The other cities of Egypt had come to regard Thebes as their metropolis from the time when they had learned to rally round its princes to wage war against the Hyksos. It had been the last town to lay down arms at the time of the invasion, and the first to take them up again in the struggle for liberty. Thus the Egypt which vindicated her position among the nations of the world was not the Egypt of the Memphite dynasties. It was the great Egypt of the Amenemhaits and the Usirtasens, still further aggrandised by recent victories. Thebes was her natural capital, and its kings could not have chosen a more suitable position from whence to command effectually the whole empire. Situated at an equal distance from both frontiers, the Pharaoh residing there, on the outbreak of a war either in the north or south, had but half the length of the country to traverse in order to reach the scene of action. Ahmosis spared no pains to improve the city, but his resources did not allow of his embarking on any very extensive schemes; he did not touch the temple of Amon, and if he undertook any buildings in its neighbourhood, they must have been minor edifices. He could, indeed, have had but little leisure to attempt much else, for it was not till the XXIInd year of his reign that he was able to set seriously to work.* * In the inscription of the year XXII., Ahmosis expressly states that he opened new chambers in the quarries of Turah for the works in connection with the Theban Amon, as well as for those of the temple of the Memphite Phtah. An opportunity then occurred to revive a practice long fallen into disuse under the foreign kings, and to set once more in motion an essential part of the machinery of Egyptian administration. The quarries of Turah, as is well known, enjoyed the privilege of furnishing the finest materials to the royal architects; nowhere else could be found limestone of such whiteness, so easy to cut, or so calculated to lend itself to the carving of delicate inscriptions and bas-reliefs. The commoner veins had never ceased to be worked by private enterprise, gangs of quarrymen being always employed, as at the present day, in cutting small stone for building purposes, or in ruthlessly chipping it to pieces to burn for lime in the kilns of the neighbouring villages; but the finest veins were always kept for State purposes. Contemporary chroniclers might have formed a very just estimate of national prosperity by the degree of activity shown in working these royal preserves; when the amount of stone extracted was lessened, prosperity was on the wane, and might be pronounced to be at its lowest ebb when the noise of the quarryman's hammer finally ceased to be heard. [Illustration: 132.jpg A CONVOY OF TURAH QUARRYMEN DRAWING STONE] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Vyse-Perring.