In spite of all this, some head-strong native princes never relinquished the hope of freedom, and no sooner had they made good the breaches in their walls as far as they were able, than they entered once more on this unequal contest, though at the risk of bringing irreparable disaster on their country. The majority of them, after one such struggle, resigned themselves to the inevitable, and fulfilled their feudal obligations regularly. They paid their fixed contribution, furnished rations and stores to the army when passing through their territory, and informed the ministers at Thebes of any intrigues among their neighbours.* Years elapsed before they could so far forget the failure of their first attempt to regain independence, as to venture to make a second, and expose themselves to fresh reverses. The administration of so vast an empire entailed but a small expenditure on the Egyptians, and required the offices of merely a few functionaries.** The garrisons which they kept up in foreign provinces lived on the country, and were composed mainly of light troops, archers, a certain proportion of heavy infantry, and a few minor detachments of chariotry dispersed among the principal fortresses.*** * We find in the _Annals_, in addition to the enumeration of the tributes, the mention of the foraging arrangements which the chiefs were compelled to make for the army on its passage. We find among the tablets letters from Aziru denouncing the intrigues of the Khati; letters also of Ribaddu pointing out the misdeeds of Abdashirti, and other communications of the same nature, which demonstrate the supervision exercised by the petty Syrian princes over each other. ** Under Thutmosis III. we have among others "Mir," or "Nasi situ mihatitu," "governors of the northern countries," the Thutii who became afterwards a hero of romance. The individuals who bore this title held a middle rank in the Egyptian hierarchy. *** The archers--_pidatid, pidati, pidate_--and the chariotry quartered in Syria are often mentioned in the Tel el-Amarna correspondence. Steindorff has recognised the term -ddu auitu, meaning infantry, in the word ueu, uiu, of the Tel el-Amarna tablets.