ared. It had been found difficult to recruit
them since the dislodgment of the People of the Sea from the Delta and
the Syrian littoral, and their settlement in Italy and the fabulous
islands of the Mediterranean; the adventurers from Crete and the AEgean
coasts now preferred to serve under the Philistines, where they found
those who were akin to their own race, and from thence they passed on to
the Hebrews, where, under David and Solomon, they were gladly hired as
mercenaries.*

* Carians or Cretans (Chercthites) formed part of David's
body-guard (2 Sam viii. 18, xv. 18, xx. 23); one again meets
with these Carian or Cretan troops in Judah in the reign of
Athaliah (2 Kings xi. 4, 19).

The Libyans had replaced the Shardana in all the offices they had filled
and in all the garrison towns they had occupied. The kingdom of Maraiu
and Kapur had not survived the defeats which it had suffered from
Minephtah and Ramses III., but the Mashauasha who had founded it still
kept an active hegemony over their former subjects; hence it was that
the Egyptians became accustomed to look on all the Libyan tribes as
branches of the dominant race, and confounded all the immigrants from
Libya under the common name of Mashauasha.* Egypt was thus slowly
flooded by Libyans; it was a gradual invasion, which succeeded by
pacific means where brute force had failed. A Berber population
gradually took possession of the country, occupying the eastern
provinces of the Delta, filling its towns--Sais, Damanhur, and
Marea--making its way into the Fayum, the suburbs of Heracleopolis, and
penetrating as far south as Abydos; at the latter place they were not
found in such great numbers, but still considerable enough to leave
distinct traces.** The high priests of Amon seem to have been the
only personages who neglected to employ this ubiquitous race; but they
preferred to use the Nubian tribe of the Mazaiu,*** who probably from
the XIIth dynasty onwards had constituted the police force of Thebes.

* Ramses III. still distinguished between the Qahaka, the
Tihonu, and the Mashauasha; the monuments of the XXIInd
dynasty only recognise the Mashaiiasha, whose name they
curtail to Ma.

** The presence in those regions of persons bearing Asiatic
names has been remarked, without drawing thence any proof
for the existence of Asiatic colonies in those regions. The
presence of Libyans at Abydos seems to