the Ethiopians, and conquered them, when he married that king's daughter, because, out of her affection for him, she delivered the city up to him." Josephus has a complete chapter, in the Second Book of his Antiquities, on the war carried on by Moses against the Ethiopians, in which he relates "how a royal city, then called Saba, but afterwards Meroë, was besieged by Moses; how Tharbis, the daughter of the Ethiopian king, happened to see him as he led the army near the walls, and conceiving a sudden passion of love for him, delivered up the city into his hands." Now, Moses was adopted and educated by a daughter of one of the Shepherd Kings of the second dynasty, and we may perhaps conclude that this irruption of Ethiopians into Egypt, which called forth the military energies of Moses, was not, strictly speaking, Ethiopian, but an invasion of the adherents of the native Egyptian monarch who had been compelled to retire, when the fierce Shepherds a second time conquered the country.

There is one circumstance which certainly militates against the supposition that the Israelites formed any alliance with the new dynasty of Shepherd invaders, and that is the grievous oppressions to which they were subjected in common with the native Mizraim. The warlike Shepherds must have passed through the country of Goshen, and discovered that the Israelites were in a condition, by their numbers and their strength, to have offered a powerful resistance. This new king, the head of a dynasty which continued to reign till the departure of the Israelites, thus appears to have been a foreigner. "He found himself," says Mr Faber, "master of a land in which were two distinct races of men, who from a series of mutual benefits had generally lived in strict amity with each other; and he was fully aware, that notwithstanding any temporary disgust, the Israelites were far more likely to make common cause with their friends the Mizraim than with himself and his intrusive warriors. Hence, to a man who

VOL. I.

was retained by no nice scruples of conscience, who considered only how he might best secure his conquest, and who neither knew nor regarded Joseph, the policy is obvious, and the principle of it is most distinctly exposed by Moses." He said unto his servants, "Behold the people of the Children of Israel are more and mightier than we"-which was not really true, but was said to rouse his followers to a sense of their danger, or it might be that he thought them more numerous than was consistent with his own safety-" Come on, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land." "Every part of this declaration," continues the learned writer, "throws light upon the history, and serves to prove that the new king and his people were foreigners. With the natural feelings of a conqueror, and with the superadded remembrance of a former expulsion from this very country, he anticipated a probable rebellion of the Mizraim, and he shrewdly conjectured that, while he was engaged in reducing them to obedience, or in resisting an invasion of the dethroned king from the Thebais, whither, according to Manetho, he had retired, the Israelites, compactly associated in the Land of Goshen, would take him in the rear, and thus place him between two enemies. His fears were increased by observing the formidable numbers of that people, which he describes as even exceeding his own. At this period the Israelites had been in Egypt somewhat more than a century, and when they first emigrated, they consisted only of seventy persons, exclusive of Joseph and his two sons. Rapid as their increase might be, it is utterly incredible that they should exceed in number the native Mizraim, who had been settled in a fertile land for the space of full six centuries and a half." Mr Faber then concludes, from the "rational principles of increase in a good country," that the thing "cannot be admitted for a moment," and,

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therefore, when the king of Egypt said that the "Children of Israel are more and mightier than we," he did not speak to the native Mizraim, but to his confidential people the invading tribe, who were the smallest in point of population, as is always the case in such circumstances; and "the pastoral warriors felt it necessary to compensate for their paucity by their courage, by their strict union, by constituting themselves the sole military class, and by exercising what was deemed a profound political sagacity," while the lawful or native king of Egypt, "and a considerable part of the warriors and priests, took refuge in the Thebais, or in Ethiopia."

We have the authority of Scripture for the fact that the Israelites were dreadfully oppressed in Egypt, while we have also the direct evidence of Manetho and Herodotus that the Mizraim were equally enslaved by this new dynasty of Shepherd Kings. Manetho makes strong complaints of the treatment which the native Egyptians experienced, while Herodotus expressly mentions that their names were held in utter hatred by the people. It is unnecessary to follow these and other ancient historians throughout all their discrepancies of dates, and the variations in the accounts they have transmitted to our times. We have discovered that the "new king over Egypt," mentioned by Moses, refers to the return of the Shepherds that the accounts both of the sacred and profane writers accurately correspond-that the second dynasty of the pastoral herdsmen tyrannized equally over the Israelites and the native Mizraim-and that when we read in the Book of Exodus, of the ". Egyptians making the Children of Israel to serve with rigour," we are to understand not the native Mizraim or real Egyptians, but the followers of the Shepherd tyrants. Herodotus states that the tyranny exercised over the native Mizraim consisted chiefly in forcing them to labour as builders, reducing them to absolute servitude, compelling some to hew stones in the quarries of the Arabian mountains,

others to drag them with infinite labour to the Nile, and others to float them down that river in proper vessels. In this service the historian informs us 100,000 men were employed, who were relieved every three months—that ten years were occupied in making the road over which these immense blocks were conveyed-a work, in his estimation, scarcely less stupendous than the pyramids themselves, "not to mention the time employed in the vaults of the hill upon which the pyramids are erected"-that this was only the beginning of their labours, compared with the rearing of the enormous mass of the great pyramid, which was a work of twenty years—that the supplies for building the second pyramid were procured by the daughter of the Shepherd tyrant Cheops prostituting her person, and demanding a single stone from each of her lovers, an idle story, which has been generally treated as a fable-and that the tyranny ended in the brother or son of Cheops, who built the third pyramid, for he was succeeded by a king whom Herodotus calls Myce nus, and says that he was the son of Cheops, a mistake on the part of the historian, who has confounded him with the Shepherd Kings, while it is evident that he was a descendant of the ancient dynasty. This king was just and merciful, and the oppressed Mizraim were relieved from the tyranny of their former masters, who were finally extirpated or expelled. Such is the account of Herodotus; and in a similar manner Moses says that the tyranny exercised over the Israelites was of the same de scription. They were compelled to labour, and were the builders, as many think, of at least one of the pyramids. "They set over them taskmasters,” says Moses, "to afflict them with their burdens: and they built for Pharaoh treasure-cities, Pithom and Raamses (Rameses); and the Egyptians made the Children of Israel to serve with rigour; and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field;

all their service wherein they made them serve was with rigour.", The phrase treasure-cities has been variously rendered; either store-houses, store-cities, granaries, fortresses, or walled towns, are the alternatives. The proper names, however, seem to indicate that towns were intended, Pithom, or Bethon, "the house of On," or of the Sun, being, according to Bryant, on the authority of Ptolemy, a second Heliopolis, built upon the confines of Arabia. Instead of Rameses, the Greek version reads Raamses. Authors are not agreed as to the exact sites of both cities, but as the Land of Goshen is called the Land of Rameses by anticipation, Gen. xlvii. 11, we may conclude with Eusebius, that the town Raamses was in that territory to which it gave or from which it received its name. It is evident that they were expressly built for Pharaoh, either for the purpose of storing the goods which in different districts belonged to the king, or as garrisons to control and command the adjacent country. The Hebrew kings had store-cities of the former description, 2 Chron. viii. 4, 6; xxxii. 27-30. The learned Michaëlis thinks that the Egyptian government obliged the Hebrews to relinquish the habit of living in tents, but St Jerome in the Vulgate takes an exactly opposite view of the passage, and describes Pithom and Raamses as urbes tabernacutorum, or cities of tents. Josephus confirms the account of Moses in a more ample manner. After observing that the Egyptians became "very ill affected towards the Hebrews, as touched with envy at their prosperity," and "having at length forgotten the benefits they had received from Joseph," he proceeds to state that, "particularly the crown being now come into another family, they became very abusive to the Egyptians, and contrived many ways of afflicting them, for they enjoined them to cut a great number of channels in the river, and to build walls for their cities, and ramparts that they might restrain the river, and 'hinder its waters from stagnating upon its running over its own banks; they set

them also to build pyramids, and by all this wore them out, and forced them to learn all sorts of mechanical arts, and to accustom themselves to hard labour. Four hundred years did they spend under these afflictions, for they strove one against the other which should get the mastery-the Egyptians desiring to destroy the Israelites by these labours, and the Israelites desiring to hold out to the end under them."

Herodotus informs us that the diet of the toiling Mizraim consisted of radishes, onions, and garlic, the various sums expended for which were inscribed in Egyptian characters on the outside of the great pyramid. "This, as I well remember my interpreter informed me, amounted to no less a sum than 1600 talents," exclusive of the "necessary cost for iron, tools, food, and clothes for the workmen." Moses likewise represents the diet of the Israelites as consisting of fish, cucumbers, and melons, leeks, onions, and garlic," Numb. xi. 5. Herodotus and Manetho agree in asserting that this second tyranny of the fierce herdsmen did not overtake the Mizraim unexpectedly, but had been expressly foretold by an oracle. Moses records a similar prediction connected with the Israelites. The oppression under which they laboured, in common with the native Mizraim, could not have come upon them unexpectedly, for it had been expressly foretold to their great ancestor Abraham by an immediate communication from God:-" And when the sun was gone down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him; and he said unto Abraham, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not thine, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterwards shall they come out with great substance," Gen. xv. 12, 13, 14. The Scriptures, indeed, mention the oppression of the Israelites only, but it is evident that both they and the native Mizraim were treated in the same manner by a foreigner, and that,

foreigner was the "new king," who was not acquainted with Joseph's services. The Scriptures not only seem to imply this, but even to exculpate the Mizraim from tyrannizing over the Israelites. On this subject Mr Faber offers some very conclusive and most satisfactory observations. "One of the precepts of Moses is, Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, and the alleged reason is, Because thou wast a stranger in his land. Now this must appear not a little extraordinary to any one who understands the Egyptian history as it has been commonly received. The chosen people might indeed be forbidden to abhor an Egyptian, on the broad principle of forgiveness of injuries, but it seems very strange that the prohibition should be made to rest upon such a basis as the present-that they should be charged not to hate an Egyptian, because they had suffered from him a most iniquitous oppression. The matter, however, becomes perfectly intelligible when the real state of the case is known. So far from being ill treated by the friendly Mizraim, the Israelites, from first to last, had experienced nothing but kindness from them, for instead of being the oppressors of God's people, they had themselves groaned under the very same intolerable yoke. Accordingly, we find another precept of the law specially built upon this which we have just seen elucidated; and it may be observed, that without such elucidation the additional precept involves a glaring contradiction. An Ammonite and a Moabite were never to enter the congregation of the Lord; even the lapse of ten generations could not render them admissible. inquire the reason of this rigorous exclusion? It was professedly the evil treat ment which the Israelites received at their hands. But the children of an Egyptian might freely enter into the Lord's congregation so early as the third descent. And why? Because Israel was a stranger in his land, when yet oppression was accumulated upon oppression. Here it is plain that, according to the usual mode of understanding the history of

Do we

God's people in Egypt, the identical reason which is alleged for the eternal exclusion of an Ammonite or a Moabite is adduced for the admission of an Egyp tian in the third generation; the former were to be abominated, and for ever shut out, because they maltreated the Israelites; the latter was to be cherished and received as a brother, after a short prescribed interval, still because he also had maltreated the chosen race! But let the history be rightly explained, and every contradiction vanishes. Under an inperfect dispensation, which required an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, the injuries of Moab and Ammon were never to be forgotten; while the fostering friendship of the ever kind and hospitable Mizraim was eternally to be remembered and requited."

The inspired historian informs us that the lives of the Israelites were made "bitter" unto them with "hard bondage," in "mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service." There are many suppositions and theories as to the works on which the Israelites were employed in Egypt. Josephus says that they assisted to erect the pyramids. It is likely, as Dr Hales conjectures, that the principal brick pyramids are their works. The "treasure cities," Exod. i. 11, and the "bricks made of straw," Exod. v. 7, imply that they were employed in the public works, and this explains what Josephus says as to their being compelled to labour at all kinds of mechanical employments, such as cutting canals, erecting ramparts, raising the walls of cities, and building pyramids. Old writers often objected to the statement of Josephus respecting the pyramids, alleging that they are built of stone, but it is now ascertained that all the pyramids are not of stone, and even if they were, it by no means follows that the Hebrews did not work in stone as well as in brick. It is true that when Moses commenced his important mission, they were chiefly employed in making bricks like those of which the walls of Babylon were built; yet there is no reason to conclude that

because they were making bricks when Moses returned from Midian, they had been so employed for nearly one hundred years, as the oppression of the Israelites commenced before Moses was born, he being eighty years of age when he stood before Pharaoh. There is a large pyramid of sun-dried bricks at Faioum, the ancient Arsinoë. The bricks of which it is formed are made of black loamy friable earth, or mud from the Nile, compacted with chopped straw, like the bricks made in Egypt and in the East to this day. "At one place," says Mr Jowett of the Church Missionary Society, "the people were making bricks with straw cut into small pieces, and mingled with the clay to bind it. Hence it is that when villages built of these bricks fall into rubbish, which is often the case, the roads are full of small particles of straws, extremely offensive to the eyes in a high wind. They were, in short, engaged exactly as the Israelites used to be, making bricks with straw, and for a similar purpose to build extensive granaries for the Pacha-treasure cities for Pharaoh." The pyramid at Faioum stands on an elevated sandy plain; its base is one hundred and twenty-two yards, and its height about one hundred and ninetyseven feet. There are other brick pyramids at Dashour and Saccara, which differ little from the one at Faioum except in size and preservation. The latter is described as having lost much of its pyramidal form, and as now resembling the ruined mounds of Babylon, constructed of similar materials; and it is curious that Herodotus, who describes the Tower of Babel as a pyramid, having graduated storeys diminishing the ascent, mentions the pyramids of Egypt as having storeys or platforms, also diminishing in size as they rose in height, and that they were afterwards smoothed in surface by being coated with blocks of stone, which filled up the interstices between the different storeys, so as to obliterate the graduated by a sloping appearance. We are farther informed that the pyramids of the Nile may be considered as identical with

similar structures on the banks of the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Ganges. If, then, the Israelites were employed on the pyramids by the Shepherd tyrants, those celebrated piles now existing in Egypt were not native Egyptian structures, but the work of a foreign people, reared on the soil of Egypt. It is a very remarkable circumstance that the pyramids are confined to that district of Egypt which the Shepherds occupied, and that none are in the vicinity of Thebes, the ancient seat of Egyptian literature and religion. Some Arabian writers mention that they were built by a people from Arabia, who after a long tyranny were expelled from Egypt. But although the Shepherd Kings probably came immediately from Arabia, their original migration was certainly from more eastern regions. The Indian annals, we have seen, record a migration from the East of a race of Pali or Shepherds, doubtless the Philites of Herodotus, who spread themselves westwards, even to Africa and Europe. There is another record of an ancient Indian king, whose empire Vishnu enlarged by enabling him to conquer Misra-stan, or the Land of Egypt, where his immense wealth enabled him to raise three mountains, the first called Ruem-adri, or the mountain of gold; the second, Rujat-adri, or the mountain of silver; and the third, Retuadri, or the mountain of gems. These artificial mountains are certainly the pyramids, and, as Dr Hales supposes, they may have been so distinguished by the colour of the stone with which they were coated. If Egypt, therefore, was governed by the Shepherd Kings during the bondage of the Israelites, which we think may be inferred from sacred and is asserted by profane history, and if the pyrainids were erected by those Shepherd Kings, there is almost a certainty that the enslaved Israelites would be compelled to assist the equally enslaved Mizraim, although there is no reason to suppose that the former were exclusively engaged in any public work. Voltaire considers the construction of the pyramids as a