124 PRINCIPAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE 



the records preserved to us by history and by monumental 

 remains indicate only transitory conquests by land, and but 

 little extensive navigation by the. Egyptians themselves. 

 This civilised nation, so ancient and so powerful, appears to 

 have done less to produce a permanent influence beyond its 

 own borders, than other races less numerous but more active 

 and mobile. The national cultivation, favourable rather to 

 the masses than to individuals, was, as it were, geographically 

 insulated, and remained, therefore, probably unfruitful as 

 respects the extension of cosmical views. Eamses Miamoun 

 (from 1388 to 1322 B.C., 600 years, therefore, before the 

 first Olympiad of Coroebus) undertook, according to Hero- 

 dotus, extensive military expeditions into Ethiopia (where 

 Lepsius considers that his most southern works are to be 

 found near Mount Barkal) ; through Palestinian Syria ; and 

 passing from Asia Minor into Europe, to the Scythians, 

 Thracians, and finally to Colchis and the Phasis, on the 

 banks of which, part of his army, weary of their wander- 

 ings, finally settled. Ramses was also the first so said the 

 priests who, with long ships, subjected to his dominion 

 the dwellers on the coast of the Erythrean, until at length, 

 sailing onwards, he arrived at a sea so shallow as to be no 

 longer navigable. ( 161 ) Diodorus says expressly, that 

 Sesoosis (the great Ramses) advanced in India beyond the 

 Ganges, and that he also brought back captives from 

 Babylon. " The only well-assured fact in relation to the 

 nautical pursuits of the native ancient Egyptians is, that 

 from the earliest times they navigated not only the Nile, but 

 also the Arabian Gulf. The famous copper mines near 

 "Wadi Magara, on the peninsula of Sinai, were worked as 

 tarly as in the time of the fourth dynasty, under Cheops* 



