The later history of the highway cannot be traced in much detail. From the VIIth to the XIIth Dynasties the Egyptian Government was seldom strong enough at home to attempt to look after affairs abroad, and Lower Nubia relapsed into a state of independence. Amenemhat, the founder of the XIIth Dynasty, about 2000 B.C., was thus obliged to reconquer the country; but his expedition seems to have travelled up the Nile and not across the desert. A few reigns later a fortress was built at the modern Anâybeh, in the land of Arthet, some miles above the terminus of the highway from Elephantine; and the road must now have been used continuously as the express route from the city to the fortress. This stronghold is so much ruined and sand-covered that it has escaped observation until now, although its position has been ascertained from inscriptions. Mention is made of a fortress named Taray, and its distance from a certain known place is given, which exactly locates it at Anâybeh. At about the same date a large fortress was built on the west bank of the Second Cataract, and at the extreme north end of the highroad the walls of Elephantine were now strengthened. Above the Second Cataract lay the land of Kush, and as civilisation advanced southwards the territory of the Ghosts had perforce to retreat before it. The Egyptians now knew that very human negroes inhabited the country beyond Aam; but they could still ask themselves in whispers what manner of bogies dwelt to the south of Kush. While the immortals were falling back, however, the mortals from above the Second Cataract were surely pushing forward. The people of Aam were slowly being displaced by them, and in consequence were hustling the tribes of Arthet. During the reign of Senusert III. (1887 B.C.) the incursions of the negroes of Kush assumed the proportions of an invasion and the Egyptians were obliged to wage an expensive and lengthy war upon them. When at last they were driven back beyond the Second Cataract, the Pharaoh set up a boundary-stone; and the words which he ordered to be inscribed upon it show plainly enough what a surprise it was to him to find that his enemies had possessed none of those superhuman powers which his subjects had attributed to them. “Why,” he says, “they are not a mighty people after all; they are poor and broken in heart. My majesty has seen them; it is not an untruth. I captured their women, I carried off their subjects, went forth to their wells, smote their bulls. I reaped their grain, and set fire thereto. I swear as my father lived for me I speak in truth, without a lie therein coming out of my mouth.” The last sentence tells of the king’s fear lest tradition should conquer proven fact, and his soldiers should endow the negroes of Kush with those mysterious powers of which their close proximity to the Land of Ghosts and the end of the world gave them the use.