28 PAST AGES OF CONQUEST of Ethiopia via Abyssinia as well, taking the old trade route, followed by Queen Hatshepset of the Eighteenth Dynasty, which had from the earliest days been the alternative to that of the Nile.

Frumentius, later Bishop of Axum, having with a fellow-student been wrecked in the Red Sea, became tutor to the Queen's son, and founded a mission in Abyssinia, whose work, albeit corrupted, exists in full force to this day.

Exhibiting the vehemence with which religion appeals to the inhabitants of the Sudan, the wave swept over the country, and in the sixth century a Christian King, Silko (550 a.d.), converted by a missionary of the Empress Theodora, ruled from his headquarters at the historical seat of the Kings of old Dongola. As chief of the Nubas, or Nobate, he was the hereditary enemy of the Blemmyes, and religious differences formed useful occasion for a warfare which ended in the delivering of the country between Assuan and Haifa from their control. Many Christian churches were built, the remains of a large number existing to this day, notably at Nagaa and Soba. Even Abu Simbel came into employment.

The connection between Silko and the north at this time receives interesting confirmation by the recent discovery at the old Coptic seat of Christianity, Edfu, in Upper Egypt, of an ancient book, believed to be in the Nubu language, which is evidently a history of St. Mena, who, in his youth a Roman soldier, became a convert, and was