THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN If we examine the account of Amen-hetep's expedition into Nubia in his fifth year, we shall see that it was no war, but a mere raid. The natives who were bringing their accustomed gifts, or tribute, were stopped on the road by some Nubian brigand (like Isa, who flourished early in the nineteenth century of our era, and who kept the Government of Egypt in a state of terror for five years or more), whereupon the local governor, with his local irregular troops and those of the king, set-out, and slew the brigand and his followers, and brought in the tribute from the desert and sent it down the river to Thebes. Cutting off the hands of the vanquished was a custom which flourished under the rule of the Mahdi and Khalifa, and in the remote parts of the Sudan, to the south, it is not unknown even at the present day. The result of the raid was eminently satisfactory. for Amen-hetep III., and we do not read that another was necessary during his reign.

Apart from the rock-sculptures and inscriptions in the First Cataract there is little in Nubia at the present time to testify to the activity of this king in the country before we come to the district south of the Island of Sai. We have already seen that a line of fortresses and temples extended from the Island of Elephantine to the Island of Sai, and that a fortified building of some kind existed near the Tangur Cataract ; but between this last and the Island of Sai, i.e., for nearly eighty miles, there appears to have been neither temple nor fort of any importance before the reign of Amen-hetep III.

Taking the buildings of this king in Nubia in the order in which they come as we proceed to the south, the first to be mentioned is the temple of Saddenga, which stands on the west bank of the Nile, at no great distance from the river, not far from the tomb of a famous Muhammadan saint called " Gubba (Kubba) Salim." The building is now a mass of ruins, amid which a single Hathorheaded pillar still stands. According to the plan " which Lepsius's party was able to make, we see that the temple was rectangular, and that a portico supported by eight pillars, four on each side of the door, stood before the entrance. The building is oriented to the east, and it is still possible to see that it was divided into two ' The temple which he completed at Elephantine, in its main portion, measured 40 X 30 X 13 feet ; it was approached by a short flight of steps and a portico ran round the building.

- See Dcnkmitler, Bd. ii., Abth. i., Bl. 115. 606