Many of them achieved a reputation, and were made the heroes of popular
romance. More than three centuries after it was still related how one
of them, by name Thûtîi, had reduced and humbled Jaffa, whose chief had
refused to come to terms. Thûtîi set about his task by feigning to throw
off his allegiance to Thûtmosis III., and withdrew from the Egyptian
service, having first stolen the great magic wand of his lord; he then
invited the rebellious chief into his camp, under pretence of showing
him this formidable talisman, and killed him after they had drunk
together. The cunning envoy then packed five hundred of his soldiers
into jars, and caused them to be carried on the backs of asses before
the gates of the town, where he made the herald of the murdered prince
proclaim that the Egyptians had been defeated, and that the pack train
which accompanied him contained the spoil, among which was Thûtîi
himself. The officer in charge of the city gate was deceived by this
harangue, the asses were admitted within the walls, where the soldiers
quitted their jars, massacred the garrison, and made themselves masters
of the town. The tale is, in the main, the story of Ali Baba and the
forty thieves.

The frontier was continually shifting, and Thûtmosis III., like
Thûtmosis I., vainly endeavoured to give it a fixed character by
erecting stelas along the banks of the Euphrates, at those points
where he contended it had run formerly. While Kharu and Phoenicia were
completely in the hands of the conqueror, his suzerainty became more
uncertain as it extended northwards in the direction of the Taurus.
Beyond Qodshû, it could only be maintained by means of constant
supervision, and in Naharaim its duration was coextensive with the
sojourn of the conqueror in the locality during his campaign, for it
vanished of itself as soon as he had set out on his return to Africa.
It will be thus seen that, on the continent of Asia, Egypt possessed a