134 THE ADVENTURES OF SANEHAT
the time of Sanehat the upper Tenu who held the hills were opposed to the Tenu in general who held the plains; later on the Semites of the hills opposed the Philistines of the plain, and now the fellah of the hills opposes the Bedawi of the plain. The district of Amuanshi in which Sanehat settled was a goodly land, bearing figs and grapes and olives, flowing with wine and honey and oil, yielding barley and wheat without end, and much cattle. This abundance points rather to the hill country near Hebron or between there and Belt Jibrin, as this south part of the hills is notably fertile. The Tenu who came to defy Sanehat, being in opposition to the upper Tenu, were probably those of the plain; and the opposition to Sanehat may have arisen from his encroaching on the fertile plain at the foot of his hills, as he was in the best of the land "on the border of the next land." The Egyptian was evidently looked on as being of a superior race by the Tenu, and
REMARKS 135
his civilisation won for him the confidence which many wandering Englishmen now find in Africa or Polynesia, like John Dunn. The set combat of two champions seems—by the large gathering—to have been a well-recognised custom among the Tenu, while it exactly accords with Goliath's offer in later times. And raising the shout of victory on the back of the fallen champion reminds us of David's standing on Goliath. The transition from the recital of the Syrian adventures to the petition to Pharaoh is not marked in the manuscript; but from the construction the beginning of the petition is evidently at the place here marked. The manner in which Sanehat appeals to the queen shows how well he must have been known to her in his former days. The decree in reply to Sanehat is in the regular style of royal decrees of the period. Apparently by a clerical error the scribe has substituted the name Amenemhat for Userte-sen, but the Horus name and the throne name