The chiefs of the Lotan or Syrians are represented in
their robes of many colours, some with white and others with brown
skins, and coming before the Egyptian monarch with the rich tribute of
their country. Golden trays full of precious stones, vases of gold and
silver, the covers of which are in the form of the heads of gazelles and
other animals, golden rings richly enamelled, horses, lions, and a
leopard's skin--such are the gifts which they offer to the Pharaoh. It
was the last embassy of the kind which was destined to come from Syria
for many a day.

With the rise of the nineteenth dynasty and the restoration of a strong
government at home, the Egyptians once more began to turn their eyes
towards Palestine. Seti I. drove the Beduin before him from the
frontiers of Egypt to those of "Canaan," and established a line of
fortresses and wells along "the way of the Philistines," which ran by
the shore of the Mediterranean to Gaza. The road was now open for him to
the north along the sea-coast. We hear accordingly of his capture of
Acre, Tyre, and Usu or Palaetyros, from whence he marched into the
Lebanon and took Kumidi and Inu'am. One of his campaigns must have led
him into the interior of Palestine, since in his list of conquered
cities we find the names of Carmel and Beth-anoth, of Beth-el and Pahil
or Pella, as well as of Qamham or Chimham (see Jer. xli. 17). Kadesh,
"in the land of the Amorites," was captured by a sudden assault, and
Seti claims to have defeated or received the submission of Alasiya and
Naharaim, the Hittites and the Assyrians, Cyprus and Sangar. It would
seem, however, that north of Kadesh he really made his way only along
the coast as far as the Gulf of Antioch and Cilicia, overrunning towns
and districts of which we know little more than the names.

Seti was succeeded by his son Ramses II., the Pharaoh of the Oppression,
and the builder of Pithom and Ramses. His long reign of sixty-seven
years lasted from 1348 B.C. to 1281 B.C. The first twenty-one years of
it were occupied in the re-conquest of Palestine, and sanguinary wars
with the Hittites. But these mountaineers of the north had established
themselves too firmly in the old Egyptian province of Northern Syria to
be dislodged. All the Pharaoh could effect was to stop their further
progress towards the south, and to save Canaan from their grasp. The war
between the two great powers of Western Asia ended at last through the
sheer exhaustion of