rebellion, and is said to have reigned over all Egypt for six years. He
got a name for wisdom and justice, but he could not alter that condition
of affairs which had been gradually brought about by the slow working of
various more or less occult causes, whereby Ethiopia had increased and
Egypt diminished in power, their relative strength, as compared with
former times, having become inverted. Ethiopia, being now the stronger,
was sure to reassert herself, and did so in Bek-en-ranf's seventh year.
Shabak, the son of Kashta, whose character was cast in a far stronger
mould than that of his father, having mounted the Ethiopian throne, lost
no time in swooping down upon Egypt from the upper region, and, carrying
all before him, besieged and took Saïs, made Bek-en-ranf a prisoner, and
barbarously burnt him alive for his rebellion. His fierce and sensuous
physiognomy is quite in keeping with this bloody deed, which was well
calculated to strike terror into the Egyptian nation, and to ensure a
general submission.

The rule of the Ethiopians was now for some fifty years firmly
established. Shabak founded a dynasty which the Egyptians themselves
admitted to be legitimate, and which the historian Manetho declared to
have consisted of three kings--Sabacos (or Shabak), Sevechus (or
Shabatok), and Taracus (or Tehrak), the Hebrew Tirhakah. The extant
monuments confirm the names, and order of succession, of these monarchs.
They were of a coarser and ruder fibre than the native Egyptians, but
they did not rule Egypt in any alien or hostile spirit. On the contrary,
they were pious worshippers of the old Egyptian gods; they repaired and
beautified the old Egyptian temples; and, instead of ruling Egypt, as a
conquered province, from Napata, they resided permanently, or at any
rate occasionally, at the Egyptian capitals, Thebes and Memphis. There
are certain indications which make it probable that to some extent they
pursued the policy of Piankhi, and governed Lower Egypt by means of