They regarded their defeat as a judgment from God against which there was no appeal; when their fate had been once pronounced, nothing remained to the condemned except to submit to it humbly, and to accommodate themselves to the master to whom they were now bound by a decree from on high. The prisoners of one day became on the next the devoted soldiers of the prince against whom they had formerly fought resolutely, and they were employed against their own tribes, their employers having no fear of their deserting to the other side during the engagement. They were lodged in the barracks at Thebes, or in the provinces under the feudal lords and governors of the Pharaoh, and were encouraged to retain their savage customs and warlike spirit. They intermarried either with the fellahin or with women of their own tribes, and were reinforced at intervals by fresh prisoners or volunteers. Drafted principally into the Delta and the cities of Middle Egypt, they thus ended by constituting a semi-foreign population, destined by nature and training to the calling of arms, and forming a sort of warrior caste, differing widely from the militia of former times, and known for many generations by their national name of Mashauasha. As early as the XIIth dynasty, the Pharaohs had, in a similar way, imported the Mazaiu from Nubia, and had used them as a military police; Ramses III. now resolved to naturalise the Libyans for much the same purpose. His victory did not bear the immediate fruits that we might have expected from his own account of it; the memory of the exploits of Ramses II. haunted him, and, stimulated by the example of his ancestor at Qodshu, he doubtless desired to have the sole credit of the victory over the Libyans. He certainly did overcome their kings, and arrested their invasion; we may go so far as to allow that he wrested from them the provinces which they had occupied on the left bank of the Canopic branch, from Marea to the Natron Lakes, but he did not conquer them, and their power still remained as formidable as ever. He had gained a respite at the point of the sword, but he had not delivered Egypt from their future attacks. [Illustration: 299.jpg one of the Libyan chiefs VANQUISHED BY RAMSES III.] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Champollion.