“As for messengers abroad, why should they be detained and die there? If they stay abroad, the king will have the advantage, so let him stay and let him die abroad—let the king then have the advantage. And if not, why should the messengers whom we send die abroad? ... attack the messengers and cause them to die abroad.” The last paragraph is difficult to understand on account of its being so mutilated, but the sense of the whole seems now to be fairly clear. Ašur-uballiṭ desires to be on friendly terms with Egypt, but he is anxious to get, above all, the precious metal which was said to be so plentiful there, and for which all the rulers of Western Asia seem to have hungered. And this leads to the interesting statement in the fifth paragraph, in which gold in Egypt is said to have been as dust; and there is the question, “Why should it go round into thine eyes?” (_Amminî ina ênē-ka isaḫḫur?_) implying that, being dust, it behaved as dust, and was in that respect undesirable, and therefore to be got rid of. He would like to have some for the decoration of his palace—his father, and the king of Ḫanigalbat had been favoured in this way. Let it not be as little (apparently), as that sent to the Ḫanigalbatian king, for that would not suffice to pay his messengers. The interchange of things needed as presents made good friends. It was a lawless band of Sutites who had detained the Egyptian king’s messengers, and he was as one dead until his people had stopped their depredations. It was useful to a king that his ambassadors lived and died abroad, but not that they should be attacked and killed there. The relations of Egypt with another class of ruler is well illustrated by the following letter from a prince or governor brought up in Egypt— Yabitiri Asserts His Faithfulness, And Touches Upon His Early Life. “To the king my lord, my gods, my Sun-gods, say also thus: ‘(it is) Yabitiri thy servant, the dust of thy feet. At the feet of the king my lord, my gods, my Sun-gods, seven times, and twice seven times I fall. Furthermore, behold, I am a faithful servant(61) of the king my lord. I look here, and I look there,(62) and it is not clear; then I look upon the king my lord, and it is clear. And the brick-foundation may give way from beneath its wall, but I will not give way from beneath the feet of the king my lord. And the king my lord may ask Yanḫama, his official, (concerning) when I was young, and they sent me down to Egypt, where I served the king my lord, and stood in the city-gate of the king my lord. And the king my lord may ask his official when I guard the city-gate of Azzati (Gaza) and the city-gate of Yapu (Jaffa). And I am with the hired troops of the king my lord, where they go, I am with them, and I am also, therefore, with them now. The yoke of the king my lord is on my neck, and I bear it.’ ”