King's son of Kush of that time, and at the same time commander-in-chief of the Mazai, was present as the directing architect. This fact is attested by rock-inscriptions, accompanied by pictorial representations, as for example that of the warlike foreign goddess Antha, the Anaitis of the ancients, who wields on horseback a battle-axe and shield like Bellona.

Whether, after all, the gold mines yielded rich produce, whether the gold washers delivered to the ' reckoner of silver and gold of the land of the country of Upper and Lower Egypt, Hi-shera,'1 the shining grains of their laborious employment in satisfactory quantity, on these points the lay of the poet on the monuments is for ever silent.

As Seti's reign flows on parallel with that of his great son Ramses, as king of the country, we will leave his end untouched, and suppose, with the ancients, that his soul suddenly flew up like a bird to the Egyptian heaven, to enjoy a better existence in the bark of the sun. His decease took place before his own tomb and his buildings in honour of the immortal one were finished. The temples of Abydus and of old Qurnah have already afforded us proofs of this.

His son and associated king, Ramessu, bore the

names

See Lieblein's Dictionary of Names, No. 882.

RA-USERMA SOTEP-EN-RA RAMESSU II. MIAMUN I.

(RAMSES MIAMUN). ABOUT 1133 B.C.

This is the king who above all others bears the name of honour of A-nakhtu, the Conqueror,' and whom the monuments and the rolls of the books often designate by his popular names of Ses, Sestesu, Setesu, or Sestura, that is, the 'Sethosis, who is also called Ramesses of the Manethonian record, and the renowned legendary conqueror Sesostris of the Greek historians.

The number of his monuments, which still to the present day cover the soil of Egypt and Nubia in almost countless numbers, as the ruined remnants of a glorious past, or are daily brought to light from their concealment, is so great and almost countless, that the historian of his life and deeds finds himself in a difficulty where to begin, how to spin together the principal threads, and where to end his work. If to honour the memory of his father be the chief duty and the first work of a dutiful son-and we shall see that this was the persuasion of Ramses II.—the beginning is made for us, and we shall honour the king's memory in easy the worthiest manner by using the very words of the great Sesostris about his first acts on entering upon his sole reign.

King Seti had died. The temple of Abydus stood half finished. The first royal care of Ramses was to complete the work, and, in a long inscription on the left wall of the entrance, to record the intention with which his heart was charged, for the imitation of his contemporaries and of posterity.

'The lord of the land arose as king, to show honour to his father, in his first year, on his first journey to Thebes. He had caused likenesses of his father, who was King Seti I., to be sculptured, the one in Thebes, the other in Memphis at the entrance gate, which he had executed for himself, besides those which were in Nifur, the necropolis of Abydus. Thus he fulfilled the wish

which moved his heart, since he had been on earth, on the ground of the god Unnofer. He renewed the remembrance of his father, and of those who rest in the under world, in that he made his name to live, and caused his portraits to be made, and fixed the revenues set apart for his venerated person, and filled his house and richly decked out his altars. The walls were rebuilt, which had become old in his favourite house, the halls in his temple were rebuilt, its walls were covered, its gates were raised up; whatever had fallen into decay in the burial-place of his father in the Necropolis was restored, and [the works of art which] had been carried away were brought back into the interior.

'All this did the Conquering King Ramses II. for his father Seti I. He established for him the sacrifices in rich profusion, in his name and in that of the (earlier) kings. His breast had a tender feeling towards his parent, and his heart beat for him who brought him up.

'On one of these days, it was in the first year, on the 23rd day of the month Athyr,' on [his return home] after (the conclusion) of the feast of the voyage of Amon to Thebes, then he went out, endowed with power and strength by Amon and by Tum, out of the city of Thebes. They had assured him a recompense through never-ending years, as long as the duration of the existence of the sun in heaven.—

'He raised his hand, which bore the incense-vessel, upwards to the heavenly orb of light of the living god. The sacrificial gifts were splendid, they were received with satisfaction in all his . . . (?) The king (now) returned from the capital of the land of the South. [As soon as] the sun [had risen], the journey was commenced. As the ships of the king sailed on, they threw their brightness on

1 The feast began on the 19th of Paophi. It lasted twenty-six days, and it ended on the 12th of Athyr. On the 17th of Athyr the feast of the fifth day after it took place; so that the journey of the king to Abydus is fixed precisely to the 23rd of Athyr.