SEN MUT—AN EGYPTIAN CRICHTON 37 
After tracing Sen Mut’s early life as a boy, a labourer, and his 
escape from drudgery, hardship, and cruelties to the position of a 
foreman, we follow him through a seriesof brilliant successes, becoming 
the glorious friend of his Sovereign, and filling offices usually reserved 
for members of the royal family. Finally the honours of the collars of 
gold and hereditary princely rank were bestowed, and his grateful 
queen erected a monument to him in his life time. 
I shall make no attempt to panegyrize the man or his work, 
but place a bare record of what he accomplished and the influence 
he exerted upon the Pharoahs he served. In the history of all 
great nations we not only meet with the names of marvellously 
eminent men, but with those of almost equally eminent women ; 
and, so far as the story has been unravelled, no one presents a more 
striking figure than Queen Hatshepsut. From 1525 to 1481 n.c. 
this magnificent woman-Pharoah swayed the destiny of her empire. 
She was the great grand-daughter of Aahmas, who shook off 
the yoke of the Hyksos, drove out the alien Shepherd Kings, welded 
Upper and Lower Egypt into one empire, and was the founder of 
the 18th dynasty, the duration of which covers the most fascinating 
historic period of Egypt. Her father, Thothmes the ist, had 
extended his territories to the south and east, and, after a life spent 
in conquest, desiring ease from some of the cares of the State, he for 
the last seven years of his life associated his daughter with him in 
the government —and presented her in the great temple at Karnak 
to the gods as his successor —being the only surviving child of his 
first wife, and heir to the throne. Women always stood on a level 
with men in Ancient Egypt, and as far back as the 2nd dynasty had 
been permitted to rule as Queens. 
Hatshepsut was married to her half-brother (afterwards 
Thothmes 2nd), and associated with him in the government (his part 
being almost that of a cypher). Such marriages and arrangements 
were by no means uncommon. 
Queen Hatshepsut was a woman with strong common sense, 
clear judgment, directness of purpose, quickness of action, a great, 
love of commerce, a passion for building, a broad grasp of State 
questions, and a generally enlarged view (for those times) of the 
