ceives its last tributary to where it
empties itself into the sea. The making of Egypt was finally
accomplished in his time. The Fourteenth dynasty, however, consists of a
line of seventy-five kings, whose mutilated names appear on the Turin
Papyrus. These shadowy Pharaohs followed each other in rapid sequence,
some reigning only a few months, others for certainly not more than two
and three years.

Meantime, during what appears to have been an era of rivalries between
pretenders, mutually jealous of and deposing one another, usurpers in
succession seizing the crown without strength to keep it, the feudal
lords displayed more than their old restlessness. The nomad tribes began
to show growing hostility on the frontier, and the peoples of the Tigris
and Euphrates were already pushing their vanguards into Central Syria.
While Egypt had been bringing the valley of the Nile and the eastern
corner of Africa into subjection, Chaldaea had imposed not only language
and habits, but also her laws upon the whole of that part of Eastern
Asia which separated her from Egypt. Thus the time was rapidly
approaching when these two great civilised powers of the ancient world
would meet each other face to face and come into fierce and terrible
collision.

_VII.--Ancient Chaldaea_

The Chaldaean account of Genesis is contained on fragments of tablets
discovered and deciphered in 1875 by George Smith. These tell legends of
the time when "nothing which was called heaven existed above, and when
nothing below had as yet received the name of earth. Apsu, the Ocean,
who was their first father, and Chaos-Tiamat, who gave birth to them
all, mingled their waters in one, reeds which were not united, rushes
which bore no fruit. In the time when the gods were not created, Lakhmu
and Lakhamu were the first to appear and waxed great for ages."

Then came Anu, the sunlit sky by day, the starlit firmament by night;
Inlil-Bel, the king of the earth; Ea, the sovereign of the waters and
the personification of wisdom. Each of them duplicated himself, Anu into
Anat, Bel into Belit, Ea into Damkina, and united himself to the spouse
whom he had produced from himself. Other divinities sprang from these
fruitful pairs, and, the impulse once given, the world was rapidly
peopled by their descendants. Sin, Samash and Ramman, who presided
respectively over the sun, moon and air, were all three of equal rank;
next came the lords of the planets, Ninib, Merodach,