ty, the Nineteenth, arose under
Ramses I., whose grandson, Ramses II., reigned for sixty-seven years,
and crowded Egypt with his buildings and monuments.

One of the cities he built has been shown by the excavations of Dr.
Naville to have been Pa-Tum, the Pithom of the Old Testament. Ramses
II., therefore, must have been the Pharaoh of the Oppression. The
picture set before us in the first chapter of Exodus fits in exactly
with the character of his reign. The dynasty to which he belonged
represented the reaction against the domination and influence of the
foreigner from Asia, and the oppression of the Israelites would
naturally have been part of its policy. Such of the Asiatics as still
remained in Egypt were turned into public serfs, and measures were taken
to prevent them from multiplying so as to be dangerous to their masters.
The free spirit of the Bedawin was broken by servitude, and every care
was used that they should be unable to help their brethren from Asia in
case of another "Hyksos" invasion. The incessant building operations of
Ramses needed a constant supply of workmen, and financial as well as
political interests thus suggested that merciless _corvee_ of the
Israelites which rendered them at once politically harmless and
serviceable to the state.

In spite of all repression, however, the oppressed people continued to
multiply, and eventually escaped from their "house of bondage." The
stela of Meneptah, on which the name of "Israelites" occurs, implies
that they had already been lost to sight in the desert. The other
nationalities over whom Meneptah is said to have triumphed all have the
term "country" attached to their names; the "Israelites" alone are
without local habitation. Egyptian legend, as reported by the native
historian Manetho, placed the Exodus in the reign of Meneptah, and as
Meneptah was the son and successor of Ramses II., the correctness of the
statement is antecedently probable. It was in the fifth year of his
reign that the Delta was attacked by a formidable combination of foes.
The Libyans threatened it on the west: on the north, bands of
sea-pirates from the coasts of Asia Minor and the islands of the
Mediterranean attacked it by sea and land. A mutilated inscription of
Meneptah tells us how the tents of the invaders had been pitched on the
outskirts of the land of Goshen, within reach of the Bedawin shepherds
who fed their flocks there, and how the troops of the Pharaoh, pressed
at