The scribes at the court of Pharaoh at RamsesTanis, and we must not forget that Ramessu Miamun had fixed his court there,-were full of joy at the great event of the conclusion of peace. Their letters, so far as a kind fate has preserved them for us, overflow with high delight that the war was at an end, and that Kemi and Khita had now become fraternal peoples. Their boasting rose to such a pitch of the wonted Egyptian pride, as to assert that king Ramessu had already assumed the position of a god for Khita, and for the regions of the heathen, namely Kati.

As we intend in a later portion of the history of Ramses to lay before our readers in a faithful translation some proofs of Egyptian vain-glory in such matters, we will first give additional confirmation of the proved· fact, that Ramses lived in such friendly relations with the king of Khita of his time, that even family alliances were made between the two. According to a memorial tablet which was set up solemnly in the temple of Ibsambul, and the long inscription on which begins with the date of the year 34 of the reign of Ramessu, the Egyptian king married the daughter of the king of Khita. The prince of Khita, clad in the dress of his country, himself conducted the bride to his sonin-law. After the marriage had taken place, the young wife, as queen, received the name of Ur-maa Nofiru-ra.

When we turn our glance to the west and to the south, we have there also to recognise the military activity of the king; whose successes are celebrated

with their wonted fulness by the Nubian monuments, which are the real trophies of the famed Sesostris.

In the temple of Der (or Dirr, as I heard the name always pronounced by the Nubian inhabitants of the district) there is represented a razzia of the king against the poor negroes, whose wives and children behold the irruption of the Pharaoh with affrighted gaze. In like manner the battle-pieces of the rockgrotto of Beit-el-Walli place before our eyes the victories of Pharaoh over the land of Kush, the Thuhen (Marmarida), and the Syrian Khalu or Phoenicians. The date of these wars is nowhere given, and it is only the circumstances of the action, and the historical personages of those days, beginning with the king's children, that enable us to form a general conception as to the campaigns in the earlier or later years of the life of Ramessu.

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We must imagine, from the written and pictorial testimony on the rock-walls of that temple grotto, that the king had just returned from his campaigns against the people of the south, and held a court in the midst of the temple. He was already covered with glory, for the deeds of victory are inscribed a hundred thousand times on the glorious Persea. As the chastiser of the foreigners, who has placed his boundary marks according to his pleasure in the land of the Ruthennu, he is in truth the son of Ra, and his very likeness.'

Before the king, who is seated on his throne, appears the hereditary prince Amen-hi-unamif,' who presents to him a train of captive negroes, and the

booty or tributes of leopards' skins, lions, giraffes, antelopes, gazelles, and of gold rings, ivory, and fruits, and other such productions of the south.

The then governor also of the South, the king's son of Kush, Amen-em-ape, a son of Pa-uër,' presents himself before his lord and master, in order to be decorated for his honest and successful services with the gold necklace of honour. For a campaign had just been brought to a close, which had subjected the revolted negro tribes anew to the sceptre of Egypt. In its principal battle, Ramses appears high on his chariot. He is accompanied by his son just named and his pious brother Khamus.

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Here is another court of the king in the South. At his feet lies his faithful attendant, the lion Smamkheftu-f, the tearer to pieces of his enemies.' Here again it is his son, the brave Aman-hi-unamif (i.e., 'Amon is on his right hand'), who, accompanied by Egyptian warriors, brings to the Pharaoh in Nubia some captive Khal-Phoenicians, without doubt for the purpose of being employed as workmen on the buildings which Ramses was erecting there.

The Libyan land also must have yielded her captive children for the same buildings, since we admire the strength of the giant king, who is just giving a Thuhen the death-stroke with his scimitar, called Antha-em-nekh, Anaitis is the protector.' Prisoners of the Canaanite tribes are also seen employed on the same work, for the king had carried on wars against them. His own words declare of his victories, that henceforth sand is in their dwellings, instead of the fruits of

the earth.'

Accompanied by one of his sons, he

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took their chief city, the 'miserable king' of which assures Sesostris, that no other is to be compared to Baal as thou art. Thou, O king, art his true son for

ever.'

Ramses seems to have subjugated only small tribes of Ethiopia and Libya, in his campaigns into the interior of the African continent. We incidentally learn the names of these on several monuments: as, for example, the above-mentioned memorial-stone of Ibsambul cites as conquered people of Africa the Auntom, Hebuu, Tenfu, Temuu, and Hetau (a sixth name is destroyed), whom the Memphian god Ptah-Totunen delivers as subjects into the hands of his son Ramses.1

The office of the viceroys of the South continued during the long reign of this king in full importance. The monuments mention to us as such, accompanied by the usual title of honour of King's sons of Kush,' the Egyptian lords Pa-uër, Amenemapi, son of Pa-uër, Setau-'an (who was entrusted also with the administration of the gold mines), Amenemhib, Nakhtu, and Massui.

In order to increase his revenues and fill the treasury of the state, Ramses, following the example of his father Seti, turned his particular attention to the gold districts which had been discovered, and especially to the Nubian gold mines of what is now the Wady Alaki

Compare above, the numbers 25, 28, 79 (Vol. I. pp. 363-4). It is highly probable that the countries and peoples mentioned here scarcely extended beyond Napata. Maiu (No. 4, ibid.) for example, is mentioned as in Anibe, in the neighbourhood of Ibrim.

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(Al-aki), anciently called Aki-ta. But water was wanting in the dreary sterile valleys of this mountainous country, and men and beasts died on the roads to the gold districts. By a curious accident, science is in possession of the old Egyptian map (at Turin), which enables us to recognise the situation of the mountain tracks, the rocks, the places where the gold was found, the wells, and all the other appurtenances and buildings. Here, according to the annexed inscriptions, are 'the mountains out of which the gold was extracted; they are marked with a red colour;' there the roads which have been abandoned, leading to the sea:' here 'the houses of . . . of the gold-washing,' the 'well,' and the memorial stone of King Mineptah I. Seti I. :' there, the temple of Amon in the holy mountain.' Nothing is forgotten which could seem calculated to give the spectator an idea of the state of the region, even to the stones and the scattered trees along the roads. Seti I., the gold-seeker, had first worked. the gold-mines, but without any remarkable success, as will be shown further on. He made the well named in the inscriptions, and erected near it the memorialstone of which the inscription on the map speaks. The shaft of the well had a depth of more than 63 yards (120 Egyptian cubits), but the water soon became exhausted, and the mine was abandoned.

It was not till the third year of the reign of King Ramses that the works were opened, which are mentioned with such detail in the inscription given below. The inscription covers a stone which was found at the village of Kuban, opposite Dakkeh, on