A time came, however, when Sinuhit grew old, and began to long to see once more the land of his fathers before he died. Accordingly he sent a petition to the Pharaoh praying him to forgive the offences of his youth and allow him to return again to Egypt. The petition was granted, and a letter was despatched to the refugee, permitting him to return. Sinuhit accordingly quitted the land where he had lived so long. First of all he held a festival, and handed over his property to his children, making his eldest son the chief of the tribe. Then he travelled southward to Egypt, and was graciously received at court. The coarse garments of the Beduin were exchanged for fine linen; his body was bathed with water and scented essences; he lay once more on a couch and enjoyed the luxurious cookery of the Egyptians. A house and pyramid were built for him; a garden was laid out for him with a lake and a kiosk, and a golden statue with a robe of electrum was set up in it. Sinuhit ceased to be an Asiatic "barbarian," and became once more a civilized Egyptian. The travels of Sinuhit were involuntary, but a time came when a tour in Palestine was almost as much the fashion as it is to-day. The conquests of Thothmes III. had made Syria an Egyptian province, and had introduced Syrians into the Egyptian bureaucracy. Good roads were made throughout the newly-acquired territory, furnished with post-houses where food and lodging could be procured, and communication between Egypt and Canaan thus became easy and frequent. The fall of the eighteenth dynasty caused only a momentary break in the intercourse between the two countries; with the establishment of the nineteenth dynasty it was again resumed. Messengers passed backward and forward between Syria and the court of the Pharaoh; Asiatics once more thronged into the valley of the Nile, and the Egyptian civil servant and traveller followed in the wake of the victorious armies of Seti and Ramses. _The Travels of a Mohar_ is the result of this renewed acquaintance with the cities and roads of Palestine. The writer is anxious to display his knowledge of Syrian geography. Though he had not himself ventured to brave the discomforts of foreign travel, he wished to show that he knew as much about Canaan as those who had actually been there. A tour there was after all not much to boast of; it had become so common that the geography of Canaan was as well known as that of Egypt itself, and the stay-at-home scribe had consequently no difficulty in compiling a guide-book to it.