The remaining portions of the nations who had taken part in the attack on Egypt--of which several tribes had been planted by Ramses III. in the Shephelah, from Gaza to Carmel--proceeded in a series of successive detachments from Asia Minor and the Ægean Sea to the coasts of Italy and of the large islands; the Tursha into that region which was known afterwards as Etruria, the Shardana into Sardinia, the Zakkala into Sicily, and along with the latter some Pulasati, whose memory is still preserved on the northern slope of Etna. Fate thus brought the Phonician emigrants once more into close contact with their traditional enemies, and the hostility which they experienced in their new settlements from the latter was among the influences which determined their further migration from Italy proper, and from the region occupied by the Ligurians between the Arno and the Ebro. They had already probably reached Sardinia and Corsica, but the majority of their ships had sailed to the southward, and having touched at Malta, Gozo, and the small islands between Sicily and the Syrtes, had followed the coast-line of Africa, until at length they reached the straits of Gribraltar and the southern shores of Spain. No traces remain of their explorations, or of their early establishments in the western Mediterranean, as the towns which they are thought--with good reason in most instances--to have founded there belong to a much later date. Every permanent settlement, however, is preceded by a period of exploration and research, which may last for only a few years or be prolonged to as many centuries. I am within the mark, I think, in assuming that Phonician adventurers, or possibly even the regular trading ships of Tyre and Sidon, had established relations with the semi-barbarous chiefs of Botica as early as the XIIth century before our era, that is, at the time when the power of Thebes was fading away under the weak rule of the pontiffs of Amon and the Tanite Pharaohs. The Phoenicians were too much absorbed in their commercial pursuits to aspire to the inheritance which Egypt was letting slip through her fingers. Their numbers were not more than sufficient to supply men for their ships, and they were often obliged to have recourse to their allies or to mercenary tribes--the Leleges or Carians--in order to provide crews for their vessels or garrisons for their trading posts; it was impossible, therefore, for them to think of raising armies fit to conquer or keep in check the rulers on the Orontes or in Naharaim. They left this to the races of the interior--the Amorites and Hittites--and to their restless ambition. The Hittite power, however, had never recovered from the terrible blow inflicted on it at the time of the Asianic invasion. [Illustration: 128.jpg AZÂZ--ONE OF THIS TUMULI ON THE ANCIENT HITTITE PLAIN] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. Barthélémy.