here for any length of time without
deteriorating by intermarriage with the natives or from the effects of
the climate; they would have degenerated into a half-bred race, having
all the vices and none of the good qualities of the aborigines. The
Pharaohs, therefore, continued their hostilities without further
scruples, and only sought to gain as much as possible from their
victories. They cared little if nothing remained after they had passed
through some district, or if the passage of their armies was marked
only by ruins. They seized upon everything which came across their
path--men, chattels, or animals--and carried them back to Egypt; they
recklessly destroyed everything for which they had no use, and made a
desert of fertile districts which but yesterday had been covered with
crops and studded with populous villages. The neighbouring inhabitants,
realizing their incapacity to resist regular troops, endeavoured to buy
off the invaders by yielding up all they possessed in the way of slaves,
flocks, wood, or precious metals. The generals in command, however, had
to reckon with the approaching low Nile, which forced them to beat a
retreat; they were obliged to halt at the first appearance of it, and
they turned homewards "in peace," their only anxiety being to lose the
smallest possible number of men or captured animals on their return
journey.

As in earlier times, adventurous merchants penetrated into districts not
reached by the troops, and prepared the way for conquest. The princes
of Elephantine still sent caravans to distant parts, and one of them,
Siranpitu, who lived under Usirtasen I. and Amenemhait II., recorded his
explorations on his tomb, after the fashion of his ancestors: the king
at several different times had sent him on expeditions to the Soudan,
but the inscription in which he gives an account of them is so
mutilated, that we cannot be sure which tribes he visited. We
learn merely that he collected from them skins, ivory, ostrich
feathers--everything, in fact, which Central Africa has furnished as
articles of commerce from time immemorial. It was not, however, by
land only that Egyptian merchants travelled to seek fortune in foreign
countries: the Red Sea attracted them, and served as a quick route for
reaching the land of Puanit, whose treasures in perfumes and rarities
of all kinds had formed the theme of ancient traditions and navigators'
tales. Relations with it had been infrequent, or had ceased