At the head of the Red Sea the king constructed a well, carefully guarded by fortifications, and re-opened trade with Punt by way of Koptos and the sea. He also renewed the working of the _mafek_[73] and copper mines. Then he tells us he planted trees and shrubs throughout the land, that the people might sit under the shade, and he says further, that the country was so safe that the weakest woman might travel alone without fear of molestation. ‘The soldiers of the horse and foot,’ continues his account, ‘live at ease; the Sardinian and Libyan auxiliaries stretch themselves full length upon their backs. They are not on the watch, for the enemy have ceased to invade. Their bows and arrows lie useless. They eat and drink with their wives and children, and make themselves merry. I am among them as a protector ready to defend.’ But soon another dark cloud, gathering in the distance, rapidly approached, and broke in a torrent of invasion upon the northern shore. The foe came this time from the distant regions of Asia Minor. The old claims of Egypt to supremacy in Asia had long been suffered to lapse, and the course of time brought many changes. In the earliest ages, strong and civilised kingdoms (perhaps coeval with the pyramids) had existed at Ur, Larsa, and other cities of Chaldea. But they had fallen and passed away when Thothmes III. entered Mesopotamia. The country was then divided into petty principalities, which were subdued with little difficulty. By the time Rameses II. was on the throne (the fourteenth century B.C.), Nineveh and Babylon had become the capitals of strong and important states, and were constantly engaged in mortal conflict for supremacy. They were absorbed in this mutual strife and in warding off the hostile assaults of the Elamites and other neighbouring nations; neither state was as yet thinking of far-extended conquest and dominion. The Israelites entered Canaan and carried on a war of extermination against its inhabitants, but they only succeeded in establishing themselves in parts of the country, generally in the more hilly districts, as the Canaanites, possessing chariots and horses, were able to maintain possession of the plains. The Egyptians probably viewed this fierce conflict with indifference, careful only that the great military road should not be interfered with, and the Israelites, maintaining their hold of the ‘promised land’ with much difficulty, were by no means prepared for any such attempt. North of Syria the power of the Kheta had greatly diminished, and was still further weakened by the assault of a mighty host of confederated tribes, which, emerging at this juncture from the hills and coast lands of Asia Minor, poured in a resistless stream towards the south. With them may have been allied, in hope of plunder, Etruscans, pirates from of old, and not unlikely roving Greeks from the isles and shores of the Mediterranean, probably little better than pirates themselves. For this