The trade of Egypt and Babylonia with the south of Arabia, through the medium of the Arab tribes, certainly goes back to the year 2000 B.C., if the attempt was made in Egypt about the year 1600 B.C. to reduce Southern Arabia. Not long after his campaigns in Syria and Mesopotamia, Tuthmosis III. imposed on the Syrians a tribute of 828 minæ, and on the Naharina a tribute of 81 minæ of spices;[447] hence such spices must not only have found their way into these districts at this time, but must have been already known as ordinary articles of trade. How strongly Egypt felt her need of the products of South Arabia is most strikingly shown by the fact that the Egyptians were very anxious to obtain these products by the direct route over the Arabian Gulf; the canal which Ramses II. began to make towards the gulf (p. 146) could have no other object in view than to facilitate the communication between the Nile and the coast of South Arabia and East Africa, by the Red Sea. Under Ramses III. (1269-1244 B.C.) a great fleet is said to have sailed for a second time to To-Neter, and to have returned to Coptus with the tribute of these lands and a rich freight.[448] The need of incense was not less in Babylon than in Egypt. We saw that the preparation of ointments was a main branch of Babylonian industry, and Herodotus tells us that at the feast of Belus, at Babylon, a thousand talents of incense, which according to the light Babylonian weight is more than 60,000 pounds, was burnt on the altar of the great temple. As the Temanites, Kedarites, Nebajoth, and Midianites formed the medium of trade between South Arabia and Egypt, so were the Rhegmæans and Dedanites the communicating link between South Arabia and Babylonia. Among the Sabæans the Babylonian talent was current.[449]