growth of reeds, they were able to defy with impunity the efforts of the
most disciplined troops, and treason alone could put them at the mercy
of their foes. Most of the Pharaohs felt that the advantages to be
gained by conquering them would be outweighed by the difficulty of
the enterprise; all that could result from a campaign would be the
destruction of one or two villages, the acquisition of a few hundred
refractory captives, of some ill-favoured cattle, and a trophy of nets
and worm-eaten boats. The kings, therefore, preferred to keep a close
watch over these undisciplined hordes, and as long as their depredations
were kept within reasonable limits, they were left unmolested to their
wild and precarious life.

The Asiatic invasion had put a sudden stop to the advance of Egyptian
rule in the vast plains of the Upper Nile. The Theban princes, to whom
Nubia was directly subject, had been too completely engrossed in
the wars against their hereditary enemy, to devote much time to the
continuation of that work of colonization in the south which had been
carried on so vigorously by their forefathers of the XIIth and XIIIth
dynasties. The inhabitants of the Nile valley, as far as the second
cataract, rendered them obedience, but without any change in the
conditions and mode of their daily life, which appear to have remained
unaltered for centuries. The temples of Usirtasen and Amenemhait
were allowed to fall into decay one after another, the towns waned in
prosperity, and were unable to keep their buildings and monuments in
repair; the inundation continued to bring with it periodically its
fleet of boats, which the sailors of Kush had laden with timber, gum,
elephants' tusks, and gold dust: from time to time a band of Bedouin from
Uauait or Mazaiu would suddenly bear down upon some village and carry
off its spoils; the nearest garrison would be called to its aid, or, on
critical occasions, the king himself, at the head of his guards, would
fall on the marauders and drive them back into the mountains. Ahrnosis,
being greeted on his return from Syria by the news of such an outbreak,
thought it a favourable moment to impress upon the nomadic tribes of
Nubia the greatness of his conquest. On this occasion it was the people
of Khonthanunofir, settled in the wadys east of the Nile, above Semneh,
which required a lesson. The army which had just expelled the Hyksos was
rapidly conveyed to the opposite borders of the country by th