The new king was indeed regarded as, in some sense, an avenger triumphing over evil. One can imagine that even though the previous rulers had returned to Thebes and its gods, it would have been hardly possible for their wives, who must have shared their sovereignty, to indulge in any bitter animosity towards the city in which they had been brought up, towards the worship which their father had established there, or towards the names and memory of their parents. But at the accession of Horus, all restraint was removed, and the full tide of animosity let loose against the ‘city of the delight of the sun’s disk.’ City, temples, and tombs were destroyed, and every vestige and trace of the reign and the religion of Khu-en-aten effaced as far as possible. The stone was taken to be employed in the building of Theban temples. Only a few ruins and a few inscriptions have escaped to tell the traveller of this curious episode in Egyptian history. Equal diligence was shown by this sovereign in rebuilding and beautifying the temples which had long been neglected. The cities of the gods, we are told in decidedly hyperbolical language, ‘lay as heaps of rubbish.’ ‘He renewed the temples of the sun-god,’ we read, ‘and Ra rejoiced to see that renewed which had been destroyed in former times.’ The king also provided for the sacrifices; he appointed holy persons, singers, and bodyguards for the temples, and assigned for their use and service arable land, cattle, and all that was required—that ‘they might sing thus each new morning unto Ra: “Thou hast made the kingdom great for us in thy son the delight of thy heart, King Horus. Grant him length of years and victory in all lands, even as unto Horus, son of Isis.”’ Horus reigned for more than twenty years, and his death was followed by the accession of a new dynasty—the nineteenth. FOOTNOTES: [40] This valley lay west of the pyramids in the Libyan desert, and was a favourite resort of sportsmen for hunting lions and other wild animals. [41] This district of ‘Babylon’ was that where Cairo now stands. [42] See the _Nile Gleanings_, where the portraits of the sovereigns are given. If Khu-en-aten’s is a caricature even, it is a caricature founded on a different type of countenance. [43] From a chapter in the Ritual. [44] The oval in which the royal names are always inscribed. [45] And the wives, _in all probability_, inherited only through their mother, Khu-en-aten’s wife. CHAPTER X. The Nineteenth Dynasty (_circa_ 1400-1200 B.C.) Rameses the Great.