Their king is like a dog; he brags with his mouth, but his courage is naught.’ Pharaoh’s own heart, however, may not have been quite at ease, in spite of his brave speeches, when he retired to rest that night—but his confidence was revived by a dream. The god Ptah appeared to him, and put a scimitar into his hand, exhorting him to ‘put away dejection and desponding thoughts.’ ‘What am I to do?’ inquired the king. Ptah, in reply, directed him to proceed with all his forces, and join battle with the foe at Pi-ari-sheps (Prosopis). Accordingly, he there attacked the confederates, and gained a complete victory. The brunt of the battle, however, seems to have been borne by the mercenary troops. ‘For six hours,’ says the narrative, ‘the foreign mercenaries of his majesty hewed down the foe. The sword gave no mercy, and the land was full of corpses.’ The fugitives, amongst whom was the Libyan king himself, were pursued by the horsemen. All the goods and ornaments of the hostile prince were captured, and the skin tents of the Libyans burnt upon the field of battle. More than 14,000 were reckoned amongst the slain, and over 9000 were made prisoners. The battle of Prosopis secured tranquillity upon the frontier for a considerable time. The reign of Seti Menephtah II. affords very little worthy of notice. It was quiet and uneventful, but was followed by a period of confusion and civil war. The names of rival kings are preserved, but the details of the history are very obscure. A good general impression, however, of the disastrous scenes amidst which the nineteenth dynasty closed is given by Rameses III., first king of the succeeding dynasty. ‘The land,’ he tells us, ‘had fallen into confusion; each man did as he chose; there was no sovereign master. The princes of the nomes bore sway, and men slaughtered each other through fear and jealousy. The end of these years of calamity was that Aarsu, a Syrian by birth, gained the chief supremacy, and the whole land did him homage. The gods fared no better than men; their images were overthrown, and no oblations were brought to the temples. ‘Then was Setnekht, the beloved of Amen, raised up by the gods. He was like Set in the day of his wrath, and terrible like the god of war. He took command of the whole country, and destroyed the evil-doers who had wasted Lower Egypt; he purified the great throne of Khemi, and restored that which had been disturbed. Each man saw and knew his brother again, from whom he had been separated as by a wall. The sacrifices were reinstated for the gods. He made me heir of the throne of Seb, and ruler of the lands of Khemi. Then he sought repose among the gods; the royal bark crossed the river, and he entered his eternal dwelling-place in Western Thebes.’ FOOTNOTES: [54] In one hall, forming only a _part_ of the temple in which it stands, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, at Paris, could stand without touching the walls!