foot-soldiers, and despatched them with orders to reach the Jauf by forced marches through the Wady Hauran.  The Arabs, who were totally unprepared for such a movement, had not time to collect their forces; eight of their chiefs were taken by surprise and killed one after another—­among them Kisu of Khaldili, Agbaru of Ilpiati, Mansaku of Magalani,—­and also some reigning queens.  La, the King of Yadi, at first took refuge in the mountains, but afterwards gave himself up to the enemy, and journeyed as far as Nineveh to prostrate himself at Esarhaddon’s feet, who restored to him his gods and his crown, on the usual condition of paying tribute.  A vassal occupying a country so remote and so difficult of access could not be supposed to preserve an unbroken fidelity towards his suzerain, but he no longer ventured to plunder the caravans which passed through his territory, and that in reality was all that was expected of him.

Esarhaddon thus pursued a prudent and unadventurous policy in the northern and eastern portions of his empire, maintaining a watchful attitude towards the Cimmerians and Scythians in the north, carrying on short defensive campaigns among the Medes in the east, preserving peace with Elam, and making occasional flying raids in the south, rather from the necessity for repressing troublesome border tribes than with any idea of permanent conquest.

[Illustration:  137.jpg SHABITOKU, KING OF EGYPT]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius.

This policy must have been due to a presentiment of danger from the side of Egypt, or to the inception of a great scheme for attacking the reigning Pharaoh.  After the defeat of his generals at Altaku, Shabitoku had made no further attempt to take the offensive; his authority over the feudal nobility of Egypt was so widely acknowledged that it causes us no surprise to meet with his cartouches on more than one ruin between Thebes and Memphis,* but his closing years were marred by misfortune.  There was then living at Napata a certain Taharqa, one of those scions of the solar race who enjoyed the title of “Royal brothers,” and from among whom Anion of the Holy Mountain was wont to choose his representative to reign over the land of Ethiopia whenever the throne became vacant.  It does not appear that the father of Taharqa ever held the highest rank; it was from his mother, Akaluka, that he inherited his pretensions to the crown, and through her probably that he traced his descent from the family of the high priests.  Tradition asserts that he did not gain the regal power without a struggle; having been proclaimed king in Ethiopia at the age of twenty, as the result of some revolution, he is said to have marched against Shabitoku, and, coming up with him in the Delta, to have defeated him, taken him prisoner, and put him to death.** These events took place about 693 B.C.,*** and Taharqa employed the opening years of his reign in consolidating his authority over the double kingdom.