RAMESES II.

from a mining point of view than many of his predecessors. The roads to his mines in the Eastern Desert were patrolled by Nubian soldiers called " Matchai," who were also employed as police in the cities and towns. The personal interest which Seti I. took in gold-mining is proved by the inscription from the Temple of Redesiya, published by Lepsius,' wherein it is said that the king wanted to see the place whence came the gold, and that having travelled thither, he was struck by the terror of the waterless road, and forthwith ordered a well to be dug in one part of it. The well was dug, and water gushed up in great abundance, and the temple was built, and a small town grew up about it. The fact that Seti I. could obtain gold from the Wadi 'Ulaki, and from other places nearer to Egypt, rendered him almost independent of the supply of gold from the districts far to the south, and this being the case he had no need to maintain the ancient forts and temples beyond Dakka, with the exception of 'Amada, which served as a kind of advanced outpost.

Kameses II. succeeded his father on the throne of Egypt when he was about twenty-five years of age ; he had been trained in the profession of arms from his boyhood, and during the lifetime of Seti I. he had taken pirt in many successful raids on tha Libyans and other nations on the borders of Egypt, and was well accustomed to desert fighting of all kinds. The great campaign against the Kheta, which was the chief event in his long reign of sixty-seven years, does not concern us here, and we therefore pass on to note the principal facts in connection with his dealings with Nubia, or the Sudan, which had by this time been in the almost continuous possession of the Egyptians for nearly four hundred years. It is possible that he raided certain parts of Nubia during the early years of his reign, but there is no proof of it. In the stele from Kubban* he says that he was a " mighty bull against Kash the abominable," ' and " a raging monster that trampled down the Blacks "* and the Anti (Hill-men), that he gored them ' IJenkmdlcr, Abth. iii., 140 b.

Prisse d'Avennes, Monuments, pi. xxi.

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