14 On the Arabian Frontier of Egypt. 



neai'ly allied to the Egyptians in blood, but who maintained 

 their simple pastoral habits and hardy independence to the 

 last. A race, who not only were able to resist Egypt for 

 several centuries, but even to subdue a considerable part of 

 that country for a time, as is recorded of these shepherd 

 people, must have been numerous ; and their counti'y could 

 not then have been the sandy, barren, and marshy desert that 

 "we now find it. It must have possessed some very important 

 resources and advantages ; for it was only after the expulsion 

 and dispersion of this people, tliat the power of Egypt began 

 to be felt externally, and soon reached its highest pitch of 

 eminence. Her commercial and military ascendency only then 

 passed the limits of her river, and began to exert its influence 

 over the rest of the known world. Not long afterwards, the 

 family of the patriarch Jacob went to settle in Egypt. The 

 country of " the Goshen" must then have been very different 

 from what it appears to be, since Joseph availed himself of 

 the inveterate prejudices of the Egyptians, which extended 

 even to the land their dangerous and hated adversaries had 

 so long occupied, and to the manner of life they had led, to 

 obtain its rich pastures as a settlement for his beloved family."* 



In fact, unless we admit that very considerable physical 

 changes have taken place on the face of this important dis- 

 trict, the frontier state of Egypt, the ancient Land OF 

 Goshen, we can form no idea of its position and boundaries, 

 its agricultural, commercial, and pastoral advantages, and its 

 commanding position as a military state, in the remote ages 

 of early Egyptian history. For it is in tlie very regions on 

 the primitive condition of which its chief value as a settle- 

 ment depended, that it will be found to have undergone a 

 thorough revolution. 



It was in the hope of throwing additional light on some 

 of tlie doubts and difficulties attaching to a few early pas- 

 sages of Egyptian history, that the succeeding inquiry was 

 entered upon. The principal event of which that land was 

 the scene, in those remote ages, is one that has a sacred 



Vide Gen. xlvi., 33, 31 ; slvii., G, 11. 



