s in the
"strange people, with robust limbs, an elongated face, and a severe
expression, which to this day inhabits the tract bordering on Lake
Menzaleh."[16]

It is probable that Aahmes had for allies in his war with the
"Shepherds" the great nation which adjoined Egypt on the south, and
which was continually growing in power--the Kashi, Cushites, or
Ethiopians. His wife appears by her features and complexion to have been
a Cushite princess, and the marriage is likely to have been less one of
inclination than of policy. The Egyptians admired fair women rather than
dark ones, as is plain from the unduly light complexions which the
artists, in their desire to flatter, ordinarily assign to women, as well
as from the attractiveness of Sarah, even in advanced age. When a Theban
king contracted marriage with an Ethiopian of ebon blackness, we are
entitled to assume a political motive; and the most probable political
motive under the circumstances of the time was the desire for military
assistance. Though in the early wars between the Kashi and the Egyptians
the prowess of the former is not represented as great, and the
designation of "miserable Cushites" is evidently used in depreciation of
their warlike qualities, yet the very use of the epithet implies a
feeling of hostility which could scarcely have been provoked by a weak
people. And the Cushites certainly advanced in prowess and in military
vigour as time went on. They formed the most important portion of the
Egyptian troops for some centuries; at a later period they conquered
Egypt, and were the dominant power for a hundred years; still further
on, they defied the might of Persia when Egypt succumbed to it. Aahmes,
in contracting his marriage with the Ethiopian princess, to whom he gave
the name of Nefertari-Aahmes--or "the good companion of Aahmes"--was,
we may be tolerably sure, bent on obtaining a contingent of those
stalwart troops whose modern representatives are either the Blacks of
the Soudan or the Gallas of the highlands of Abyssinia. The "Shepherds"
thus yielded to a combination of the North with the South, of the
Egyptians with the Ethiopians, such as in later times, on more than one
occasion, drove the Assyrians out of the country.

[Illustration: HEAD OF NEFERTARI-AAHMES.]

FOOTNOTES:

[16] "Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne de l'Orient," vol. i. p. 368.

X.

THOTHMES I., THE FIRST GREAT EGYPTIAN CONQUEROR.

Thothmes I. was the grandson o