and precious stones.  Thutmosis I. had to repress, however, very shortly after his accession, a revolt of these borderers at the second and third cataracts, but they were easily overcome in a campaign of a few days’ duration, in which the two Ahmosis of Al-Kab took an honourable part.  There was, as usual, an encounter of the two fleets in the middle of the river:  the young king himself attacked the enemy’s chief, pierced him with his first arrow, and made a considerable number of prisoners.  Thutmosis had the corpse of the chief suspended as a trophy in front of the royal ship, and sailed northwards towards Thebes, where, however, he was not destined to remain long.* An ample field of action presented itself to him in the north-east, affording scope for great exploits, as profitable as they were glorious.**

* That this expedition must be placed at the beginning of the king’s reign, in his first year, is shown by two facts:  (1) It precedes the Syrian campaign in the biography of the two Ahmosis of El-Kab; (2) the Syrian campaign must have ended in the second year of the reign, since Thutmosis I., on the stele of Tombos which bears that date, gives particulars of the course of the Euphrates, and records the submission of the countries watered by that river.  The date of the invasion may be placed between 2300 and 2250 B.C.; if we count 661 years for the three dynasties together, as Erman proposes, we find that the accession of Ahmosis would fall between 1640 and 1590.  I should place it provisionally in the year 1600, in order not to leave the position of the succeeding reigns uncertain; I estimate the possible error at about half a century.

** It is impossible at present to draw up a correct table of the native or foreign sovereigns who reigned over Egypt during the time of the Hyksos.  I have given the list of the kings of the XIIIth and XIVth dynasties which are known to us from the Turin Papyrus.  I here append that of the Pharaohs of the following dynasties, who are mentioned either in the fragments of Manetho or on the monuments: 

[Illustration:  153.jpg Table]

Syria offered to Egyptian cupidity a virgin prey in its large commercial towns inhabited by an industrious population, who by maritime trade and caravan traffic had amassed enormous wealth.  The country had been previously subdued by the Chaldaeans, who still exercised an undisputed influence over it, and it was but natural that the conquerors of the Hyksos should act in their turn as invaders.  The incursion of Asiatics into Egypt thus provoked a reaction which issued in an Egyptian invasion of Asiatic soil.  Thutmosis and his contemporaries had inherited none of the instinctive fear of penetrating into Syria which influenced Ahmosis and his successor:  the Theban legions were, perhaps, slow to advance, but once they had trodden the roads of Palestine, they were not likely to forego the delights of conquest.