perpetual state of war--a war without danger, but
full of trickery and surprises: here he prepared himself for the larger
arena of the Syrian campaigns, learning the arts of generalship more
perfectly than was possible in the manouvres of the parade-ground.
Moreover, the appointment was dictated by religious as well as by
political considerations. The presumptive heir to the throne was to his
father what Horus had been to Osiris--his lawful successor, or, if need
be, his avenger, should some act of treason impose on him the duty of
vengeance: and was it not in Ethiopia that Horus had gained his first
victories over Typhon? To begin like Horus, and flesh his maiden steel
on the descendants of the accomplices of Sit, was, in the case of the
future sovereign, equivalent to affirming from the outset the reality of
his divine extraction.*

* In the _Orbiney Papyrus_ the title of "Prince of Kush" was
assigned to the heir-presumptive to the throne.

As at the commencement of the Theban dynasties, it was the river valley
only in these regions of the Upper Nile which belonged to the Pharaohs.
From this time onward it gave support to an Egyptian population as far
as the juncture of the two Niles: it was a second Egypt, but a poorer
one, whose cities presented the same impoverished appearance as that
which we find to-day in the towns of Nubia. The tribes scattered right
and left in the desert, or distributed beyond the confluence of the two
Niles among the plains of Sennar, were descended from the old indigenous
races, and paid valuable tribute every year in precious metals, ivory,
timber, or the natural products of their districts, under penalty of
armed invasion.*

* The tribute of the Ganbatiu, or people of the south, and
that of Kush and of the Uauaiu, is mentioned repeatedly
in the _Annales de Thutmosis III._ for the year XXXI.,
for the year XXXIII., and for the year XXXIV. The
regularity with which this item recurs, unaccompanied by
any mention of war, following after each Syrian campaign,
shows that it was an habitual operation which was
registered as an understood thing. True, the inscription
does not give the item for every year, but then it only
dealt with Ethiopian affairs in so far as they were
subsidiary to events in Asia; the payment was none the
less an annual one, the amount varying in ac