to have exceeded two centuries.  Nor does it seem possible that, if the duration of the foreign oppression had been much longer, Egypt could have returned, so nearly as she did, to the same manners and customs, the same religious usages, the same rules of art, the same system of government, even the very same proper names, at the end of the period, as had been in use at its beginning.  One cannot but think that the bouleversement which Egypt underwent has been somewhat exaggerated by the native historian for the sake of rhetorical effect, to enhance by contrast the splendour of the New Empire.

In another respect, too, if he has not misrepresented the rule of the “Shepherd Kings,” he has failed to do it justice.  He has painted in lurid colours the advent of the foreign race, the war of extermination in which they engaged, the cruel usage to which they subjected the conquered people; he has represented the invaders as rude, savage, barbarous, bent on destruction, careless of art, the enemies of progress and civilization.  He has neglected to point out, that, as time went on, there was a sensible change.  The period of constant bitter hostilities came to an end.  Peace succeeded to war.  In Lower Egypt the “Shepherds” reigned over quiet and unresisting subjects; in Upper Egypt they bore rule over submissive tributaries.  Under these circumstances a perceptible softening of their manners and general character took place.  As the Mongols and the Mandchus in China suffered themselves by degrees to be conquered by the superior civilization of the people whom they had overrun and subdued, so the Hyksos yielded little by little to the influences which surrounded them, and insensibly assimilated themselves to their Egyptian subjects.  They adopted the Egyptian dress, titles, official language, art, mode of writing, architecture.  In Tanis, especially, temples were built and sculptures set up under the later “Shepherd Kings,” differing little in their general character from those of purely Egyptian periods.  The foreign monarchs erected their effigies at this site, which were sculptured by native artists according to the customary rules of Egyptian glyptic art, and only differ from those of the earlier native Pharaohs in the head-dress, the expression of the countenance, and a peculiar arrangement of the beard.  A friendly intercourse took place during this period between the kings of the North, established at Tanis and Memphis, and those of the South, resident at Thebes; frequent embassies were interchanged; and blocks of granite and syenite were continually floated down the Nile, past Thebes, to be employed by the “Shepherds” in their erections at the southern capitals.

[Illustration:  BUST OF A SHEPHERD KING.]