In one respect they even increased it.  Egypt was not so far isolated from the rest of the world as to prevent her inhabitants from knowing, either by personal contact or by hearsay, at least some of the peoples dwelling outside Africa, to the north and east.

[Illustration:  217.jpg TRIUMPHAL BAS-RELIEF OF PHARAOH SAHURU, ON THE ROCKS OF WADY MAGHARAH.]

     Drawn by Boudier, from the water-colour published in
     Lepsius, Denhn., i. pl. 8, No. 2

They knew that beyond the “Very Green,” almost at the foot of the mountains behind which the sun travelled during the night, stretched fertile islands or countries and nations without number, some barbarous or semi-barbarous, others as civilized as they were themselves.  They cared but little by what names they were known, but called them all by a common epithet, the Peoples beyond the Seas, “Haui-nibu.”  If they travelled in person to collect the riches which were offered to them by these peoples in exchange for the products of the Nile, the Egyptians could not have been the unadventurous and home-loving people we have imagined.  They willingly left their own towns in pursuit of fortune or adventure, and the sea did not inspire them with fear or religious horror.  The ships which they launched upon it were built on the model of the Nile boats, and only differed from the latter in details which would now pass unnoticed.  The hull, which was built on a curved keel, was narrow, had a sharp stem and stern, was decked from end to end, low forward and much raised aft, and had a long deck cabin:  the steering apparatus consisted of one or two large stout oars, each supported on a forked post and managed by a steersman.  It had one mast, sometimes composed of a single tree, sometimes formed of a group of smaller masts planted at a slight distance from each other, but united at the top by strong ligatures and strengthened at intervals by crosspieces which made it look like a ladder; its single sail was bent sometimes to one yard, sometimes to two; while its complement consisted of some fifty men, oarsmen, sailors, pilots, and passengers.  Such were the vessels for cruising or pleasure; the merchant ships resembled them, but they were of heavier build, of greater tonnage, and had a higher freeboard.  They had no hold; the merchandise had to remain piled up on deck, leaving only just enough room for the working of the vessel.  They nevertheless succeeded in making lengthy voyages, and in transporting troops into the enemy’s territory from the mouths of the Nile to the southern coast of Syria.  Inveterate prejudice alone could prevent us from admitting that the Egyptians of the Memphite period went to the ports of Asia and to the Haui-nibu by sea.  Some, at all events, of the wood required for building* and for joiner’s work of a civil or funereal character, such as pine, cypress or cedar, was brought from the forests of Lebanon or those of Amanus.