nsufficient, and their position would
have been precarious if they had not been able to supplement their
stock of provisions from Egypt or Southern Syria. They bartered at the
frontier markets their honey, wool, gums, manna, and small quantities
of charcoal, for the products of local manufacture, but especially for
wheat, or the cereals of which they stood in need. The sight of the
riches gathered together in the eastern plain, from Tanis to Bubastis,
excited their pillaging instincts, and awoke in them an irrepressible
covetousness. The Egyptian annals make mention of their incursions at
the very commencement of history, and they maintained that even the gods
had to take steps to protect themselves from them. The Gulf of Suez and
the mountainous rampart of Gebel Geneffeh in the south, and the marshes
of Pelusium on the north, protected almost completely the eastern
boundary of the Delta; but the Wady Tumilat laid open the heart of the
country to the invaders. The Pharaohs of the divine dynasties in the
first place, and then those of the human dynasties, had fortified this
natural opening, some say by a continuous wall, others by a line of
military posts, flanked on the one side by the waters of the gulf.*

* The existence of the wall, or of the line of military
posts, is of very ancient date, for the name Kim-Oirit is
already followed by the hieroglyph of the wall, or by that
of a fortified enclosure in the texts of the Pyramids.

[Illustration: 156.jpg A BARBARIAN MONITI FROM SINAI]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Petrie. The
original is of the time of Nectanebo, and is at Karnak; I
have chosen it for reproduction in preference to the heads
of the time of the Ancient Empire, which are more injured,
and of which this is only the traditional copy.

Snofrui restored or constructed several castles in this district, which
perpetuated his name for a long time after his death. These had the
square or rectangular form of the towers, whose ruins are still to
be seen on the banks of the Nile. Standing night and day upon the
battlements, the sentinels kept a strict look-out over the desert, ready
to give alarm at the slightest suspicious movement.

[Illustration: 157.jpg TWO REFUGE TOWERS OF THE HIRU-SHAITU, IN THE WADY
BIAR]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the vignette by E. H. Palmer,
_The Desert of the Exodus_, p. 317.

The expression Kim-Oirit, "