Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey.

The main conditions of the exchange were arranged at a banquet, in which they spread before the barbarians a sumptuous display of Egyptian delicacies, consisting of bread, beer, wine, meat, and carefully prepared and flavoured vegetables. Payment for every object was to be made at the actual moment of purchase. For several days there was a constant stream of people, and asses groaned beneath their burdens. The Egyptian purchases comprised the most varied objects: ivory tusks, gold, ebony, cassia, myrrh, cynocephali and green monkeys, greyhounds, leopard skins, large oxen, slaves, and last, but not least, thirty-one incense trees, with their roots surrounded by a ball of earth and placed in large baskets. The lading of the ships was a long and tedious affair. All available space being at length exhausted, and as much cargo placed on board as was compatible with the navigation of the vessel, the squadron set sail and with all speed took its way northwards.

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Drawn by Bouclier, from a photograph by Beato.

The Egyptians touched at several places on the coast on their return journey, making friendly alliances with the inhabitants; the Him added a quota to their freight, for which room was with difficulty found on board,—it consisted not only of the inevitable gold, ivory, and skins, but also of live leopards and a giraffe, together with plants and fruits unknown on the banks of the Nile.*

* Lieblein thought that their country was explored, not by
the sailors who voyaged to Pûanît, 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 Pûanît visited the
Ilîm also. The giraffe which they gave does not appear in
the cargo of the vessels at Pûanît; 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 Pûanît to other kings, by the supreme favour of the venerable god, Amon Râ, 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 Deîr el-Baharî, 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 “of this god Amonrâ of Karnak.”

The great heaps of fresh resin were next the objects of special attention. Hâtshopsîtû “gave a bushel made of electrum to gauge the mass of gum, it being the first time that they had the joy of measuring the perfumes for Amon, lord of Karnak, master of heaven, and of presenting to him the wonderful products of Pûanît. Thot, the lord of Hermo-polis, noted the quantities in writing; Safkhîtâbûi verified the list. Her Majesty herself prepared from it, with her own hands, a perfumed unguent for her limbs; she gave forth the smell of the divine dew, her perfume reached even to Pûanît, her skin became like wrought gold,* and her countenance shone like the stars in the great festival hall, in the sight of the whole earth.”