She governed with so firm a hand that neither Egypt nor its foreign vassals dared to make any serious attempt to withdraw themselves from her authority. One raid, in which several prisoners were taken, punished a rising of the Shaûsû in Central Syria, while the usual expeditions maintained order among the peoples of Ethiopia, and quenched any attempt which they might make to revolt. When in the second year of his reign the news was brought to Thutmosis II. that the inhabitants of the Upper Nile had ceased to observe the conditions which his father had imposed upon them, he “became furious as a panther,” and assembling his troops set out for war without further delay. The presence of the king with the army filled the rebels with dismay, and a campaign of a few weeks put an end to their attempt at rebelling.

The earlier kings of the XVIIIth dynasty had chosen for their last resting-place a spot on the left bank of the Nile at Thebes, where the cultivated land joined the desert, close to the pyramids built by their predecessors. Probably, after the burial of Amenôthes, the space was fully occupied, for Thutmosis I. had to seek his burying-ground some way up the ravine, the mouth of which was blocked by their monuments. The Libyan chain here forms a kind of amphitheatre of vertical cliffs, which descend to within some ninety feet of the valley, where a sloping mass of detritus connects them by a gentle declivity with the plain.

The great lords and the queens in the times of the Antufs and the Usirtasens had taken possession of this spot, but their chapels were by this period in ruins, and their tombs almost all lay buried under the waves of sand which the wind from the desert drives perpetually over the summit of the cliffs. This site was seized on by the architects of Thûtmosis, who laid there the foundations of a building which was destined to be unique in the world. Its ground plan consisted of an avenue of sphinxes, starting from the plain and running between the tombs till it reached a large courtyard, terminated on the west by a colonnade, which was supported by a double row of pillars.

Above and beyond this was the vast middle platform,* connected with the upper court by the central causeway which ran through it from end to end; this middle platform, like that below it, was terminated on the west by a double colonnade, through which access was gained to two chapels hollowed out of the mountain-side, while on the north it was bordered with excellent effect by a line of proto-Dorio columns ranged against the face of the cliff.

This northern colonnade was never completed, but the existing part is of as exquisite proportions as anything that Greek art has ever produced. At length we reach the upper platform, a nearly square courtyard, cutting on one side into the mountain slope, the opposite side being enclosed by a wall pierced by a single door, while to right and left ran two lines of buildings destined for purposes connected with the daily worship of the temple. The sanctuary was cut out of the solid rock, but the walls were faced with white limestone; some of the chambers are vaulted, and all of them decorated with bas-reliefs of exquisite workmanship, perhaps the finest examples of this period. Thûtmosis I. scarcely did more than lay the foundations of this magnificent building, but his mummy was buried in it with great pomp, to remain there until a period of disturbance and general insecurity obliged those in charge of the necropolis to remove the body, together with those of his family, to some securer hiding-place.* The king was already advanced in age at the time of his death, being over fifty years old, to judge by the incisor teeth, which are worn and corroded by the impurities of which the Egyptian bread was full.

The body, though small and emaciated, shows evidence of unusual muscular strength; the head is bald, the features are refined, and the mouth still bears an expression characteristic of shrewdness and cunning.*

Thûtmosis II. carried on the works begun by his father, but did not long survive him.* The mask on his coffin represents him with a smiling and amiable countenance, and with the fine pathetic eyes which show his descent from the Pharaohs of the XIIth dynasty.

His statues bear the same expression, which indeed is that of the mummy itself. He resembles Thûtmosis I., but his features are not so marked, and are characterised by greater gentleness. He had scarcely reached the age of thirty when he fell a victim to a disease of which the process of embalming could not remove the traces. The skin is scabrous in patches, and covered with scars, while the upper part of the skull is bald; the body is thin and somewhat shrunken, and appears to have lacked vigour and muscular power. By his marriage with his sister, Thûtmosis left daughters only,* but he had one son, also a Thûtmosis, by a woman of low birth, perhaps merely a slave, whose name was Isis.** Hâtshopsîtû proclaimed this child her successor, for his youth and humble parentage could not excite her jealousy. She betrothed him to her one surviving daughter, Hâtshopsîtû II., and having thus settled the succession in the male line, she continued to rule alone in the name of her nephew who was still a minor, as she had done formerly in the case of her half-brother.

Her reign was a prosperous one, but whether the flourishing condition of things was owing to the ability of her political administration or to her fortunate choice of ministers, we are unable to tell. She pressed forward the work of building with great activity, under the direction of her architect Sanmût, not only at Deîr el-Baharî, but at Karnak, and indeed everywhere in Thebes. The plans of the building had been arranged under Thûtmosis I., and their execution had been carried out so quickly, that in many cases the queen had merely to see to the sculptural ornamentation on the all but completed walls.

This work, however, afforded her sufficient excuse, according to Egyptian custom, to attribute the whole structure to herself, and the opinion she had of her own powers is exhibited with great naiveness in her inscriptions. She loves to pose as premeditating her actions long beforehand, and as never venturing on the smallest undertaking without reference to her divine father.

This is what I teach to mortals who shall live in centuries to come, and whose hearts shall inquire concerning the monument which I have raised to my father, speaking and exclaiming as they contemplate it: as for me, when I sat in the palace and thought upon him who created me, my heart prompted me to raise to him two obelisks of electrum, whose apices should pierce the firmaments, before the noble gateway which is between the two great pylons of the King Thûtmosis I. And my heart led me to address these words to those who shall see my monuments in after-years and who shall speak of my great deeds: Beware of saying, ‘I know not, I know not why it was resolved to carve this mountain wholly of gold!’ These two obelisks, My Majesty has made them of electrum for my father Anion, that my name may remain and live on in this temple for ever and ever; for this single block of granite has been cut, without let or obstacle, at the desire of My Majesty, between the first of the second month of Pirîfc of the Vth year, and the 30th of the fourth month of Shomû of the VIth year, which makes seven months from the day when they began to, quarry it. One of these two monoliths is still standing among the ruins of Karnak, and the grace of its outline, the finish of its hieroglyphics, and the beauty of the figures which cover it, amply justify the pride which the queen and her brother felt in contemplating it.

The tops of the pyramids were gilt, so that “they could be seen from both banks of the river,” and “their brilliancy lit up the two lands of Egypt:” needless to say these metal apices have long disappeared.

Later on, in the the queen’s reign, Amon enjoined a work which was more difficult to carry out. On a day when Hâtshopsîtû had gone to the temple to offer prayers, “her supplications arose up before the throne of the Lord of Karnak, and a command was heard in the sanctuary, a behest of the god himself, that the ways which lead to Pûanît should be explored, and that the roads to the ‘Ladders of Incense’ should be trodden.” *

Gums required for the temple service had hitherto reached the Theban priests solely by means of foreign intermediaries; so that in the slow transport across Africa they lost much of their freshness, besides being defiled by passing through impure hands. In addition to these drawbacks, the merchants confounded under the one term “Anîti” substances which differed considerably both in value and character, several of them, indeed, scarcely coming under the category of perfumes, and hence being unacceptable to the gods. One kind, however, found favour with them above all others, being that which still abounds in Somali-land at the present day—a gum secreted by the incense sycomore.*

It was accounted a pious work to send and obtain it direct from the locality in which it grew, and if possible to procure the plants themselves for acclimatisation in the Nile valley. But the relations maintained in former times with the people of these aromatic regions had been suspended for centuries. “None now climbed the ‘Ladders of Incense,’ none of the Egyptians; they knew of them from hearsay, from the stories of people of ancient times, for these products were brought to the kings of the Delta, thy fathers, to one or other of them, from the times of thy ancestors the kings of the Said who lived of yore.” All that could be recalled of this country was summed up in the facts, that it lay to the south or to the extreme east, that from thence many of the gods had come into Egypt, while from out of it the sun rose anew every morning. Amon, in his omniscience, took upon himself to describe it and give an exact account of its position. “The ‘Ladders of Incense’ is a secret province of Tonûtir, it is in truth a place of delight. I created it, and I thereto lead Thy Majesty, together with Mût, Hâthor, Uîrît, the Lady of Pûanît, Uîrît-hikaû, the magician and regent of the gods, that the aromatic gum may be gathered at will, that the vessels may be laden joyfully with living incense trees and with all the products of this earth.” Hâtshopsîtû chose out five well-built galleys, and manned them with picked crews. She caused them to be laden with such merchandise as would be most attractive to the barbarians, and placing the vessels under the command of a royal envoy, she sent them forth on the Bed Sea in quest of the incense.

We are not acquainted with the name of the port from which the fleet set sail, nor do we know the number of weeks it took to reach the land of Pûanît, neither is there any record of the incidents which befell it by the way. It sailed past the places frequented by the mariners of the XIIth dynasty—Suakîn, Massowah, and the islands of the Ked Sea; it touched at the country of the Ilîm which lay to the west of the Bab el-Mandeb, went safely through the Straits, and landed at last in the Land of Perfumes on the Somali coast.* There, between the bay of Zeîlah and Bas Hafun, stretched the Barbaric region, frequented in later times by the merchants of Myos Hormos and of Berenice.

The first stations which the latter encountered beyond Cape Direh—Avails, Malao, Mundos, and Mosylon—were merely open roadsteads offering no secure shelter; but beyond Mosylon, the classical navigators reported the existence of several wadys, the last of which, the Elephant River, lying between Bas el-Eîl and Cape Guardafui, appears to have been large enough not only to afford anchorage to several vessels of light draught, but to permit of their performing easily any evolutions required. During the Roman period, it was there, and there only, that the best kind of incense could be obtained, and it was probably at this point also that the Egyptians of Hâtshopsîtû’s time landed. The Egyptian vessels sailed up the river till they reached a place beyond the influence of the tide, and then dropped anchor in front of a village scattered along a bank fringed with sycomores and palms.*

The huts of the inhabitants were of circular shape, each being surmounted with a conical roof; some of them were made of closely plaited osiers, and there was no opening in any of them save the door. They were built upon piles, as a protection from the rise of the river and from wild animals, and access to them was gained by means of moveable ladders. Oxen chewing the cud rested beneath them. The natives belonged to a light-coloured race, and the portraits we possess of them resemble the Egyptian type in every particular. They were tall and thin, and of a colour which varied between brick-red and the darkest brown. Their beards were pointed, and the hair was cut short in some instances, while in others it was arranged in close rows of curls or in small plaits. The costume of the men consisted of a loin-cloth only, while the dress of the women was a yellow garment without sleeves, drawn in at the waist and falling halfway below the knee.

The royal envoy landed under an escort of eight soldiers and an officer, but, to prove his pacific intentions, he spread out upon a low table a variety of presents, consisting of five bracelets two gold necklaces, a dagger with strap and sheath complete, a battle-axe, and eleven strings of glass beads.

The inhabitants, dazzled by the display of so many valuable objects, ran to meet the new-comers, headed by their sheikh, and expressed a natural astonishment at the sight of the strangers. “How is it,” they exclaimed, “that you have reached this country hitherto unknown to men? Have you come down by way of the sky, or have you sailed on the waters of the Tonûtir Sea? You have followed the path of the sun, for as for the king of the land of Egypt, it is not possible to elude him, and we live, yea, we ourselves, by the breath which he gives us.” The name of their chief was Parihû, who was distinguished from his subjects by the boomerang which he carried, and also by his dagger and necklace of beads: his right leg, moreover, appears to have been covered with a kind of sheath composed of rings of some yellow metal, probably gold.* He was accompanied by his wife Ati, riding on an ass, from which she alighted in order to gain a closer view of the strangers. She was endowed with a type of beauty much admired by the people of Central Africa, being so inordinately fat that the shape of her body was scarcely recognisable under the rolls of flesh which hung down from it. Her daughter, who appeared to be still young, gave promise of one day rivalling, if not exceeding, her mother in size.**

After an exchange of compliments, the more serious business of the expedition was introduced. The Egyptians pitched a tent, in which they placed the objects of barter with which they were provided, and to prevent these from being too great a temptation to the natives, they surrounded the tent with a line of troops.

The main conditions of the exchange were arranged at a banquet, in which they spread before the barbarians a sumptuous display of Egyptian delicacies, consisting of bread, beer, wine, meat, and carefully prepared and flavoured vegetables. Payment for every object was to be made at the actual moment of purchase. For several days there was a constant stream of people, and asses groaned beneath their burdens. The Egyptian purchases comprised the most varied objects: ivory tusks, gold, ebony, cassia, myrrh, cynocephali and green monkeys, greyhounds, leopard skins, large oxen, slaves, and last, but not least, thirty-one incense trees, with their roots surrounded by a ball of earth and placed in large baskets. The lading of the ships was a long and tedious affair. All available space being at length exhausted, and as much cargo placed on board as was compatible with the navigation of the vessel, the squadron set sail and with all speed took its way northwards.

ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE

The Egyptians touched at several places on the coast on their return journey, making friendly alliances with the inhabitants; the Him added a quota to their freight, for which room was with difficulty found on board,—it consisted not only of the inevitable gold, ivory, and skins, but also of live leopards and a giraffe, together with plants and fruits unknown on the banks of the Nile.*

The fleet at length made its reappearance in Egyptian ports, having on board the chiefs of several tribes on whose coasts the sailors had landed, and “bringing back so much that the like had never been brought of the products of Pûanît to other kings, by the supreme favour of the venerable god, Amon Râ, lord of Karnak.” The chiefs mentioned were probably young men of superior family, who had been confided to the officer in command of the squadron by local sheikhs, as pledges to the Pharaoh of good will or as commercial hostages. National vanity, no doubt, prompted the Egyptians to regard them as vassals coming to do homage, and their gifts as tributes denoting subjection. The Queen inaugurated a solemn festival in honour of the explorers. The Theban militia was ordered out to meet them, the royal flotilla escorting them as far as the temple landing-place, where a procession was formed to carry the spoil to the feet of the god. The good Theban folk, assembled to witness their arrival, beheld the march past of the native hostages, the incense sycomores, the precious gum itself, the wild animals, the giraffe, and the oxen, whose numbers were doubtless increased a hundredfold in the accounts given to posterity with the usual official exaggeration. The trees were planted at Deîr el-Baharî, where a sacred garden was prepared for them, square trenches being cut in the rock and filled with earth, in which the sycomore, by frequent watering, came to flourish well.*

The great heaps of fresh resin were next the objects of special attention. Hâtshopsîtû “gave a bushel made of electrum to gauge the mass of gum, it being the first time that they had the joy of measuring the perfumes for Amon, lord of Karnak, master of heaven, and of presenting to him the wonderful products of Pûanît. Thot, the lord of Hermo-polis, noted the quantities in writing; Safkhîtâbûi verified the list. Her Majesty herself prepared from it, with her own hands, a perfumed unguent for her limbs; she gave forth the smell of the divine dew, her perfume reached even to Pûanît, her skin became like wrought gold,* and her countenance shone like the stars in the great festival hall, in the sight of the whole earth.”

Hâtshopsîtû commanded the history of the expedition to be carved on the wall of the colonnades which lay on the west side of the middle platform of her funerary chapel: we there see the little fleet with sails spread, winging its way to the unknown country, its safe arrival at its destination, the meeting with the natives, the animated palavering, the consent to exchange freely accorded; and thanks to the minuteness with which the smallest details have been portrayed, we can as it were witness, as if on the spot, all the phases of life on board ship, not only on Egyptian vessels, but, as we may infer, those of other Oriental nations generally. For we may be tolerably sure that when the Phoenicians ventured into the distant parts of the Mediterranean, it was after a similar fashion that they managed and armed their vessels.

Although the natural features of the Asiatic or Greek coast on which they effected a landing differed widely from those of Pûanît, the Phoenician navigators were themselves provided with similar objects of exchange, and in their commercial dealings with the natives the methods of procedure of the European traders were doubtless similar to those of the Egyptians with the barbarians of the Red Sea.

Hâtshopsîtû reigned for at least eight years after this memorable expedition, and traces of her further activity are to be observed in every part of the Nile valley. She even turned her attention to the Delta, and began the task of reorganising this part of her kingdom, which had been much neglected by her predecessors. The wars between the Theban princes and the lords of Avaris had lasted over a century, and during that time no one had had either sufficient initiative or leisure to superintend the public works, which were more needed here than in any other part of Egypt. The canals were silted up with mud, the marshes and the desert had encroached on the cultivated lands, the towns had become impoverished, and there were some provinces whose population consisted solely of shepherds and bandits. Hâtshopsîtû desired to remedy these evils, if only for the purpose of providing a practicable road for her armies marching to Zalû en route for Syria.*

She also turned her attention to the mines of Sinai, which had not been worked by the Egyptian kings since the end of the XIIth dynasty. In the year XVI. an officer of the queen’s household was despatched to the Wady Magharah, the site of the ancient works, with orders to inspect the valleys, examine the veins, and restore there the temple of the goddess Hâthor; having accomplished his mission, he returned, bringing with him a consignment of those blue and green stones which were so highly esteemed by the Egyptians.

Meanwhile, Thûtmosis III. was approaching manhood, and his aunt, the queen, instead of abdicating in his favour, associated him with herself more frequently in the external acts of government.*

She was forced to yield him precedence in those religious ceremonies which could be performed by a man only, such as the dedication of one of the city gates of Ombos, and the foundation and marking out of a temple at Medinet-Habû; but for the most part she obliged him to remain in the background and take a secondary place beside her. We are unable to determine the precise moment when this dual sovereignty came to an end. It was still existent in the XVIth year of the reign, but it had ceased before the XXIInd year. Death alone could take the sceptre from the hands that held it, and Thûtmosis had to curb his impatience for many a long day before becoming the real master of Egypt. He was about twenty-five years of age when this event took place, and he immediately revenged himself for the long repression he had undergone, by endeavouring to destroy the very remembrance of her whom he regarded as a usurper. Every portrait of her that he could deface without exposing himself to being accused of sacrilege was cut away, and he substituted for her name either that of Thûtmosis I. or of Thûtmosis II.

A complete political change was effected both at home and abroad from the first day of his accession to power. Hâtshopsîtû had been averse to war. During the whole of her reign there had not been a single campaign undertaken beyond the isthmus of Suez, and by the end of her life she had lost nearly all that her father had gained in Syria; the people of Kharu had shaken off the yoke,* probably at the instigation of the king of the Amorites,** and nothing remained to Egypt of the Asiatic province but Gaza, Sharûhana,*** and the neighbouring villages. The young king set out with his army in the latter days of the year XXII. He reached Gaza on the 3rd of the month of Pakhons, in time to keep the anniversary of his coronation in that town, and to inaugurate the 24th year of his reign by festivals in honour of his father Amon.**** They lasted the usual length of time, and all the departments of State took part in them, but it was not a propitious moment for lengthy ceremonies.

The king left Gaza the following day, the 5th of Pakhons; he marched but slowly at first, following the usual caravan route, and despatching troops right and left to levy contributions on the cities of the Plain—Migdol, Yapu (Jaffa), Lotanû, Ono—and those within reach on the mountain spurs, or situated within the easily accessible wadys, such as Sauka (Socho), Hadid, and Harîlu. On the 16th day he had not proceeded further than Yahmu, where he received information which caused him to push quickly forward. The lord of Qodshû had formed an alliance with the Syrian princes on the borders of Naharaim, and had extorted from them promises of help; he had already gone so far as to summon contingents from the Upper Orontes, the Litany, and the Upper Jordan, and was concentrating them at Megiddo, where he proposed to stop the way of the invading army. Thûtmosis called together his principal officers, and having imparted the news to them, took counsel with them as to a plan of attack. Three alternative routes were open to him. The most direct approached the enemy’s position on the front, crossing Mount Carmel by the saddle now known as the Umm el-Fahm; but the great drawback attached to this route was its being so restricted that the troops would be forced to advance in too thin a file; and the head of the column would reach the plain and come into actual conflict with the enemy while the rear-guard would only be entering the defiles in the neighbourhood of Aluna. The second route bore a little to the east, crossing the mountains beyond Dutîna and reaching the plain near Taânach; but it offered the same disadvantages as the other. The third road ran north of Zafîti, to meet the great highway which cuts the hill-district of Nablûs, skirting the foot of Tabor near Jenîn, a little to the north of Megiddo. It was not so direct as the other two, but it was easier for troops, and the king’s generals advised that it should be followed. The king was so incensed that he was tempted to attribute their prudence to cowardice. “By my life! by the love that Râ hath for me, by the favour that I enjoy from my master Amon, by the perpetual youth of my nostril in life and power, My Majesty will go by the way of Aluna, and let him that will go by the roads of which ye have spoken, and let him that will follow My Majesty. What will be said among the vile enemies detested of Râ: ‘Doth not His Majesty go by another way? For fear of us he gives us a wide berth,’ they will cry.” The king’s counsellors did not insist further. “May thy father Amon of Thebes protect thee!” they exclaimed; “as for us, we will follow Thy Majesty whithersoever thou goest, as it befitteth a servant to follow his master.” The word of command was given to the men; Thûtmosis himself led the vanguard, and the whole army, horsemen and foot-soldiers, followed in single file, wending their way through the thickets which covered the southern slopes of Mount Carmel.*

They pitched their camp on the evening of the 19th near Aluna, and on the morning of the 20th they entered the wild defiles through which it was necessary to pass in order to reach the enemy. The king had taken precautionary measures against any possible attempt of the natives to cut the main column during this crossing of the mountains. His position might at any moment have become a critical one, had the allies taken advantage of it and attacked each battalion as it issued on to the plain before it could re-form. But the Prince of Qodshû, either from ignorance of his adversary’s movements, or confident of victory in the open, declined to take the initiative. Towards one o’clock in the afternoon, the Egyptians found themselves once more united on the further side of the range, close to a torrent called the Qina, a little to the south of Megiddo. When the camp was pitched, Thûtmosis announced his intention of engaging the enemy on the morrow. A council of war was held to decide on the position that each corps should occupy, after which the officers returned to their men to see that a liberal supply of rations was served out, and to organise an efficient system of patrols. They passed round the camp to the cry: “Keep a good heart: courage! Watch well, watch well! Keep alive in the camp!” The king refused to retire to rest until he had been assured that “the country was quiet, and also the host, both to south and north.” By dawn the next day the whole army was in motion. It was formed into a single line, the right wing protected by the torrent, the left extended into the plain, stretching beyond Megiddo towards the north-west. Thûtmosis and his guards occupied the centre, standing “armed in his chariot of electrum like unto Horus brandishing his pike, and like Montû the Theban god.” The Syrians, who had not expected such an early attack, were seized with panic, and fled in the direction of the town, leaving their horses and chariots on the field; but the citizens, fearing lest in the confusion the Egyptians should effect an entrance with the fugitives, had closed their gates and refused to open them. Some of the townspeople, however, let down ropes to the leaders of the allied party, and drew them up to the top of the ramparts: “and would to heaven that the soldiers of His Majesty had not so far forgotten themselves as to gather up the spoil left by the vile enemy! They would then have entered Megiddo forthwith; for while the men of the garrison were drawing up the Lord of Qodshû and their own prince, the fear of His Majesty was upon their limbs, and their hands failed them by reason of the carnage which the royal urous carried into their ranks.” The victorious soldiery were dispersed over the fields, gathering together the gilded and silvered chariots of the Syrian chiefs, collecting the scattered weapons and the hands of the slain, and securing the prisoners; then rallying about the king, they greeted him with acclamations and filed past to deliver up the spoil. He reproached them for having allowed themselves to be drawn away from the heat of pursuit. “Had you carried Megiddo, it would have been a favour granted to me by Râ my father this day; for all the kings of the country being shut up within it, it would have been as the taking of a thousand towns to have seized Megiddo.” The Egyptians had made little progress in the art of besieging a stronghold since the times of the XIIth dynasty. When scaling failed, they had no other resource than a blockade, and even the most stubborn of the Pharaohs would naturally shrink from the tedium of such an undertaking. Thûtmosis, however, was not inclined to lose the opportunity of closing the campaign by a decisive blow, and began the investment of the town according to the prescribed modes.