232 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY himself In every country through which he passed, is stated to have marched victoriously with a large army over a country to the south of the Black Water, which is described as the country of the Dem-Dems. At a very much later period a country bearing his Coptic name, and claiming for its people Coptic descent, is found to be situated between the Black Water and the country of the Dem-Dems. I do not wish to push the argument of names too far, especially when the uncertain nature of the records of those ** Traditionists" from whom Macrizi quotes is taken into consideration. Yet in conjunction with the popular belief in Egyptian extraction, this story which I find in the annals of Egypt, where there was no thought of shedding light on questions of the Soudan, seems to me interesting enough to plead its own excuse for insertion.

Whether the "Dark Sea" — rendered in the French translation which I am following by the words ** Mer obscure''' — really meant the sea on the south coast, or whether it was, as I think more probable, some other body of water such as Lake Chad, which must have been passed if the expedition re-entered Egypt by way of Nubia, I leave to the more learned to decide. The direction of his march after achieving the conquest of the Dem-Dems appears to me to have been round the north shores of Lake Chad, and so across the desert into Nubia. If it be true that he built monuments or left traces of himself in every country through which he passed, there is hope that his cartouche may yet be discovered upon some hitherto unexplored rock of Northern Nigeria. The persistent reference in early descriptions to a colossal statue in the neighbourhood of the Almena rocks may have a foundation in interesting fact.

Before and after this Pharaoh, other Pharaohs — including the intrepid Phoenician usurper who, according to Macrizi, was the Pharaoh of Moses — marched at the head of armies into the Soudan and fought and conquered among the blacks and Berbers, forcing the people of the