It appears from such fragmentary evidence as has hitherto been gleaned from the monuments, that the Shepherds’ invasion was neither sudden nor at once completely successful, if indeed it ever was so, for it is certain that Theban and Xoite dynasties co-existed with the Shepherds during the whole period of their stay, either from policy, like the protected princes under our sway in India, or because their conquest was not so complete as to enable them to suppress the national dynasties altogether. Like the Tartars in China they seem to have governed the country by means of the original inhabitants, but for their own purposes; tolerating their religion and institutions, but ruling by the superior energy of their race the peace-loving semi-Semitic inhabitants of the Delta, till they were in their turn overthrown and expelled by the more warlike but more purely African races of the southern division of the Egyptian valley. CHAPTER IV. PHARAONIC KINGDOM. PRINCIPAL KINGS OF THE GREAT THEBAN PERIOD. XVIIITH DYNASTY. B.C. 1830 Amenhotep I. reigned 25 years. Thothmes I. reigned 13 years. Amenhotep II. reigned 20 years. Hatshepsu (Queen) reigned 21 years. Thothmes II. reigned 12 years. Thothmes III. reigned 26 years. Thothmes IV. reigned 10 years. Amenhotep III. reigned 21 years. Interregnum of Sun-worshipping Kings. Horemheb (Horus) reigned 36 years. XIXTH DYNASTY. Rameses I. reigned 12 years. Meneptah I. reigned 32 years. Rameses II. reigned 68 years. Meneptah II. reigned 5 years. Exode B.C. 1312 XXTH DYNASTY. Rhampsinitus-Rameses reigned 55 years. Ramessidæ reigned 66 years. Amenophis reigned 20 years. The five centuries[54] which elapsed between the expulsion of the Shepherds and Exode of the Jews comprise the culminating period of the greatness and greatest artistic development of the Egyptians. It is practically within this period that all the great buildings of the “Hundred pyloned city of Thebes” were erected. Memphis was adorned within its limits with buildings as magnificent as those of the southern capital, though subsequently less fortunate in escaping the hand of the spoiler; and in every city of the Delta wherever an obelisk or sculptured stone is found, there we find almost invariably the name of one of the kings of the 18th or 19th dynasties. In Arabia, too, and above the cataracts of the far-off Meroë, everywhere their works and names are found. At Arban,[55] on the Khabour, we find the name of the third Thothmes; and there seems little doubt but that the Naharaina or Mesopotamia was one of the provinces conquered by them, and that all Western Asia was more or less subject to their sway.