in thought that their country was explored, not by
the sailors who voyaged to Puanit, but by a different body
who proceeded by land, and this view was accepted by Ed.
Meyer. The completed text proves that there was but a single
expedition, and that the explorers of Puanit visited the
Ilim also. The giraffe which they gave does not appear in
the cargo of the vessels at Puanit; the visit must,
therefore, have been paid on the return voyage, and the
giraffe was probably represented on the destroyed part of
the walls where Naville found the image of this animal
wandering at liberty among the woods.

The fleet at length made its reappearance in Egyptian ports, having
on board the chiefs of several tribes on whose coasts the sailors had
landed, and "bringing back so much that the like had never been brought
of the products of Puanit to other kings, by the supreme favour of
the venerable god, Amon Ra, lord of Karnak." The chiefs mentioned were
probably young men of superior family, who had been confided to the
officer in command of the squadron by local sheikhs, as pledges to the
Pharaoh of good will or as commercial hostages. National vanity, no
doubt, prompted the Egyptians to regard them as vassals coming to do
homage, and their gifts as tributes denoting subjection. The Queen
inaugurated a solemn festival in honour of the explorers. The Theban
militia was ordered out to meet them, the royal flotilla escorting them
as far as the temple landing-place, where a procession was formed to
carry the spoil to the feet of the god. The good Theban folk, assembled
to witness their arrival, beheld the march past of the native hostages,
the incense sycomores, the precious gum itself, the wild animals,
the giraffe, and the oxen, whose numbers were doubtless increased a
hundredfold in the accounts given to posterity with the usual official
exaggeration. The trees were planted at Deir el-Bahari, where a sacred
garden was prepared for them, square trenches being cut in the rock and
filled with earth, in which the sycomore, by frequent watering, came to
flourish well.*

* Naville found these trenches still filled with vegetable
mould, and in several of them roots, which gave every
indication of the purpose to which the trenches were
applied. A scene represents seven of the incense sycomores
still growing in their pots, and offered by the queen to the
Majesty "