f the fiefdom
of Elephantine, and was under the immediate authority of its princes.

* This appears to follow from a passage in the inscription
of Uni. This minister was raising troops and exacting wood
for building among the desert tribes whose territories
adjoined at this part of the valley: the manner in which the
requisitions were effected shows that it was not a question
of a new exaction, but a familiar operation, and
consequently that the peoples mentioned had been under
regular treaty obligations to the Egyptians, at least for
some time previously.

Those natives who dwelt on the banks of the river appear to have offered
but a slight resistance to the invaders: the desert tribes proved more
difficult to conquer. The Nile divided them into two distinct bodies. On
the right side, the confederation of the Uauaiu spread in the direction
of the Bed Sea, from the district around Ombos to the neighbourhood of
Korosko, in the valleys now occupied by the Ababdehs: it was bounded on
the south by the Mazaiu tribes, from whom our contemporary Maazeh have
probably descended. The Amamiu were settled on the left bank opposite
to the Mazaiu, and the country of Iritit lay facing the territory of the
Uauaiu. None of these barbarous peoples were subject to Egypt, but
they all acknowledged its suzerainty,--a somewhat dubious one, indeed,
analogous to that exercised over their descendants by the Khedives of
to-day. The desert does not furnish them with the means of subsistence:
the scanty pasturages of their wadys support a few flocks of sheep and
asses, and still fewer oxen, but the patches of cultivation which they
attempt in the neighbourhood of springs, yield only a poor produce of
vegetables or dourah. They would literally die of starvation were they
not able to have access to the banks of the Nile for provisions. On
the other hand, it is a great temptation to them to fall unawares on
villages or isolated habitations on the outskirts of the fertile lands,
and to carry off cattle, grain, and male and female slaves; they would
almost always have time to reach the mountains again with their spoil
and to protect themselves there from pursuit, before even the news
of the attack could reach the nearest police station. Under treaties
concluded with the authorities of the country, they are permitted to
descend into the plain in order to exchange peaceably for corn and
dourah, the acacia-wo