nt-poles, bows, habergeons,
fruit trees, live birds, and monkeys! With a curiosity which was
insatiable, he noted all that was strange or unusual in the lands which
he visited, and sought to introduce the various novelties into his own
proper country. Two unknown kinds of birds, and a variety of the goose,
which he found in Mesopotamia, and transported from the valley of the
Khabour to that of the Nile, are said to have been "dearer to the king
than anything else." His artists had instructions to make careful
studies of the different objects, and to represent them faithfully on
his monuments. We see on these "water-lilies as high as trees, plants of
a growth like cactuses, all sorts of trees and shrubs, leaves, flowers,
and fruits, including melons and pomegranates; oxen and calves also
figure, and among them a wonderful animal with three horns. There are
likewise herons, sparrow-hawks, geese, and doves. All these objects
appear gaily intermixed in the pictures, as suited the simple childlike
conception of the artist."[18] An inscription tells the intention of the
monarch. "Here," it runs, "are all sorts of plants and all sorts of
flowers of the Holy Land, which the king discovered when he went to the
land of Ruten to conquer it. Thus says the king--I swear by the sun, and
I call to witness my father Ammon, that all is plain truth; there is no
trace of deception in that which I relate. What the splendid soil brings
forth in the way of productions, I have had portrayed in these pictures,
with the intention of offering them to my father Ammon, as a memorial
for all times."

Besides his army, Thothmes also maintained a naval force, and used it
largely in his expeditions. According to one writer, he placed a fleet
on the Euphrates, and in an action which took place with the Assyrians,
defeated and chased the enemy for a distance of between seven and eight
miles. He certainly upon some occasions made his attacks on Syria and
Phoenicia from the sea; nor is it improbable that his maritime forces
reduced Cyprus (which was conquered and held in a much less flourishing
period by Amasis) and plundered the coast of Cilicia; but a judicious
criticism will scarcely extend the voyages of his fleet, as has been
done by another writer, to Crete, and the islands of the AEgean, the
sea-boards of Greece and Asia Minor, the southern coast of Italy,
Algeria, and the waters of the Euxine! There is no evidence in the
historical inscriptions of