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of the great king, in which he appears putting his foes to death with the weapons which Harmachis has given to him. The accompanying hieroglyphics describe these scenes with terse accuracy.

One of the most interesting inscriptions at Abu Simbel is that found on a slab, which states that in the fifth year of the reign of Rameses II., his majesty was in the land of Tchah, not far from Kadesh on the Orontes. The outposts kept a sharp look-out, and when the army came to the south of the town of Shabtûn, two of the spies of the Shasu came into the camp and pretended that they had been sent by the chiefs of their tribe to inform Rameses II. that they had forsaken the chief of the Kheta,* and that they wished to make an alliance with his majesty and become vassals of his. They then went on to say that the chief of the Kheta was in the land of Khirebu to the north of Tunep, some distance off, and that they were afraid to come near the Egyptian king. These two men were giving false infor mation, and they had actually been sent by the Kheta chief to find out where Rameses and his army were; the Kheta chief and his army were at that moment drawn up in battle array behind Kadesh.

Shortly after these men were dismissed, an Egyptian scout came into the king's presence bringing with him two spies from the army of the chief of the Kheta; on being questioned, they informed Rameses that the chief of the Kheta was encamped behind Kadesh, and that he had succeeded in gathering together a multitude of soldiers and chariots from the countries round about. Rameses summoned his officers to his presence, and informed them of the news which he had just heard; they listened with sur

The Kheta have, during the last few years, been identified with the Hittites of the Bible; there is no ground for this identification beyond the slight similarity of the names. The inscriptions upon the sculptures found at Jerâbîs still remain undeciphered,

prise, and insisted that the newly-received information was untrue. Rameses blamed the chiefs of the intelligence department seriously for their neglect of duty, and they admitted their fault. Orders were straightway issued for the Egyptian army to march upon Kadesh, and as they were crossing an arm of the river near that city the hostile forces fell in with each other. When Rameses saw this, he "growled at them like his father Menthu, lord of Thebes," and having hastily put on his full armour, he mounted his chariot and drove into the battle. His onset was so sudden and rapid that before he knew where he was he found himself surrounded by the enemy, and completely isolated from his own troops. He called upon his father Amen-Ra to help him, and then addressed himself to a slaughter of all those that came in his way, and his prowess was so great that the enemy fell in heaps, one over the other, into the waters of the Orontes. He was quite alone, and not one of his soldiers or horsemen came near him to help him. It was only with great difficulty he succeeded in cutting his way through the ranks of the enemy. At the end of the inscription he says, "Every thing that my majesty has stated, that did I in the presence of my soldiers and horsemen." This event in the battle of the Egyptians against the Kheta was made the subject of an interesting poem by Pen-ta-urt; this composition was considered worthy to be inscribed upon papyri, and upon the walls of the temples which Rameses built.

A little to the south of the Great Temple is a small building of the same date, which was used in connexion with the services, and on the walls of which are some interesting scenes. It was re-opened some years ago by Mr. McCallum, Miss Amelia B. Edwards and party.

In 1892, at the instance of Sir W. Willcocks, Capt. J. H. L'E. Johnstone, R.E., and a detachment of soldiers arrived at Abu Simbel with a view of carrying out

certain repairs to the face and side of the great rock temple. They began by clearing away several enormous masses of overhanging rock which, had they fallen in, must have inflicted very great damage on the colossal statues below; and having broken them into smaller pieces, Captain Johnstone used them for building two walls at the head of the valley to prevent the drift sand from burying the temple again, and for making a hard, stone slope. The cynocephali which form the ornament of the cornice were carefully repaired and strengthened, and the original rock was in many places built up with stone and cement. The whole of the sand and broken stones which had become piled up in front of the entrance to the small chamber re-opened by Mr. McCallum some years before was cleared away, and any dangerous break in the rock was carefully repaired. All lovers of Egypt will rejoice at the excellent way in which Captain Johnstone has performed his difficult task, and we may now hope that it will not be long before the repairs which are urgently needed by temples and other buildings in other parts of Egypt are undertaken by the able officers of the Royal Engineers.

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On the east bank of the Nile, 802 miles from Cairo, the town of Wâdî Halfa, with its new suburb Tawfikiya, marks the site of a part of the district called Buhen in the hieroglyphic inscriptions, where, as at Derr and Ibrim, the god Harmachis was worshipped. On the plain to the east of the town some interesting flint weapons have been found, and a few miles distant are the fossil remains of a forest. On the western bank of the river, a little further south, are the remains of a temple which was built by Thothmes II and restored by Thothmes III. It was repaired and added to by later kings of Egypt, but it seems to have fallen into disuse soon after the Romans gained possession of Egypt. It was first excavated by Colonel (now Sir) C. Holled-Smith in 1886-7; it was

cleared out by Captain H. G. Lyons, R.E., who also excavated the ruins of two temples which stood to the north of it in 1890, and found some interesting remains of buildings on the west bank. A few years later it was again cleared by Colonel Hayes Sadler and Mr. Somers Clarke, and in 1905 Sir Reginald Wingate caused it to be again cleared and ordered a wall to be built round it, and a portion of it to be covered over with a light roof. The carrying out of this work was superintended by Messrs. J. W. Crowfoot and Scott Moncrieff. A few miles south of Wâdî Ḥalfa begins the Second Cataract, a splendid view of which can be obtained from the now famous rock of Abûşîr on the west bank of the river. Nearly every traveller who has visited Abû Simbel has been to this rock and inscribed his name upon it; the result is an interesting collection of names and dates, the like of which probably exists nowhere else.

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THE EGYPTIAN SÛDÂN.

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Ancient History of the Sûdân.-The Sûdân Country of the Blacks, in the earliest dynastic times b at Elephantine or Aswân, and all expeditions into country to the south of the First Cataract started from place. It is probable that there never was a time w caravans from Egypt did not travel into the Sûdân trading purposes, but there is no definite mention of invasion of the country until we come to the reign Seneferu, a king of the IVth dynasty, about B.C. 38 From the Stele of Palermo, first published by Pelleg we learn that this king invaded the Sûdân and brou back 7000 men, and 200,000 head of cattle. From thi is clear that even in those remote days the kings of Eg needed black slaves to carry out their works, and that th regarded the Sûdân as the natural source whence they w to be obtained. About 500 years later, i.e., under VIth dynasty, several Egyptian officials were sent on tradi missions to the Sûdân, and they were eminently success in their undertakings. One of these, the official U made his way far to the south where large trees grew, there seems to be good reason for believing that he visit Dâr Fûr, Kordôfân, and also the country between the Wh and Blue Niles. Another official, Her-khuf, whose to! is at Aswân, conducted several trading missions into Sûdân, and was sent by the king on a special mission to Land of the Spirits, which seems to have been ne Punt, which the Egyptians regarded as their original hom to bring back a pygmy to dance before him at Memph A former king, Asså, had sent an official called Ba-uron a similar mission, and was so pleased with the pyg

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