until the time of the Komans.  Merchants of the Delta braved the perils of wild beasts and of robbers lurking in every valley, while transporting beyond the isthmus products of Egyptian manufacture, such as fine linens, chased or cloisonne jewellery, glazed pottery, and glass paste or metal amulets.  Adventurous spirits who found life dull on the banks of the Nile, men who had committed crimes, or who believed themselves suspected by their lords on political grounds, conspirators, deserters, and exiles were well received by the Asiatic tribes, and sometimes gained the favour of the sheikhs.  In the time of the XIIth dynasty, Southern Syria, the country of the “Lords of the Sands,” and the kingdom of Kaduma were full of Egyptians whose eventful careers supplied the scribes and storytellers with the themes of many romances.

Sinuhit, the hero of one of these stories, was a son of Amenemhait I., and had the misfortune involuntarily to overhear a state secret.  He happened to be near the royal tent when news of his father’s sudden death was brought to Usirtasen.  Fearing summary execution, he fled across the Delta north of Memphis, avoided the frontier-posts, and struck into the desert.  “I pursued my way by night; at dawn I had reached Puteni, and set out for the lake of Kimoiri.  Then thirst fell upon me, and the death-rattle was in my throat, my throat cleaved together, and I said, ‘It is the taste of death!’ when suddenly I lifted up my heart and gathered my strength together:  I heard the lowing of the herds.  I perceived some Asiatics; their chief, who had been in Egypt, knew me; he gave me water, and caused milk to be boiled for me, and I went with him and joined his tribe.”  But still Sinuhit did not feel himself in safety, and fled into Kaduma, to a prince who had provided an asylum for other Egyptian exiles, and where he “could hear men speak the language of Egypt.”  Here he soon gained honours and fortune.  “The chief preferred me before his children, giving me his eldest daughter in marriage, and he granted me that I should choose for myself the best of his land near the frontier of a neighbouring country.  It is an excellent land, Aia is its name.  Figs are there and grapes; wine is more plentiful than water; honey abounds in it; numerous are its olives and all the produce of its trees; there are corn and flour without end, and cattle of all kinds.  Great, indeed, was that which was bestowed upon me when the prince came to invest me, installing me as prince of a tribe in the best of his land.  I had daily rations of bread and wine, day by day; cooked meat and roasted fowl, besides the mountain game which I took, or which was placed before me in addition to that which was brought me by my hunting dogs.  Much butter was made for me, and milk prepared in every kind of way.  There I passed many years, and the children which were born to me became strong men, each ruling his own tribe.  When a messenger was going to the interior or returning