306 Dr Morton on the Origin of the 



eleven years ; and the learned Baron Bunsen, whose work has 

 not yet appeared, extends it to one thousand, beginning B. C. 

 2514.* The shorter period is that of Rosellini ; but the longer 

 one is, perhaps, most consistent with facts, and at least makes 

 room for those various dominations which, in the lists of 

 Manetho, precede the eighteenth dynasty ; which last, headed 

 by Amrenoph the First, drove out the intrusive kings. During 

 this long period the legitimate sovereigns were exiled into 

 Ethiopia ; and it is evident that, had Meroe been any other 

 than a province or dependency of Egypt, it is hardly pro- 

 bable that the Egyptians — kings, priests, and people — could 

 have found a safe asylum in that country during the long 

 period of their exile. It is expressly stated by Josephus, that 

 the Shepherd Kings lived at Memphis, *' and made both the 

 upper and lower country pay tribute." It would appear, how- 

 ever, that, during the greater part of the Hykshos dynasty, the 

 Egyptians retained possession of the Thebaid ; nevertheless, 

 the occupation of Lower Egypt by their enemies, must have 

 effectually precluded all communication with other countries 

 excepting Ethiopia, Southern Arabia, and India ; which fact 

 will account for a vast influx of population from those countries, 

 (and, consequently, from the slave regions of Africa,) into the 

 Upper Nilotic provinces. 



It is, moreover, reasonable to suppose that, even after the 

 expulsion of the Hykshos, multitudes of Egyptians would 

 remain in Ethiopia, — ^that country wherein whole generations 

 of their ancestors had lived and died ; at the same time that 

 great numbers of Meroites, influenced by a variety of motives, 

 and especially by social alliances, would descend the Nile into 

 Egypt. 



It is, moreover, evident, that while the Egyptians became 

 thus fraternized with the nations of Southern Asia, and the 

 motley races of the Upper Nile, the provinces of Lower Egypt 

 would be overrun with the Caucasian tribes of Europe and 

 Western Asia ; for these, either as cognate with the Hykshos, 

 or as allies in their service, must have been in immense num- 

 ber to have conquered so populous a country, and especially 



* See Mrs Hamilton Gray's History of Etruria, vol. i., p. 29. 



