228 On the Arabian Frontier of Egypt. 



course, partly or wholly, on repeated occasions and in various 

 ways, to minister to his purposes ; and that, to this day, it 

 continues to be held in abeyance, but is not naturally extinct. 



CONCLUSION. 



A very few additional remarks will suffice to indicate the 

 application of the results brought to light by this geographi- 

 cal inquiry to the illustration of Ancient, and especially of 

 Sacred History. In an extensive tract now uninhabitable, 

 never visited by travellers, consisting partly of unhealthy 

 marshes, partly of a barren sandy waste, and entirely desti- 

 tute of running water, we discover what was, 3500 years ago, 

 a land endowed with a variety of natural advantages both 

 for commerce and defence, of peculiar importance to a fron- 

 tier state, and seldom found united in a district of such limited 

 extent. While the river that formed its eastern limit, and 

 flowed to within six miles of the Red Sea, was the axis of its 

 prosperity, by connecting a line of fortified frontier cities, si- 

 tuated in the most commanding positions, and whose begin- 

 ning is lost in the x'emotest antiquity. The abundant ruins 

 scattered over the Egyptian " Arabia," as well as the histo- 

 rical records of works carried on along its boundary line, re- 

 main unquestionable tokens that its natural capabilities were 

 duly appreciated by the loi*ds of the land ; and that these were 

 sufficient to bear out the fragmentary intimations handed 

 down by historical tradition, concerning the power once ac- 

 quired by its earliest colonists, the " Hyk-sos,'' or royal 

 Shepherd tribes, whose encroachments on their neighbours' 

 territories it required the united efforts of the king of Thebes 

 and all the rest of the Egyptians to subdue ; and when this 

 coalition had compelled them to yield their ground, we are 

 at no loss to understand the motive of the Egyptian monai'ch's 

 policy (Exod. i. 9, 10). The Egyptians saw another people 

 of similar simple and pastoral habits, increasing rapidly in 

 the country from which the ancient rivals of their power had 

 been expelled with so much difficulty, and who, from their 

 position, even moi'e than from their numbers, might become 

 dangerous neighbours, should they increase sufficiently to 

 assert their independence. Such a national calamity the 



