employed to rouse the animals from their lairs, while the king and his
fellow-sportsmen either plied them with flights of arrows, or withstood
their onset with swords and spears. The crocodile was certainly
sometimes attacked while he was in the water, the hunters using a boat,
and endeavouring to spear him at the point where the head joins the
spine; but this could not have been the mode adopted by Amenemhat, since
it would have resulted in instant death, whereas he tells us that he
"brought the crocodile home a prisoner." Possibly, therefore, he
employed the method which Herodotus says was in common use in his day.
This was to bait a hook with a joint of pork and throw it into the water
at a point where the current would carry it out into mid-stream; then to
take a live pig to the river-side, and belabour him well with a stick
till he set up the squeal familiar to most ears. Any crocodile within
hearing was sure to come to the sound, and falling in with the pork on
the way, would instantly swallow it down. Upon this the hunters hauled
at the rope to which the hook was attached, and, notwithstanding his
struggles, drew "leviathan" to shore. Amenemhat, having thus "made the
crocodile a prisoner," may have carried his captive in triumph to his
capital, and exhibited him before the eyes of the people.

Amenemhat, having reigned as sole king for twenty years, was induced to
raise his eldest son, Usurtasen, to the royal dignity, and associate him
with himself in the government of the empire. Usurtasen was a prince of
much promise, He "brought prosperity to the affairs of his father. He
was, as a god, without fears; before him was never one like to him. Most
skilful in affairs, beneficent in his mandates, both in his going out
and in his coming in he made Egypt flourish." His courage and his
warlike capacity were great. Already, in the lifetime of his father, he
had distinguished himself in combats with the Petti and the Sakti. When
he was settled upon the throne, he made war upon the Cushite tribes who
bordered Egypt upon the south, employing the services of a general named
Ameni, but also taking a part personally in the campaign. The Cushites
or Ethiopians, who in later times became such dangerous neighbours to
Egypt, were at this early period weak and insignificant. After the king
had made his expedition, Ameni was able with a mere handful of four
hundred troops to penetrate into their country, to "conduct the golden
trea