by the rise of the Egyptian empire.  Thothmes II., the grandson of Ahmes, led his forces as far as the Euphrates and the land of Aram-Naharaim.  The territories thus overrun in a sort of military reconnaissance were conquered and annexed by his son Thothmes III., during his long reign of fifty-four years (March 20, B.C. 1503 to February 14, B.C. 1449).  Canaan on both sides of the Jordan was made into a province, and governed much as India is to-day.  Some of the cities were allowed still to retain their old line of princes, who were called upon to furnish tribute to the Egyptian treasury and recruits to the Egyptian army.  From time to time they were visited by an Egyptian “Commissioner,” and an Egyptian garrison kept watch upon their conduct.  Sometimes an Egyptian Resident was appointed by the side of the native king; this was the case, for example, at Sidon and Hazor.  Where, however, the city was of strategical or political importance it was incorporated into the Egyptian empire, and placed under the immediate control of an Egyptian governor, as at Megiddo, Gaza, Gebal, Gezer, and Tyre.  Similarly Ziri-Basana, “the field of Bashan,” was under the government of a single khazan or “prefect.”  The troops, who also acted as police, were divided into various classes.  There were the tsabi yidati or “auxiliaries,” the tsabi saruti or “militia,” the Khabbati or “Beduin plunderers,” and the tsabi matsarti or “Egyptian soldiers of the garrison,” as well as the tsabi bitati or “house-guards,” who were summoned in cases of emergency.  Among the auxiliaries were included the Serdani or Sardinians, while the Sute—­the Sati or Sitti of the hieroglyphic texts—­formed the larger portion of the Beduin ("Bashi-bazouks"), and the Egyptian forces were divided into the cavalry or rather charioteers, and the Misi (called Mas’u in the hieroglyphics) or infantry.

Fragments of the annals of Thothmes III. have been preserved on the shattered walls of his temple at Karnak.  Here too we may read the lists of places he conquered in Palestine—­the land of the Upper Lotan as it is termed—­as well as in Northern Syria.  Like the annals, the geographical lists have been compiled from memoranda made on the spot by the scribes who followed the army, and in some instances, at all events, it can be shown that they have been translated into Egyptian hieroglyphs from Babylonian cuneiform.  The fact is an indication of the conquest that Asia was already beginning to make over her Egyptian conquerors.  But the annals themselves are a further and still more convincing proof of Asiatic influence.  To cover the walls of a temple with the history of campaigns in a foreign land, and an account of the tribute brought to the Pharaoh, was wholly contrary to Egyptian ideas.  From the Egyptian point of view the decoration of the sacred edifice should have been theological only.  The only subjects represented on it, so custom and belief had ruled, ought to be the gods, and the stereotyped