On the Arabian Ffoniier of Egypt. 229 



kings of Egypt hoped to avert by the summary expedient re- 

 corded in the opening chapters of Exodus. 



And when, after the long course of oppression systemati- 

 cally practised against the children of Israel, in pursuance of 

 this barbarous policy, these were finally delivered by the 

 manifest interference of the Divine Power, we need no longer 

 wonder how so vast a body — including the mixed multitude 

 that shared their fortunes — were sustained on the way, as 

 they went out of the land of Egypt " with a high hand ;" since 

 that way is no longer ihe doubtful and improbable track 

 hitherto assigned to them, in defiance of possibility and geo- 

 graphy, through stations marked out at random, at impracti- 

 cable distances from each other, across the heart of a desert 

 without water or vegetation. The ingenious identification of 

 some of these stations, suggested by Mr Sharpe, being so 

 well borne out by all that the minutest inquiry can elicit re- 

 specting the former condition of the country as to amount 

 to a complete demonstration, satisfies us that their track was 

 an orderly progress along that line of ancient frontier-cities 

 about which their own tent-villages were clustered, and our 

 conception of this important passage of sacred history is in- 

 vested with a clearness and certainty it never possessed be- 

 fore. We can now appreciate, as it deserves, the circum- 

 stantial fidelity of the Mosaic narrative, in agreeing with 

 every peculiarity of position which the primeval geography 

 of the land, now rescued from the gloom and oblivion of ages, 

 reveals. The road followed by this great multitude turns 

 out to have been the same kind of road as all ancient and 

 modern Egyptian roads, the banks of a river or canal. The 

 spots where they encamped were near cities, the remains of 

 which still exist, all at an easy day's journey from one an- 

 other ; — the object of their progress, the very natural one of 

 gathering together the residue of their numbers tliat might 

 yet be scattered through the villages near these cities, prior 

 to their final evacuation of the country. 



Having started from f He^opoij J ] and passed through 



* Exod. xii. 37. 



