“Then,” says Wenamon, “he was very wroth, and he said to me, ’Look here, the writings and the letters are not in your hand.  And where is the fine ship which Nesubanebded would have given you, and where is its picked Syrian crew?  He would not put you and your affairs in the charge of this skipper of yours, who might have had you killed and thrown into the sea.  Whom would they have sought the god from then?—­and you, whom would they have sought you from then?’ So said he to me, and I replied to him, ’There are indeed Egyptian ships and Egyptian crews that sail under Nesubanebded, but he had at the time no ship and no Syrian crew to give me.’”

The prince did not accept this as a satisfactory answer, but pointed out that there were ten thousand ships sailing between Egypt and Syria, of which number there must have been one at Nesubanebded’s disposal.

“Then,” writes Wenamon, “I was silent in this great hour.  At length he said to me, ‘On what business have you come here?’ I replied, ’I have come to get wood for the great and august barge of Amon-Ra, king of the gods.  Your father supplied it, your grandfather did so, and you too shall do it.’  So spoke I to him.”

The prince admitted that his fathers had sent wood to Egypt, but he pointed out that they had received proper remuneration for it.  He then told his servants to go and find the old ledger in which the transactions were recorded, and this being done, it was found that a thousand debens of silver had been paid for the wood.  The prince now argued that he was in no way the servant of Amon, for if he had been he would have been obliged to supply the wood without remuneration.  “I am,” he proudly declared, “neither your servant nor the servant of him who sent you here.  If I cry out to the Lebanon the heavens open and the logs lie here on the shore of the sea.”  He went on to say that if, of his condescension, he now procured the timber Wenamon would have to provide the ships and all the tackle.  “If I make the sails of the ships for you,” said the prince, “they may be top-heavy and may break, and you will perish in the sea when Amon thunders in heaven; for skilled workmanship comes only from Egypt to reach my place of abode.”  This seems to have upset the composure of Wenamon to some extent, and the prince took advantage of his uneasiness to say, “Anyway, what is this miserable expedition that they have had you make (without money or equipment)?”

At this Wenamon appears to have lost his temper.  “O guilty one!” he said to the prince, “this is no miserable expedition on which I am engaged.  There is no ship upon the Nile which Amon does not own, and his is the sea, and his this Lebanon of which you say, ‘It is mine.’  Its forests grow for the barge of Amon, the lord of every ship.  Why Amon-Ra himself, the king of the gods, said to Herhor, my lord, ‘Send me’; and Herhor made me go bearing the statue of this great god.  Yet see, you have allowed this great god