have endeavored to represent these relations
with the utmost fidelity to the testimony of the monuments. For the
description of the Hebrews, which is mentioned in the Scriptures, the
Bible itself offers the best authority. The character of the "Pharaoh of
the Exodus" I also copied from the Biblical narrative, and the portraits
of the weak King Menephtah, which have been preserved, harmonize
admirably with it. What we have learned of later times induced me to
weave into the romance the conspiracy of Siptah, the accession to the
throne of Seti II., and the person of the Syrian Aarsu who, according to
the London Papyrus Harris I., after Siptah had become king, seized the
government.

The Naville excavations have fixed the location of Pithom-Succoth beyond
question, and have also brought to light the fortified store-house of
Pithom (Succoth) mentioned in the Bible; and as the scripture says the
Hebrews rested in this place and thence moved farther on, it must be
supposed that they overpowered the garrison of the strong building and
seized the contents of the spacious granaries, which are in existence at
the present day.

In my "Egypt and the Books of Moses" which appeared in 1868, I stated
that the Biblical Etham was the same as the Egyptian Chetam, that is,
the line of fortresses which protected the isthmus of Suez from the
attacks of the nations of the East, and my statement has long since
found universal acceptance. Through it, the turning back of the Hebrews
before Etham is intelligible.

The mount where the laws were given I believe was the majestic Serbal,
not the Sinai of the monks; the reasons for which I explained fully
in my work "Through Goshen to Sinai." I have also--in the same
volume--attempted to show that the halting-place of the tribes called in
the Bible "Dophkah" was the deserted mines of the modern Wadi Maghara.

By the aid of the mental and external experiences of the characters,
whose acts have in part been freely guided by the author's imagination,
he has endeavored to bring nearer to the sympathizing reader the human
side of the mighty destiny of the nation which it was incumbent on him
to describe. If he has succeeded in doing so, without belittling the
magnificent Biblical narrative, he has accomplished his desire; if he
has failed, he must content himself with the remembrance of the pleasure
and mental exaltation he experienced during the creation of this work.

Tutzing on the Starnberger Se