When Tchekeea was three years old, Kiodas, King of Minoas, came to Kam upon a state visit. The bonds of friendship between his country and ours were strong, and we promised that within the year we would journey to his island kingdom.
Next year, being the fifth year in my reign, on the second day of the fourth month we said farewell to my little Tchekeea and to my mother. I wished they had been coming with us to Minoas, but in our absence our mother would shepherd our people, and I knew that Tchekeea would be happier staying with her in the freedom of the palace than she would have been, shut in by the narrow decks of a ship voyage of many days.
For a long time I had wanted to see Minoas, but there can be little joy in setting forth upon a journey when one you love is further away from you with each cubit that you travel. Kam was tranquil, for since Neyah had subdued the people of Punt, none challenged the strength of Atet; but when the rowers swept the Royal Barge downstream and I saw Tchekeea growing smaller in the distance as she stood holding my mother’s hand on the quay, I almost wished that some danger threatened Kam so that I could tell the ship-master to put back.
There were six barges in our train. With us went Ptah-kefer, Zertar, and two looking-girls; my four personal attendants and ten serving women; six young nobles and twenty attendants of Neyah’s; Zeb and three other captains with three hundred of the Royal Bodyguard; eight musisans—three harps, two flutes, and three reed-pipes—all of whom were singers. As gifts to the king we took a tame lion cub, four months old; two cedarwood chests of gold; necklaces of lapis lazuli, cornelian, amethyst, and wine-stone; fifty rolls of fine linen; four chests decorated in gold and faience; and twelve tusks of ivory.
It took us six days to reach the coast, for we stopped each day to give audience to the assembled people, as my father had done when as children we had travelled with him to Na-kish.
The people of the North are smaller in stature, though more heavily built, than those of the South; their voices have a rougher sound and their words are not so musical. Here at certain times of the year rain falls, and there is never a scarcity of water. It is the country of great granaries, and before the fields are harvested a sea of corn stretches as far as the eye can reach. The chief city of the North is on the eastern mouth of the river, near the sea. It is called Iss-an, as is the Northern Garrison, which is on the outskirts of the city, to the east; and it is from here that the Delta is administered. In the days when the Lotus and the Papyrus grew not in the same pool and the Bees dwelt not among the Reeds, Iss-an was the royal city of the King of the North.
Horem-ka, the Vizier, lived in the old palace. He was a mighty warrior as well as a man of great wisdom, and he had fought beside my father in the last battle against the Zumas. He had a son, eight years old, who was also called Horem-ka. I told the boy that he must grow up in his father’s image so that one day he too should be a vizier of Kam. I gave him a model boat of sycamore wood with ivory oars, like the ones that Neyah used to carve; to his little sisters I gave toys, and to his mother a necklace of gold and lapis lazuli.
We stayed there for three days and held audience for our people, who had gathered from far across the grain-lands to see Pharaoh. On the fourth day we embarked on our big seagoing ships. The sail of the royal ship was scarlet, and the black hull was picked out in blue and gold. Five other ships of Kam went with us, and Kiodas had sent eight of his fleet to be our escort. His ships are higher in the water than ours and have two banks of oars, but the sails are smaller. The prow of each is carved like a fish, for the sea is their element.
We sailed north-east for three days until we sighted the coast; then with a fair wind we sailed north for eight days, with hills on the horizon to our right. We passed three ships of Kam south-bound with cedarwood.
I could not share with Neyah his love for ships when they challenged a rough sea. I love the sea-bird skimming of a little sailing-boat and the royal progress of a barge that travels the river majestic as a swan. But I hated the storms that now assailed us, when our ship laboured up the green mountains of the waves or troughed with despair in watery valleys. The fiercer the storm, the more the heart of Neyah rejoiced. For hours he stood at the steering-oar, and he seemed to delight in feeling his skin flailed with spray. The waves washed over the rowers, who strained at their oars to keep the bows of our ship proud to the wind. When the doors and shutters of the deck-house were closed, it was as though we had been swallowed into the belly of a fish; and when they were open the water poured in to share with our other torments. My women lay upon their mattresses and prayed to Ptah of his compassion to let them die. I was not sick, but I longed to be a god to hold out my hands and bid the waves be still.
After the long night the storm abated and the sea grew quiet. My women combed the tangles from their hair and wiped off the eye-paint, which had run upon their cheeks. They crept out on deck and sat forlornly in the sun. Now that the sea was gentle, they praised it as carefully as a man walks past the cage of a wild leopard when he thinks the bars are frail.
On the twelfth day we landed at a large island, a province of Minoas, while our ships were freshly provisioned with lettuces, radishes and pot-herbs, pomegranates, grapes and oranges; goats’ cheese and butter; a little fish, preserved in oil. Here are the vineyards that yield the famous wine, of which a hundred jars are sent each year to Kam as gifts; and the fields of violets from which oil for unguents is distilled. We slept that night at the house of the governor; and when we left we gave him two gold armlets and a necklace for his wife.
We sailed north again until we sighted the mountainous coast, which we kept on our right hand for five days. Then we bore southwards, passing by the Island of Bakiss, in whose fine harbour many ships of the Minoan fleet are built. On the high ground of this island there lives a breed of goat with long silken hair, from which the finest woollen stuffs are made. The wind was fair and we did not stop, but kept south of the sunset until we saw the great island of Minoas.
As we came within sight of its shores, a fleet of fifty ships put out from the harbour to greet us. The largest of them had a sail of cornelian-red and white, which are the royal colours of Minoas.
While the two royal ships floated beside each other quietly as two oxen in a stall, a wooden bridge was put between them and we crossed over it to greet Kiodas. He wore a draped tunic of white, bordered with purple and gold; and his bronze hair, which curled to his shoulders, was bound with a plain golden fillet. His sandals were studded with amethysts, and he wore a large amethyst on the first finger of his right hand. As soon as we had stepped on deck, girls, wearing thin tunics the colour of almond blossom, played on lyres and cymbals and sang us welcome:
Kiodas told me that his queen, Artemiodes, waited to welcome us at the palace. The harbour was alive with little boats, who cheered us as the royal vessel was rowed to the quay. The shore was crowded with people from the neighbouring villages, who craned over one another’s shoulders to see us, chattering together in their excitement. They were gaily dressed in brilliant colours, which were not hard and clear like the dress of the people of Kam, for to each colour there were many tones. Everyone that I looked at smiled a welcome with the quick open-hearted friendliness of children; and I felt that each one of them rejoiced that we visited their country.