exception of the
last. Nimmuria felt his end approaching, and entreated the aid of "Our
Lady of Nineveh." Such an expedient was not foreign to Egyptian thought. A
late inscription professes to tell how a certain divine image was sent
from Thebes to a distant land for the healing of a foreign princess. From
Tushratta's answer also it appears that the statue of the goddess Ishtar
had once before been taken from Nineveh to Thebes.

This letter begins solemnly:

"The words of Ishtar of Nineveh, mistress of all lands. 'To Egypt,
to the land that I love will I go, and there will I sojourn.' Now
I send her and she goes. Let my brother worship her and then let
her go in gladness that she may return. May Ishtar protect my
brother and me for a hundred thousand years. May she grant unto us
both great gladness; may we know nothing but happiness."

All this notwithstanding, Nimmuria must die, and later Tushratta describes
his own grief on the occasion:

"And on that day I wept, I sat in sorrow. Food and drink I touched
not on that day; grieved was my heart. I said, 'Oh, that it had
been I who died !' "

When he wrote thus the feelings expressed were probably genuine, for times
had changed sadly for him and men of his type.

We have now come to the accession of the reforming king Napkhuria--_i.e._,
Akhenaten. This zealot succeeded in bringing into the foreign relations of
Egypt some of the unrest caused by his measures in home politics. To begin
with, he sought for new political alliances and sacrificed those already
existing, not by breaking off the connections, but by turning a deaf ear
to requests, or by adopting an insolent tone in his answers. On one
occasion he showered on the old beggar Tushratta derision which was no
doubt well deserved, but which it was most impolitic to express so
plainly. He gives one the impression of an inexperienced prince, brought
up in Oriental seclusion, who persists at all hazards in playing the part
of a shrewd and worldly-wise ruler. He strained after novelty at the
expense of his own security, and attempted to demonstrate the strength of
the supports of his throne by sawing them through.

About the time of Nimmuria's death Kadashman-Bel of Babylonia also died,
and Burnaburiash, probably his brother or cousin, was prepared on his
accession to maintain the traditional friendship with Egypt. But at the
very beginning Napkhuria was guilty of a breach