18 On the Arabian Frontier of Egypt. 



doubt ; — and further, if the said " Hero''' be indentical with 

 the HiROTH of Scripture, a place whicli, from the last en- 

 campment near it being called " Pi-ha-hiroth," must have 

 also been near the Sea, — and which the result of this inquiry 

 will prove really was the case, it will be evident that the 

 site thus chosen by Dr Robinson for the starting-point, must 

 in fact have been near the end of the journey. 



Mr Sharpe, in his History of Egypt (vol. i., pp. 30-32), 

 pi'oposes another hypothesis. By an ingenious etymological 

 analysis, he identifies the principal stations of the Mosaic 

 account, by name, with certain cities on one of the lines of 

 the road particularized by the above mentioned itinerary. 



This theory fui'ther supposes the Arabian Gulf to have 

 occupied at that time the site of the saline marshes, generally 

 — but, as we shall hereafter find, erroneously — supposed to 

 be the " Bitter Lakes' of Strabo's geography. Tlius the last 

 encampment at Pi-ha-hiroth, might then have been near the 

 sea, though that site is now nearly 35 miles from it. 



It is a very satisfactory coincidence in support of the 

 positions thus suggested by Mr Sliarpe, that the researches 

 of MM. Dubois-Ayme and Le Pere* led them to conclude, 

 on the best physical and historical grounds, that the extent 

 of the Red Sea, up to beyond the time of Herodotus, had been 

 such as he had conjecturally assigned to it. This view was 

 approved by all the contemporaneous scientific men except- 

 ing M. Roziere, who pleaded a physical objection f to this 



Greek Ileroopolis. The translators appear to have read from a 5[8. in which 

 (Gen. xlvi., 28) the first two letters of the infinitive horoth n*T^n " *" ffuide or 

 'direct" being imperfectly formed, looked like n"Tn ^H'^oth ,■ wliich they ac- 

 cordingly rendered by " Ileroopolis.'' Josephus, following this reading, informs 

 us that Jacob sent Judah to meet Joseph at Ileroopolis in (Joshen. The Sep- 

 tuagint translators would hardly have committed this mistake, had no Buch 

 city existed in that situation ; for the false reading would have been obvious, 

 and thay would have rectified it. To have read any other word than " horoth, 

 i.e., to direct," would have made the entire passage unmeaning. 



* Descr. de Tl'lgypte. Et Mod., vol. xi. 



t Descr. de I'Eg. Ant., vol. vi., p. 272. M. Roziere supposed the low plateau 

 (marked " Pi-ha-hiroth" in the map) in the centre of the Isthmus to be lower 

 than the Red Sea (Vide also sect, i.) ; and as the whole valley of the canal, and 

 nearly all the Delta, are also much lower, he urged, that if in historical times 



