he the queen's reign, Amon enjoined a work which was more
difficult to carry out. On a day when Hatshopsitu had gone to the temple
to offer prayers, "her supplications arose up before the throne of the
Lord of Karnak, and a command was heard in the sanctuary, a behest of
the god himself, that the ways which lead to Puanit should be explored,
and that the roads to the 'Ladders of Incense' should be trodden."*

* The word "Ladders" is the translation of the Egyptian word
"Khatiu," employed in the text to designate the country laid
out in terraces where the incense trees grew; cf. with a
different meaning, the "ladders" of the eastern
Mediterranean.

Gums required for the temple service had hitherto reached the Theban
priests solely by means of foreign intermediaries; so that in the slow
transport across Africa they lost much of their freshness, besides being
defiled by passing through impure hands. In addition to these drawbacks,
the merchants confounded under the one term "Aniti" substances which
differed considerably both in value and character, several of them,
indeed, scarcely coming under the category of perfumes, and hence being
unacceptable to the gods. One kind, however, found favour with them
above all others, being that which still abounds in Somali-land at the
present day--a gum secreted by the incense sycomore.*

* From the form of the trees depicted on the monument, it is
certain that the Egyptians went to Puanit in search of the
_Boswellia Thurifera_ Cart.; but they brought back with them
other products also, which they confounded together under
the name "incense."

It was accounted a pious work to send and obtain it direct from the
locality in which it grew, and if possible to procure the plants
themselves for acclimatisation in the Nile valley. But the relations
maintained in former times with the people of these aromatic regions
had been suspended for centuries. "None now climbed the 'Ladders of
Incense,' none of the Egyptians; they knew of them from hearsay, from
the stories of people of ancient times, for these products were brought
to the kings of the Delta, thy fathers, to one or other of them, from
the times of thy ancestors the kings of the Said who lived of yore." All
that could be recalled of this country was summed up in the facts, that
it lay to the south or to the extreme east, that from thence many of the
gods had come into Egypt, while fro