captivity, render this view impossible. Jerusalem or Jebus, which the Hyksos are here said to have founded, did not come thoroughly into the possession of the Hebrews till the time of David-five or six centuries after the date assigned to the expulsion of the Hyksos. On the whole, the most likely supposition is, that the Hyksos were a Semitic people, who, after their expulsion from Egypt, went into Palestine and the adjacent parts of Syria, becoming mingled there with their kinsmen the Canaanites and Phonicians, who already possessed the land. On this supposition the Jebusites the Canaanitish tribe who occupied Jebus or Jerusalem and its vicinity at the time when the Israelites under Joshua entered Palestine-were a branch of the Hyksos. That which renders this more probable is that the Philistines, who, at the time of their wars with the Hebrews, are spoken of as possessing Southern Palestine, were always regarded by the Hebrews themselves as immigrants from Egypt.

26. But though the Hyksos were not identical with the Israelites, the fortunes of the Israelites in Egypt seem to have been greatly affected by the fate of the Hyksos. Like the Hyksos, the Israelites were a Semitic people; they also followed the profession of shepherds, which, after the expulsion of the Hyksos, or even while they yet ruled in Egypt, was, we are told," an abomination to the Egyptians." Accordingly, under the Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty -that is, of the Theban or Diospolitan family, by whose exertions the Hyksos were expelled, and who obtained, as the reward of their patriotism, the supremacy of all Egypt--the Israelites, who had now for several generations been settled in the land of Goshen, began to be harshly treated. "There arose up," says the Biblical history (Exodus, chap. i.), "a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: 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. Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built

But

for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. 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 opening words of this narrative are understood to point to the change of dynasty in Egypt as the cause of the altered treatment which the Israelites experienced; and the allusion made by the Pharaoh of the new dynasty to the chance that the Israelites might join the enemies of Egypt in the event of a war, may be a reference to the expelled Hyksos, and to the chance that their Semitic kinsmen, the Hebrews, might assist them to regain the country.

27. Which of the Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty is referred to in the foregoing passage is not very clear. It would be incorrect to suppose that only one Pharaoh is spoken of throughout the book of Exodus; and that the Pharaoh above represented as the first persecutor of the Israelites was the same personage as the Pharaoh under whom the exodus took place. A succession of Pharaohs is evidently alluded to, all pursuing one cruel policy towards the Israelites; and various indications on the Egyptian monuments prove this persecuting line of Pharaohs to have been Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty, one of the most illustrious in Egyptian history.

28. Scholars have ascertained the names of the Pharaohs of this dynasty with considerable accuracy. They were fourteen in number-namely, Aahmes or Amos, Amenoph I., Thothmes or Thuthmosis I., Thothmes II., Thothmes III., Amenoph II., Thothmes IV., Amenoph III. or Memnon, Horus, Ramses or Rameses I., Menaphthah I. or Amenoph IV., Rameses II., Rameses III., and Menaphthah II. called also Pheron. Their dates, and the lengths of their reigns, are uncertain; but the dynasty is supposed to have lasted about three hundred years, beginning with Aahmes about 1600 B. C., and ending with Menaphthah II. about 1300

B. C.

29. There are records of almost all the Pharaohs of this dynasty on surviving monuments. One inscription on the wall of a temple in Nubia represents Aahmes as carrying war into that country; and in the quarry of Masarah, in Gebel - Al- Mokattam, is a representation of a block of stone drawn by oxen on a sledge, with an inscription to the effect that in the time of Aahmes or Amosis, the quarries of hard white stone were worked for the repair of certain temples at Thebes. From the singular honours paid to Amenoph I. in the monuments, on some of which he is even represented as a deity, it is supposed that a great portion of the task of expelling the Hyksos devolved upon him, and that he may, in consequence of his success, have been venerated as the deliverer of his country. He made wars both in Ethiopia and Asia, and one of his wives is always represented as black, probably because she was an Ethiopian princess. Thothmes I. began those great buildings, the ruins of which astonish the traveller at Thebes in Upper Egypt; he laid the foundation of the immense palace of Karnak. His name, and references to his reign, occur in many inscriptions. Of the reign of Thothmes II. we have few records; but in it were executed the two great obelisks of Karnak, one of which, of rosecoloured granite, ninety feet high, and covered with inscriptions, is still standing to the admiration of all who see it. Thothmes III. seems to have been a Pharaoh of the highest renown, both as a warrior and as a ruler. He was probably the same person as Moeris, mentioned by Herodotus as a Pharaoh who erected various monuments, and formed the great lake Moeris, for the purpose of draining Middle Egypt. Along the whole valley of the Nile, from the Second Cataract northwards, as well as among the ruins of Thebes, interesting memorials are found of the life and actions of this sovereign. One of these, a painting in a tomb at Qoorneh, represents him seated on a throne, and receiving tribute from four nations; among the tributebearers are some negroes, apparently of interior Africa, who are bringing him tusks of ivory, ostrich - eggs and feathers, gold and silver in rings and ingots, apes, leopards, a giraffe, cattle and dogs. Another table at Karnak con

tains a record of some of his expeditions into Asia, and specifies the various Asiatic nations over whom he gained victories, and the precise number of horses, bulls, oxen, cows, goats, &c., he gained from each, as well as the number of captives. The nations cannot be identified with certainty; but the table is believed to prove that, in his reign, the Egyptians carried their arms as far as Asia Minor and the borders of Persia, and made war not only with the potent Assyrians, but with the lesser nations of Armenia and Pontus. Besides erecting many obelisks and monuments of stone, Thothmes III. built largely with brick; and in a tomb at Thebes there is an interesting representation of the process of brickmaking. "Men are employed, some in working up the clay with an instrument resembling the Egyptian hoe, others in carrying loads of it on their shoulders, moulding it into bricks, and transporting them, by means of a yoke laid across the shoulders, to the place where they are to be laid out for drying in the sun. Egyptian taskmasters stand by with sticks in their hands." Some of these brickmakers are Egyptians, evidently criminals sentenced to the task as a punishment; but by far the greater number have the features and complexion of Jews. The celebrated Pharaoh Thothmes III. appears, therefore, to have been one of the principal persecutors of the Israelites; and probably the person in whose tomb the brickmaking is thus commemorated, may have been the chief of those hard taskmasters to whom the Scripture narrative alludes.

30. Of the succeeding seven monarchs of the eighteenth dynasty-Thothmes IV., Amenoph III., Horus, Rameses I., Menephthah I. or Amenoph IV., Rameses II.-there are also abundant memorials, generally of the same kind as those already mentioned-namely, records of wars in Africa and Asia, and of such public acts as the erection of great buildings in or near Thebes. In the British Museum are casts, coloured after the originals, of some strange painted sculptures found in a temple near Kalabshe, in Nubia, illustrative of the victories of Rameses II. One of the paintings depicts, in various compartments, an expedition into interior Africa. In the first compartment

Rameses, in his war-chariot, attended by his two sons, is putting a mass of negroes to rout, driving them singlehanded before him into a wood; in a second, seated on a throne, he is receiving the prince of the Ethiopians with a tribute of elephants' tusks, panthers' skins, gold, gems,

chairs, feathers, ostricheggs, oxen, a giraffe, green monkeys, lions, gazelles, rare plants, &c. besides negro captives, both male and female. The other painting represents the conquests of the same king over the Asiatic nations. In one partment, Rameses is his throne receiving Asiatic captives; in the second, he is about to decapitate a wretched Asiatic who kneels at

on

com

his feet; in the third, he is driving a flock of Asiatics before him; in the fourth, he is attacking an Asiatic fortress, and dragging out the commander by the hair of the head; and in the fifth, he is again receiving Asiatic prisoners.

31. The greatest Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, if not, indeed, the greatest hero of all Egyptian history, was Rameses III., the brother of Rameses II. This is the Pharaoh celebrated by the Greek historians under the name of Sesostris. He was a favourite subject of Egyptian songs and legends. It was stated that, at his birth, his father Menaphthath I. caused all the male children born on the same day with him to be collected and educated as his companions-in-arms, it having been prophesied that he was to be a great warrior. When he grew up he was said to have been of gigantic stature, and of extraordinary wisdom. These are undoubtedly fables, such as are collected respecting the memory of all distinguished