further news of his troops was forthcoming, except that they never reached the temple, and that none of the generals or soldiers ever again saw Egypt (524).  The expedition to Ethiopia was not more successful.  Since the retreat of Tanuatamanu, the Pharaohs of Napata had severed all direct relations with Asia; but on being interfered with by Psammetichus I. and II., they had repulsed the invaders, and had maintained their frontier almost within sight of Philae.* In Nubia proper they had merely a few outposts stationed in the ruins of the towns of the Theban period—­at Derr, at Pnubsu, at Wady-Halfa, and at Semneh; the population again becoming dense and the valley fertile to the south of this spot.  Kush, like Egypt, was divided into two regions —­To-Qonusit, with its cities of Danguru,** Napata, Asta-muras, and Barua; and Alo,*** which extended along the White and the Blue Nile in the plain of Sennaar:  the Asmakh, the descendants of the Mashauasha emigrants of the time of Psammetichus I., dwelt on the southern border of Alo.

* The northern boundary of Ethiopia is given us approximately by the lists of temples in the inscriptions of Harsiatef and of Nastosenen:  Pnubsu is mentioned several times as receiving gifts from the king, which carries the permanent dominion of the Ethiopian kings as far as the second cataract.

     ** Now Old Dongola.

     *** Berua is the Meroe of Strabo, Astaboras the modern Ed-
     Dameir, and Alo the kingdom of Aloah of the mediaeval Arab
     geographers.

[Illustration:  147.jpg ETHIOPIAN GKOUP]

     Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph by Berghoff.

A number of half-savage tribes, Maditi and Bohrehsa, were settled to the right and to the left of the territory watered by the Nile, between Darfur, the mountains of Abyssinia, and the Red Sea; and the warlike disposition of the Ethiopian kings found in these tribes an inexhaustible field for obtaining easy victories and abundant spoil.  Many of these sovereigns—­Pionkhi, Alaru, Harsiatef, Nastosenen—­whose respective positions in the royal line are still undetermined, specially distinguished themselves in these struggles, but the few monuments they have left, though bearing witness to their military enterprise and ability, betray their utter decadence in everything connected with art, language, and religion.  The ancient Egyptian syllabary, adapted to the needs of a barbarous tongue, had ended by losing its elegance; architecture was degenerating, and sculpture slowly growing more and more clumsy in appearance.  Some of the work, however, is not wanting in a certain rude nobility—­as, for instance, the god and goddess carved side by side in a block of grey granite.  Ethiopian worship had become permeated with strange superstitions, and its creed was degraded, in spite of the strictness with which the priests supervised its application and kept watch against every attempt to introduce