The Stone Ages of SoJith Africa. 193 



This queen planned, and had carried out, the expedition to Punt, •' 

 the principal incidents of which are depicted on the walls of her 

 temple at Der-al-Bahuri. 



There is seen the representation of the King and Queen of Punt 

 and their sons and daughter hringing gifts of the produce of the 

 land to the envoy of Hatschepset (ap. Budge). 



It is the figure of the queen " weaving a single yellow garment," 

 the line drawing not hiding the contour, which leads to this digres- 

 sion about the land of Punt. 



The figure is most evidently steatopygic, like the Bush- Hottentot 

 race. The daughter appears also to be, in spite of her youth, 

 inclined to embonpoint. The hairs of the lady are comparatively 

 long, but it must not be forgotten that the fresco is in accordance 

 with Egyptian tenets of the art of that period, f 



Grotesque indeed must have appeared the figure of the Queen of 

 Punt to the Egyptian envoy, whose idea of beauty was probably 

 the tall, slender type of the ladies of quality of his own nation, as 

 represented in paintings or other reproductions of the period. 



Although it cannot be asserted that the San Bushman or the Hot- 

 tentot was the autochthonous race of Egypt, it is in the ruins of 

 the city of San (the ancient Tanis) that wei'e found the busts of the 

 Hyksos kings, the types of which exhibit essentially Mongohan 

 characters. Sa is the name given to the Bush people by the 

 Hottentots who call themselves Khoi-Khoi ; and it is the " Son-qua" 

 of the Cape Eecords (T. Hahn.). 



That the Bush-Hottentot races should have resulted from this 



* At one time the people of Habasat, known under the name of Pwent or 

 Punt, occupied the district of Southern Arabia now called Dhofar. They traded 

 with myrrh and incense, which they exchanged on the Somali coast, and 

 perhaps on the high plateaux of Abyssinia. Periodic migration, followed possibly 

 by true invasion, ensued, but eventually the mountainous I'egion of Adowa 

 became the new country of the Habasat. This is said to be the origin of the 

 name Abyssinia. The identity of the name both in Arabia and Abyssinia itself 

 is amply demonstrated by inscriptions found on both sides of the Red Sea (E. 

 Eeclus). But it is with the country of Punt that we are actually concerned, 

 because the Egyptians seem to have given that name to a portion of the coast on 

 each side of the southern part of the Eed Sea, which they also called " Ta Meter," 

 the divine land. 



" These names may have, and most probably did, include a portion of Somali- 

 land, which in fine weather the Egyptian sailors would have no difficulty in 

 reaching. In any case, we know that the Egyptians went to Punt for gums and 

 spices " (Budge). 



t The curly frizzle of the head of a negro from Nubia, in a painting dating from 

 about the fiftieth year of Thothmes III. (1580 b.c), is so conventional as to 

 resemble a longitudinally plaited, saucer-like head-covering. 



1.3 



