ough, it would seem, without
result, until the reinforcements from Nubia came up: their movements
then became more actively offensive, and falling on Tafnakhti's ships,
which were making for Thebes heavily laden with men and stores, they
sunk several of them.

[Illustration: 262.jpg RUINS OF OXYRRHYNCHOS AND THE MODERN TOWN OF
BAHNESA]

Drawn by Boudier, from an engraving in Vivant Denon.

Anxious to profit by this first success, they made straight for
Heracleopolis with a view to relieving it. Tafnakhti, accompanied by the
two kings Namroti and Auputi, was directing the siege in person; he
had under his command, in addition to contingents from Busiris, Mendes,
Thoth, and Pharbaithos, all the vassals of Osorkon III., the successor
of Petubastis and titular Pharaoh of the whole country. The Ethiopian
fleet engaged the Egyptian ships at the end of the island of
Heracleopolis, near the mouth of the canal leading from the Nile to the
Bahr-Yusuf.* Tafnakhti was defeated, and the remnants of his squadron
took refuge in Pipuga under cover of his land forces.** At dawn, the
next day, the Ethiopians disembarked and gave battle. The struggle was
long and fierce, but indecisive. Luamarsakni and Puarama claimed the
victory, but were obliged to effect a retreat on the day following
their so-called success, and when they dropped anchor in the harbour of
Hermopolis, they found that Namroti had made his way back to the city by
land and forestalled them. Powerless to hold the field without support,
he collected all the men and cattle he could lay hands on, and awaited
the progress of events behind his ramparts. The Ethiopians invested the
town, and wrote to inform Pionkhi of what they had done--not, however,
without some misgiving as to the reception which awaited their
despatches. And sure enough, "His Majesty became enraged thereat, even
as a panther: 'If they have allowed a remnant of the warriors of the
north to remain, if they have let one of them escape to tell of the
fight, if they make him not to die in their slaughter, then by my life,
by the love of Ra, by the praise of Amon for me, I will myself go down
and overthrow that which Tafnakhti hath done,*** I will compel him to
give up war for ever! Therefore, after celebrating the festivals of the
New Year, when I shall have sacrificed to Amon of [Napata], my father,
in his excellent festival wherein he appears in his procession of the
New Year, when he shall have sent me