Page 214 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

THE RESISTANCE MOVEMENT

158O-I5IO B.C.

| h e summer sun burnt down on a river crowded with

boats of every shape and size. For forty miles in both directions,

along the broad thoroughfare of the Nile the people of the

villages were converging on Thebes. Along the dusty banks trains
of donkeys, palanquins, and thronging white-clad crowds

pressed in the same direction. From the smaller roads which led

from the villages up under the cliffs lining the valley of the up­
per Nile, groups of farmers and their families shouldered their

way into the throng on the main road.

In Thebes the crowds choked the narrow streets. All the
shops were shut, and the merchants and artisans, the slaves and

BOATS SUCH AS THIS, OF PAPYRUS REEDS BOUND TOGETHER, WERE
(and are to this day) a common means of transport along

THE NILE. THE RELIEF FROM WHICH THIS DRAWING WAS MADE WAS
FOUND IN A TOMB AT SAKKARA, AND DATES TO ABOUT 2250 B.C.
(SOME SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS EARLIER THAN THIS CHAPTER).