e fleet,
the two Ahmosi of Nekhabit occupying the highest posts. The Egyptians,
as was customary, landed at the nearest point to the enemy's territory,
and succeeded in killing a few of the rebels. Ahmosi-si-Abina brought
back two prisoners and three hands, for which he was rewarded by a gift
of two female Bedouin slaves, besides the "gold of valour." This victory
in the south following on such decisive success in the north, filled the
heart of the Pharaoh with pride, and the view taken of it by those who
surrounded him is evident even in the brief sentences of the narrative.
He is described as descending the river on the royal galley, elated
in spirit and flushed by his triumph in Nubia, which had followed so
closely on the deliverance of the Delta. But scarcely had he reached
Thebes, when an unforeseen catastrophe turned his confidence into alarm,
and compelled him to retrace his steps. It would appear that at the
very moment when he was priding himself on the successful issue of his
Ethiopian expedition, one of the sudden outbreaks, which frequently
occurred in those regions, had culminated in a Sudanese invasion of
Egypt. We are not told the name of the rebel leader, nor those of the
tribes who took part in it. The Egyptian people, threatened in a moment
of such apparent security by this inroad of barbarians, regarded them
as a fresh incursion of the Hyksos, and applied to these southerners
the opprobrious term of "Fever-stricken," already used to denote their
Asiatic conquerors. The enemy descended the Nile, committing terrible
atrocities, and polluting every sanctuary of the Theban gods which came
within their reach. They had reached a spot called Tentoa,* before they
fell in with the Egyptian troops. Ahmosi-si-Abina again distinguished
himself in the engagement. The vessel which he commanded, probably the
_Rising in Memphis_, ran alongside the chief galliot of the Sudanese
fleet, and took possession of it after a struggle, in which Ahmosi
made two of the enemy's sailors prisoners with his own hand. The king
generously rewarded those whose valour had thus turned the day in his
favour, for the danger had appeared to him critical; he allotted to
every man on board the victorious vessel five slaves, and five ancra of
land situated in his native province of each respectively. The invasion
was not without its natural consequences to Egypt itself.

* The name of this locality does not occur elsewhere; it
would