f the Aahmes who drove out the Hyksos. He
had thus hereditary claims to valour and military distinction. The
Ethiopian blood which flowed in his veins through his grandmother,
Nefertari-Aahmes, may have given him an additional touch of audacity,
and certainly showed itself in his countenance, where the short
depressed nose and the unduly thick lips are of the Cushite rather than
of the Egyptian type. His father, Amen-hotep I., was a somewhat
undistinguished prince; so that here, as so often, where superior talent
runs in a family, it seems to have skipped a generation, and to have
leapt from the grand-sire to the grandson. Thothmes began his military
career by an invasion of the countries upon the Upper Nile, which were
still in an unsettled state, notwithstanding the campaigns which had
been carried on, and the victories which had been gained in them, during
the two preceding reigns, by King Aahmes, and by the generals of
Amen-hotep. He placed a flotilla of ships upon the Nile above the Second
Cataract, and supporting it with his land forces on either side of the
river, advanced from Semneh, the boundary established by Usurtasen III.,
which is in lat. 21 deg. 50' to Tombos, in lat. 19 deg., conquering the tribes,
Nubian and Cushite, as he proceeded, and from time to time
distinguishing himself in personal combats with his enemies. On one
occasion, we are told, "his majesty became more furious than a panther,"
and placing an arrow on his bowstring, directed it against the Nubian
chief so surely that it struck him, and remained fixed in his knee,
whereupon the chief "fell fainting down before the royal diadem." He was
at once seized and made a prisoner; his followers were defeated and
dispersed; and he himself, together with others, was carried off on
board the royal ship, hanging with his head downwards, to the royal
palace at the capital This victory was the precursor of others;
everywhere "the Petti of Nubia were hewed in pieces, and scattered all
over their lands," till "their stench filled the valleys." At last a
general submission was made, and a large-tract of territory was ceded.
The Egyptian terminus was pushed on from the twenty-second parallel to
the nineteenth, and at Tombos, beyond Dongola, an inscription was set
up, at once to mark the new frontier, and to hand down to posterity the
glory of the conquering monarch. The inscription still remains, and is
couched in inflated terms, which show a departure from th