others, was carried off on board the royal ship, hanging with his head downwards, to the royal palace at the capital This victory was the precursor of others; everywhere “the Petti of Nubia were hewed in pieces, and scattered all over their lands,” till “their stench filled the valleys.”  At last a general submission was made, and a large-tract of territory was ceded.  The Egyptian terminus was pushed on from the twenty-second parallel to the nineteenth, and at Tombos, beyond Dongola, an inscription was set up, at once to mark the new frontier, and to hand down to posterity the glory of the conquering monarch.  The inscription still remains, and is couched in inflated terms, which show a departure from the old official style.  Thothmes declares that “he has taken tribute from the nations of the North, and from the nations of the South, as well as from those of the whole earth; he has laid hold of the barbarians; he has not let a single one of them escape his gripe upon their hair; the Petti of Nubia have fallen beneath his blows; he has made their waters to flow backwards; he has overflowed their valleys like a deluge, like waters which mount and mount.  He has resembled Horus, when he took possession of his eternal kingdom; all the countries included within the circumference of the entire earth are prostrate under his feet.”  Having effected his conquest, Thothmes sought to secure it by the appointment of a new officer, who was to govern the newly-annexed country under the title of “Prince of Cush,” and was to have his ordinary residence at Semneh.

[Illustration:  BUST OF THOTHMES I.]

Flushed with his victories in this quarter, and intoxicated with the delight of conquest, Thothmes, on his return to Thebes, raised his thoughts to a still grander and more adventurous enterprize.  Egypt had a great wrong to avenge, a huge disgrace to wipe out.  She had been Invaded, conquered, plundered, by an enemy whom she had not provoked by any aggression; she had seen her cities laid in ashes, her temples torn down and demolished, the images of her gods broken to pieces, her soil dyed with her children’s blood; she had been trampled under the iron heel of the conqueror for centuries; she had been exhausted by the payment of taxes and tribute; she had had to bow the knee, and lick the dust under the conqueror’s feet—­was not retribution needed for all this?  True, she had at last risen up and expelled her enemy, she had driven him beyond her borders, and he seemed content to acquiesce in his defeat, and to trouble her no more; but was this enough?  Did not the law of eternal justice require something more: 

    “Nec lex justior ulla est,
     Quam necis artifices arte perire sua.”