THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN mercilessly with his horns, that his " souls " gained the mastery ' over Khent-hen nefer and that his terror penetrated to Kari," but we cannot accept these statements literally. Rameses II.

undoubtedly asserted his authority in Northern Nubia with vigour when he became king, and he probably passed the first two years of his reign in the country, but there is no evidence that any rebellion on a large scale broke out there, and none of the known facts warrant our thinking that -he conquered Khent-hen-nefer, or even visited that region, or that Kari, wherever it was situated, acknowledged his supremacy. Amen-hetep III. asserted, no doubt truthfully, that Kari was the limit of his kingdom to the south, and Rameses II. merely copied the statement, thus claiming glory to which he was not entitled.

There is, however, no reason for doubting that he was greatly mterested in the gold mines of the Eastern Desert, and we gain some important information about his share in their development from the stele of Kubban. According to the text, the king was in the temple of Ptah at Memphis for the purpose of prayer and thanksgiving, when he began to think about the country in which the gold mines were situated, and to work out plans for sinking wells on the road to them, for he knew that water was exceedingly scarce there. He had been told that there was much gold in the land of Akaita,"' but no water was to be found on the road. Of the men who had been sent to the mines one half had died of thirst, and also the " asses which were in front of them," and neither in going nor coming from the Nile did they find anything to drink. The result of this was that the mines were not worked. The king then told his chancellor to call the chiefs of the country, and question them as to the plan to be followed in sinking a well, and when they came into the presence they told Rameses II. that the country had always been short of water, that many kings had wanted to dig a v,ell, and that only Seti I. had been able to carry out his purpose. According to them, Seti's well was unsatisfactory, for although it was 120 cubits deep, no water came in ?Skflh:&li 632