These Asiatic campaigns were often renewed during this long reign; thirteen or fourteen such are recorded. Each was followed by a longer or shorter interval of peace. The principal episodes of the wars were sculptured in bas-relief upon the walls of the great temple at Karnak, where also was inscribed a careful geographical enumeration of the conquered peoples, and a record of the tributes they respectively paid. Full accounts were also preserved in the libraries attached to the temples; but the Egyptian archives have perished, and Egyptian history with them, except so far as it was carved on the enduring stone, or written in the few papyri that have survived the general wreck. There is an inscription on the tomb of a valiant captain of Thothmes, named Amenemhib, in which he tells us of the campaigns he was engaged in by his master’s side. ‘I never left him,’ he says; ‘great was the valour of his arm.’ Then he records his own deeds, and describes the rich rewards assigned him. Twice he saved the king’s life when in imminent peril. ‘I saw the lord of the two countries in the land of Ni; he was hunting 120 elephants for the sake of their tusks. The largest one of the herd rushed upon his majesty, but I cut his trunk, and escaped through the water between the rocks.’ Another time the King of Kadesh had started a wild horse to run upon the king. ‘I followed him as he dashed among the warriors, and I slew him with my sword, and cut off his tail, which I presented to the king as a trophy.’ In the siege of Kadesh he led the party that stormed the walls. ‘I broke them open; I led all the valiant. None other went before me.’