my heart.”
I believe that as he said this his thoughts were with the Princess Baketamon whose beauty had bewitched him.
He gave me much gold, more than I could have imagined-I believe he gave me all the gold he had won in the Syrian campaign-and he furnished me with an escort as far as the coast so that I could travel without fear of robbers. As soon as I arrived there, I placed the gold with a large trading company, exchanging it for clay tablets, which were safer to carry, being useless to thieves, after which I boarded a ship for Smyrna.
BOOK 6
The Day of the False King
1
Before starting on a new book I must give glory to the days gone by when I journeyed unmolested through many lands acquiring wisdom, for such a time will hardly come again. I traveled through a world that for forty years had known no war. Kings everywhere protected caravan routes and the traders who used them, while their ships and Pharaoh’s swept the seas of pirates. Frontiers were open; merchants and travelers who brought gold were welcome in every city, and there was neither bitterness nor dissension between men; they bowed to one another, stretching forth their hands at knee level, and learned one another’s ways. Many of the educated spoke several languages and wrote two kinds of script.
Fields were watered and bore abundant crops, and in the Red Lands the river of the heavens did duty for our Nile and refreshed the earth. In those days cattle roved in safety over the grazing grounds, and the herdsmen carried no spears but played on pipes and sang merry songs. Vineyards prospered, and fruit trees bowed beneath their burdens; priests were fat and shiny with oil; and the smoke from countless sacrifices rose from the forecourts of temples in every country. The gods throve also and were gracious and grew fat upon burnt offerings. The rich became richer, the mighty yet mightier, and the poor poorer, as the gods have decreed, so that all were content and there was no murmuring. Such is the vision I have of this bygone time-a time never to return-when in my young manhood my limbs were unwearied by long journeys, when my eyes were eager for new things, and when my heart, thirsting for knowledge, drank its fill.
And now having praised the past when even the sun shone more brightly and the winds were gentler than in these evil days, I will tell of my journeys and of all I saw and heard. But first I must speak of my return to Smyrna.
When I came home, Kaptah ran to meet me, shouting and weeping for joy, and threw himself at my feet.
“Blessed be the day that brings my lord home!” he cried. “You have returned though I believed you dead in battle-I believed positively that you had been slit open with a spear because you were heedless of my warnings and went forth to see what war is like. Truly our scarab is a powerful god and has protected you, and blessed is the day. My heart is full of gladness at the sight of you, and the gladness flows from my eyes in tears-for I cannot restrain them though I fancied myself your heir and expected to take possession of all the gold you placed with the Smyrna merchants. Yet I do not grieve over this lost wealth, for without you I am like a kid that has lost its dam, and my days are dark. Nor have I stolen more from you than formerly but have guarded your house and property and all your interests so that you return richer than you went.”
He washed my feet and poured water over my hands and tended me in every way with uninterrupted outcry till I ordered him to be silent.
“Make speedy preparation, for we are to set forth upon a journey that may take many years and that will be full of hardships; we go to the land of Mitanni and to Babylon and to the islands in the sea.”
Then Kaptah cried, “Now truly I wish that I had never been born into this world and also that I had never grown fat and prosperous, for the more fortunate a man is the harder is it for him to renounce his ease. Were you to set forth for a month or two, as you have done before, I should say nothing but remain peacefully here in Smyrna. But if your journey is to last for years, you may never return and I never see you again. Therefore, I must come with you, taking our sacred scarab. Against such hazards you will need all possible good fortune, and without the scarab you would tumble into crevasses on your way and be transfixed by the spears of robbers. But it would be better to remain at our house in Smyrna.”
For Kaptah had grown more impudent with every passing year and already spoke of our house and our scarab and when paying for something said our gold.
But I wearied of this, and of his lamentation, and said, “My heart tells me that one fine day you will hang by the heels from the wall for your insolence. Resolve, therefore, whether you will come with me or stay here-and above all cease this continual caterwauling when I would make ready for a long journey.”
At this Kaptah fell silent and became resigned to his fate, and we made ready to depart. Since he had sworn never again to set foot aboard a ship, we joined a caravan that was on its way to northern Syria, for I desired to see the cedars of Lebanon, whence came the timber for the palaces and for the sacred boat of Ammon. Of the journey there was little to say; it was uneventful and no robbers attacked us. The inns were good, and we ate and drank well; at one or two of the stopping places sick people came to us, whom I tended. I journeyed in a chair, for I had had enough of donkeys. Though the dry wind parched my face so that I must be forever rubbing in oil and though the dust choked me and the sand fleas tormented me, yet these seemed but petty trials, and my eyes rejoiced at all they saw.
I saw forests of cedar and trees that were so huge that no Egyptian would believe me if I were to describe them. The fragrance of these woods was most marvelous, and the streams were clear, and it seemed to me that no one who lived in so beautiful a country could be altogether unhappy. But that was before I saw the slaves who felled and stripped the timber to send it down the hillside to the seashore. The misery of these slaves was terrible to witness; their arms and legs were covered with festering sores torn by the bark and by their tools, and on their backs the weals cut by the scourge were alive with flies.
At last we came to the city of Kadesh, where there was a fortress and a large Egyptian garrison. But the walls of the fortress were unguarded, the defenses had crumbled, and both officers and men lived in the city with their families, remembering that they were warriors only on the days when grain and onions and beer were distributed from Pharaoh’s stores. We lingered in the city long enough for the riding sores on Kaptah’s backside to heal. I cured many sick people, for the Egyptian physicians in this place were incompetent, and their names must long have been erased from the Book of Life-if indeed they had ever been inscribed there.
In this city I had a seal cut for me in a rare stone, as befitted my dignity; for seals also differ from those in Egypt, being worn not in a ring but hung about the neck in the form of cylinders that, when rolled over the tablet, leave their impression in the clay. The poor and illiterate merely press their thumbs upon it-if they ever have occasion to make their mark.
We continued our journey and crossed the border into Naharani, none hindering, where we came to a river flowing upward instead of down as the Nile does. We were told that we were in the land of Mitanni, and we paid the travelers’ tax into the royal revenues. But because we were Egyptians, the people greeted us with respect, coming up to us in the street and saying:
“We bid you welcome; our hearts rejoice at the sight of Egyptians, for it is long since we beheld them. Our hearts also are uneasy, for your Pharaoh has sent us no soldiers, no arms, and no gold; and the rumor runs that he has offered to our king some new god of whom we know nothing, though we have already Ishtar of Nineveh and a number of others who have hitherto protected us.”
They invited me to their houses and gave me food and drink, and they also served Kaptah because he was an Egyptian, though only my servant, so that he said to me, “This is a good land. Let us remain here, lord, and practice medicine, for it appears that these people are ignorant and credulous and would be easy to deceive.”
The King of Mitanni and his court had gone up into the mountains for the hot season. I had no desire to follow them there, being impatient to see the wonders of Babylon, of which I had heard so much. But I did as Horemheb had commanded me and spoke with the great ones and with the humble; all told the same tale; all were uneasy.
