dren, whom they suckled beyond the usual period. The men
lived like the Bedouin--periods of activity alternating regularly with
times of idleness, and the daily routine, with its simple duties and
casual work, often gave place to quarrels for the possession of some
rich pasturage or some never-failing well.

A comparatively ancient tradition relates that the Hebrews arrived in
Egypt during the reign of Aphobis, a Hyksos king, doubtless one of the
Apopi, and possibly the monarch who restored the monuments of the Theban
Pharaohs, and engraved his name on the sphinxes of Amenemhait III. and
on the colossi of Mirmashau.* The land which the Hebrews obtained is
that which, down to the present day, is most frequently visited by
nomads, who find there an uncertain hospitality.

* The year XVII. of Apophis has been pointed out as the date
of their arrival, and this combination, probably proposed by
some learned Jew of Alexandria, was adopted by Christian
chroniclers. It is unsupported by any fact of Egyptian
history, but it rests on a series of calculations founded on
the information contained in the Bible. Starting from the
assumption that the Exodus must have taken place under
Ahmosis, and that the children of Israel had been four
hundred and thirty years on the banks of the Nile, it was
found that the beginning of their sojourn fell under the
reign of the Apophis mentioned by Josephus, and, to be still
more correct, in the XVIIth year of that prince.

The tribes of the isthmus of Suez are now, in fact, constantly shifting
from one continent to another, and their encampments in any place are
merely temporary. The lord of the soil must, if he desire to keep them
within his borders, treat them with the greatest prudence and tact.
Should the government displease them in any way, or appear to curtail
their liberty, they pack up their tents and take flight into the desert.
The district occupied by them one day is on the next vacated and left to
desolation. Probably the same state of things existed in ancient times,
and the border nomes on the east of the Delta were in turn inhabited or
deserted by the Bedouin of the period. The towns were few in number,
but a series of forts protected the frontier. These were mere
village-strongholds perched on the summit of some eminence, and
surrounded by a strip of cornland. Beyond the frontier extended a region
of bare rock, or a wi