The Pharaoh now took ship and descended the Euphrates, "conquering the towns and ploughing up the fields of the king of Naharaim." He then re-ascended the stream to the city of Ni, where he placed another stele, in proof that the boundary of Egypt had been extended thus far. Elephants still existed in the neighbourhood, as they continued to do four and a half centuries later in the time of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser I. Thothmes amused himself by hunting them, and no less than 120 were slain. On his way home the tribute and "yearly tax" of the inhabitants of the Lebanon was brought to him, and the corvée-work annually required from them was also fixed. Thothmes indulged his taste for natural history by receiving as part of the tribute various birds which were peculiar to Syria, or at all events were unknown in Egypt, and which, we are told, "were dearer to the king than anything else." He had already established zoological and botanical gardens in Thebes, and the strange animals and plants which his campaigns furnished for them were depicted on the walls of one of the chambers in the temple he built at Karnak. Before his return to Egypt he received the tribute of "the king of Sangar," or Shinar, in Mesopotamia, and "of the land of Khata the greater." The first consisted for the most part of lapis-lazuli, real and artificial, of which the most prized was "the lapis-lazuli of Babylon." Among the gifts was "a ram's head of real lapis-lazuli, 15 pounds in weight." The land of the Hittites, "the greater," so called to distinguish it from the lesser Hittite land in the south of Palestine, sent 8 rings of silver, 400 pounds in weight, besides "a great piece of crystal." The following year Thothmes marched through "the land of Zahi," the "dry land" of the Phoenician coast, to Northern Syria, where he punished the king of Anugas or Nukhasse, who had shown symptoms of rebellion. Large quantities of gold and bronze were carried off, as well as 15 chariots, plated with gold and silver, 6 iron tent-poles studded with precious stones, and 70 asses. Lead and various kinds of wood and stone, together with 608 jars of Lebanon wine, 2080 jars of oil, and 690 jars of balsam, were also received from Southern Syria, and posting-houses were established along the roads of the land of Zahi. A fleet of Phoenician merchant vessels was next sent to Egypt laden with logs of wood from the forests of Palestine and the Lebanon for the buildings of the king. At the same time, "the king of Cyprus," which now was an Egyptian possession, forwarded his tribute to the Pharaoh, consisting of 108 bricks of copper 2040 pounds in weight, 5 bricks of lead nearly 29,000 pounds in weight, 110 pounds of lapis-lazuli, an elephant's tusk, and other objects of value.