Of the people of Syria and Palestine they had only vague ideas brought thither by the caravans or brought to the ports in the Mediterranean by sailors who had been there. Sometimes, however, a party of emigrants, or even whole tribes, driven from their country by misery or revolutions, would arrive and settle in Egypt. One of the bas-reliefs of the tomb of Khnumhotep depicts the arrival of such a party. It represents thirty-seven men, women, and children, brought before the governor of the nome of Mah, to whom they present a sort of greenish paint, called moszmit, and two boxes. They are armed like Egyptians with bows, javelins, axes, and clubs; one of them plays, as he walks, on an instrument resembling an old Greek lyre in shape. The cut of their dress, the brilliancy and good taste of the fringed and patterned materials, the elegance of most of the things they have with them, testify to an advanced stage of civilisation, albeit inferior to that of Egypt. Asia already supplied Egypt with slaves, perfumes, cedar wood, and cedar essences, enamelled precious stones, lapis-lazuli, and the embroidered and dyed stuffs of which Chaldea retained the monopoly until the time of the Romans.[c] The monuments of this great period provoked wonder among the ancients, and the old traveller and historian Herodotus thus describes the marvels of Egypt:[a] MONUMENTS OF THE TWELFTH DYNASTY: A CLASSICAL VIEW It was the resolution of all the princes to leave behind them a common monument of their fame:--With this view, beyond the Lake Mœris, near the City of Crocodiles, they constructed a labyrinth, which exceeds, I can truly say, all that has been said of it; whoever will take the trouble to compare them, will find all the works of Greece much inferior to this, both in regard to the workmanship and expense. The temples of Ephesus and Samos may justly claim admiration, and the Pyramids may individually be compared to many of the magnificent structures of Greece, but even these are inferior to the Labyrinth. It is composed of twelve courts, all of which are covered; their entrances are opposite to each other, six to the north and six to the south; one wall encloses the whole; the apartments are of two kinds, there are fifteen hundred above the surface of the ground, and as many beneath, in all three thousand. Of the former I speak from my own knowledge and observation; of the latter, from the information I received. The Egyptians who had the care of the subterraneous apartments would not suffer me to see them, and the reason they alleged was, that in these were preserved the sacred crocodiles, and the bodies of the kings who constructed the labyrinth: of these therefore I presume not to speak; but the upper apartments I myself examined, and I pronounce them among the greatest efforts of human industry and art.