THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN Egyptian power and influence would extend in the Sudan ; on the contrary, it is more than probable that the dwellers on the Nile immediately to the south of the First Cataract would not leave unimproved the opportunity which the dissensions of the rival claimants to the throne gave them of fortifying and consolidating their position to the south of Egypt. We may also be very sure that whenever it was possible they would fail to bring gifts and tribute to the kings of Egypt. The feudal chiefs of the First Cataract were powerful folk, their city of Sunnu (Syene, Aswan) was the great market i;for the produce of the Sudan ; it was to the interest of the owners of caravans as well as to that of the merchants, that Egypt should have no effective hold on the city, for such hold would result in the levying of dues and taxes.

Whilst Egypt was in the throes of civil war, the Sudan trader carried on a lucrative trade v/ith the natives of Upper Egypt, and little by little the governors of Abu, or Elephantine, and Sunnu extended the bounds of their territory northwards so far as the modern town of Daraw, and perhaps even to EdfO or Esna. They did not do this with the view of acquiring territory only, but because the neighbourhood of Daraw was the starting-place for caravans to the far south, and to mining places in the Eastern Desert, and it formed a more convenient halting-place for caravans from the south than Aswan, which is surrounded by hills. Edfu and Esna, on the western bank, formed convenient termini for the trading caravans of the Western Desert, and the people who thronged into Upper Egypt from the south settled in any place north of Sunnu which they were able to keep possession of.

At length, however, the day came which witnessed the defeat of the Princes of Herakleopolis by the Princes of Thebes, who forthwith proclaimed themselves masters of all Egypt. The founder of the dynasty of Theban kings was a feudal chief and hereditary duke called Antefa, who, however, did not make use of a cartouche in writing his Rfi-name. After his death, one of his immediate descendants, when he became king, adopted the titles which the great kings of the earlier dynasties had assumed, and had his prenomen and nomen written within a cartouche. This king, whose name was Menthu-hetep, at once took steps to assert 530