modern times. The obelisk of rose granite of Thotmes
I., still at Karnak, is 35 feet shorter, being 70 feet, or exactly the
same height as the one called Cleopatra's Needle, now on the Thames
Embankment.

The barge shown in Fig. 5 was strengthened, apparently, with three tiers
of beams; it was steered by two pairs of huge steering-oars, and was
towed by three parallel groups, each consisting of ten large boats.
There were 32 oarsmen to each boat in the two wing groups, and 36 in
each of the central groups: there were, therefore, exactly one thousand
oars used in all. The towing-cable started from the masthead of the
foremost boat of each group, and thence passed to the bow of the second
one, and so on, the stern of each boat being left perfectly free, for
the purpose, no doubt, of facilitating the steering. The flotilla was
accompanied by five smaller boats, some of which were used by the
priests, while the others were despatch vessels, probably used to keep
up communications with the groups of tugs.

There are no other inscriptions, or carvings, that have as yet been
discovered in Egypt which give us so much information regarding Egyptian
ships as those on the Temple at Der-el-Bahari. From time to time we read
of naval and mercantile expeditions, but illustrations of the ships and
details of the voyages are, as a rule, wanting. We know that Seti I., of
the nineteenth dynasty, whose reign commenced about 1366 B.C., was a
great encourager of commerce. He felled timber in Lebanon for building
ships, and is said to have excavated a canal between the Nile and the
Red Sea. His successor, the famous Ramses II., carried on wars by sea,
as is proved by the inscriptions in the Temple at Abu Simbel in Nubia,
762 miles above Cairo.

In the records of the reign of Ramses III., 1200 B.C., we again come
upon illustrations of ships in the Temple of Victory at Medinet Habu,
West Thebes. The inscriptions describe a great naval victory which this
king won at Migdol, near the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile, over northern
invaders, probably Colchians and Carians. Fig. 6 shows one of the
battleships. It is probably more a symbolical than an exact
representation, nevertheless it gives us some valuable information. For
instance, we see that the rowers were protected against the missiles of
their adversaries by strong bulwarks, and the captain occupied a crow's
nest at the masthead.

Ramses III. did a great deal to develop Egyptian commerce.