In a few days the camp was pitched opposite Megiddo. ‘Keep yourselves ready,’ said the king, ‘look to your arms, for we shall meet the enemy in battle early to-morrow morning.’ And they set the watch, saying, ‘Be of good courage; watch, watch—watch over the life in the king’s tent.’ Next morning the assault was made, but the Canaanites were unable to make a stand against the disciplined valour of the Egyptian troops; they fled at the first onset ‘with terror on their faces.’ The dead ‘lay on the ground like fishes,’ and the fugitives in their haste left behind them their horses and their chariots of gold and silver, and ‘were drawn up by their clothes as by ropes into the fortress.’ The king’s own tent was captured on the field, amidst shouts of joy and of thanks to Amen-Ra. Megiddo itself was taken, and the victor entrenched himself there to await the submission and the tribute of the confederated princes. Then the chiefs of the land came to do homage to the king, and, though the civilisation of the Canaanitish tribes may not have been high, yet there was no lack, at any rate, of a certain splendour at their kings’ courts. They were graciously received by the young conqueror, and laid rich gifts at his feet, gold, silver, and _lapis lazuli_—wheat, wine, and wool,—besides many suits of brazen armour and chariots plated with gold. The capture of Megiddo opened the way to the more distant field of Mesopotamia. In former ages that country had been the seat of civilised and highly cultivated states,[35] but these kingdoms had fallen, probably before some foreign conquerors, about the time that the twelfth dynasty was ruling in Egypt. About the period of the Hyksos supremacy there seems to have been an empire established at Babylon which included Assyria as a province; but this again had passed away, and the country was broken up into a number of petty principalities, which it was no hard task for Thothmes to subdue and reduce to some sort of vassalage. Among the Asiatic princes who brought him tribute are named those of _Assur_ and of _Babilu_. The supremacy of the Egyptian crown may thus be said to have been acknowledged in some sort over the ‘known world;’ for the Egyptian horizon did not extend beyond the Mediterranean Sea, the Euphrates, and the range of Mount Taurus in Armenia. ‘I have placed the boundaries of Egypt at the horizon,’ said Thothmes III., ‘and I have set Egypt at the head of all nations, because its people are united with me in the worship of Amen.’