2 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XI. 



able to suppose tliat agriculture was always one 

 of the principal cares of the inhabitants ; and a 

 subject to which their attention was directed at 

 the earhest period of their existence as a nation. 



The richness of the valley of the Nile w^as pro- 

 verbial ; and this had no doubt induced the con- 

 quering tribe, who, as already observed *, were the 

 ancestors of the afterwards powerful Egyptians, to 

 migrate from Asia and settle in that fertile country ; 

 and the same continued to be an inducement to 

 other people in later times to invade and possess 

 themselves of Egypt. 



The Pastor race, called Hycsos or Shepherd 

 Kings, appear to have been the first to follow the 

 example of the early Asiatic invaders ; and though 

 the period and history of their conquest are involved 

 in obscurity, it is evident that they entered Egypt 

 from the side of Syria, and that they obtained for 

 some years a firm footing in the country, possessing 

 themselves of Lower Egypt, with a portion of the 

 Thebaid, and perhaps advancing to Thebes itself. 



I at first sup])osed them to have come from 

 Assyria ; but on more mature consideration have 

 been disposed, as already stated t, to consider them 

 a Scythian tribe, whose nomade habits accord more 

 satisfactorily with the character of a pastor race, 

 and whose frequent inroads at early periods into 

 other countries show the power they possessed, as 

 well as their love of invasion, which were continued 

 till a late time, and afterwards imitated by their 

 successors, the Tartar hordes of Central Asia. 



* Vol. T. p. 3. t Vol. I. Introduction, p. viii. 



