Page:The Pharaohs and their people; scenes of old Egyptian life and history (IA pharaohstheirpeo00berkiala).pdf/127

 *pressed feelings of rancour and ill-will may be readily imagined.

The coronation of Thothmes was celebrated with all fitting splendour and state, and, for a short time at any rate, the brother and sister ruled jointly. But Hatasu must have felt that her day was over, and after a little while her name silently disappears from the historic records. Of the close of her life we know nothing, but we know that Thothmes, with vindictive satisfaction, chiselled out her name wherever he could find it, and that he always dated the years of his own reign from the time of his brother's death, ignoring Hatasu's sovereignty as a usurpation.

The reign of Thothmes, thus reckoned, was a very long one, close upon 54 years, and much of it was passed by the warlike sovereign in other lands and upon distant battle-fields.

Nubia was by this time really an Egyptian province, and was governed by a viceroy, who was often one of the king's sons. In the gold-yielding districts a miserable population—prisoners, slaves, and criminals, were toiling beneath the scorching sun, extracting the gold