ried others with them, and the
whole multitude, gathering momentum as they went, were precipitated in
the direction first given.*

* The Hyksos invasion has been regarded as a natural result
of the Elamite conquest.

A tradition, picked up by Herodotus on his travels, relates that the
Phoenicians had originally peopled the eastern and southern shores of
the Persian Gulf;* it was also said that Indathyrses, a Scythian king,
had victoriously scoured the whole of Asia, and had penetrated as far as
Egypt.** Either of these invasions may have been the cause of the Syrian
migration. In. comparison with the meagre information which has come
down to us under the form of legends, it is provoking to think how much
actual fact has been lost, a tithe of which would explain the cause
of the movement and the mode of its execution. The least improbable
hypothesis is that which attributes the appearance of the Shepherds
about the XXIIIrd century B.C., to the arrival in Naharaim of those
Khati who subsequently fought so obstinately against the armies both of
the Pharaohs and the Ninevite kings. They descended from the mountain
region in which the Halys and the Euphrates take their rise, and if the
bulk of them proceeded no further than the valleys of the Taurus and the
Amanos, some at least must have pushed forward as far as the provinces
on the western shores of the Dead Sea. The most adventurous among them,
reinforced by the Canaanites and other tribes who had joined them on
their southward course, crossed the isthmus of Suez, and finding a
people weakened by discord, experienced no difficulty in replacing the
native dynasties by their own barbarian chiefs.***

* It was to the exodus of this race, in the last analysis,
that the invasion of the shepherds may be attributed

** A certain number of commentators are of opinion that the
wars attributed to Indathyrses have been confounded with
what Herodotus tells of the exploits of Madyes, and are
nothing more than a distorted remembrance of the great
Scythian invasion which took place in the latter half of the
VIIth century B.C.

*** At the present time, those scholars who admit the
Turanian origin of the Hyksos are of opinion that only the
nucleus of the race, the royal tribe, was composed of
Mongols, while the main body consisted of elements of all
kinds--Canaanitish, or, more generally, Semitic.

[Illustr