n--Conquest of Lotanu and of Mitanni--The campaign of the 33rd year
of the king's reign._

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CHAPTER III--THE EIGHTEENTH THEBAN DYNASTY

_Thutmosis I. and his army--Hatshopsitu and Thutmosis III._

The account of the first expedition undertaken by Thutmosis in Asia,
a region at that time new to the Egyptians, would be interesting if
we could lay our hands upon it. We should perhaps find in the midst of
official documents, or among the short phrases of funerary biographies,
some indication of the impression which the country produced upon its
conquerors.

With the exception of a few merchants or adventurers, no one from Thebes
to Memphis had any other idea of Asia than that which could be gathered
from the scattered notices of it in the semi-historical romances of
the preceding age. The actual sight of the country must have been a
revelation; everything appearing new and paradoxical to men of whom
the majority had never left their fatherland, except on some warlike
expedition into Ethiopia or on some rapid raid along the coasts of the
Red Sea. Instead of their own narrow valley, extending between its two
mountain ranges, and fertilised by the periodical overflowing of the
Nile which recurred regularly almost to a day, they had before them
wide irregular plains, owing their fertility not to inundations, but
to occasional rains or the influence of insignificant streams; hills of
varying heights covered with vines and other products of cultivation;
mountains of different altitudes irregularly distributed, clothed with
forests, furrowed with torrents, their summits often crowned with snow
even in the hottest period of summer: and in this region of nature,
where everything was strange to them, they found nations differing
widely from each other in appearance and customs, towns with crenellated
walls perched upon heights difficult of access; and finally, a
civilization far excelling that which they encountered anywhere in
Africa outside their own boundaries. Thutmosis succeeded in reaching on
his first expedition a limit which none of his successors was able
to surpass, and the road taken by him in this campaign--from Gaza to
Megiddo, from Megiddo to Qodshu, from Qodshu to Carchemish--was that
which was followed henceforward by the Egyptian troops in all their
expeditions to the Euphrates. Of the difficulties which he encountered
on his way we have no information. On arriving