mentioned in the funerary texts, to which the souls of the dead and the gods alike had access.  This divine region would have transferred to our earth by some folk-tale, like the judgment of the dead, the entrance into the solar bark, and other similar beliefs.

Gold was so abundant that it was used for common purposes, even for the chains of their prisoners; but, on the other hand, copper was rare and much prized.  Canibyses despatched some spies chosen from among the Ichthyophagi of the Bed Sea to explore this region, and acting on the report they brought back, he left Memphis at the head of an army and a fleet.* The expedition was partly a success and partly a failure.  It followed the Nile valley as far as Korosko, and then struck across the desert in the direction of Napata;** but provisions ran short before a quarter of the march had been achieved, and famine obliged the invaders to retrace their steps after having endured terrible sufferings.***

     * Herodotus’ text speaks of an army only, but the accounts
     of the wars between Ethiopia and Egypt show that the army
     was always accompanied by the necessary fleet.

** It is usually thought that the expedition marched by the side of the Nile as far as Napata; to support this theory the name of a place mentioned in Pliny is quoted, Cambusis at the third cataract, which is supposed to contain the name of the conqueror.  This town, which is sometimes mentioned by the classical geographers, is called Kambiusit in the Ethiopie texts, and the form of the name makes its connection with the history of Cambyses easy.  I think it follows, from the text of Herodotus, that the Persians left the grassy land, the river-valley, at a given moment, to enter the sand, i.e. the desert.  Now this is done to-day at two points—­near Korosko to rejoin the Nile at Abu-Hammed, and near Wady-Halfah to avoid the part of the Nile called the “Stony belly,” Batn el-Hagar.  The Korosko route, being the only one suitable for the transit of a body of troops, and also the only route known to Herodotus, seems, I think, likely to be the one which was followed in the present instance; at all events, it fits in best with the fact that Cambyses was obliged to retrace his steps hurriedly, when he had accomplished hardly a fifth of the journey.

*** Many modern historians are inclined to assume that Cambyses’ expedition was completely successful, and that its result was the overthrow of the ancient kingdom of Nepata and the foundation of that of Meroe.  Cambyses would have given the new town which he built there the name of his sister Meroe.  The traditions concerning Cambusis and Meroe belong to the Alexandrine era, and rest only on chance similarities of sound.  With regard to the Ethiopian province of the Persian empire and to the Ethiopian neighbours of Egypt whom Cambyses subdued, the latter are not necessarily Ethiopians of Napata.  Herodotus