DESCRIPTION OF ARABIA. 71 



travellers, the Israelites must have crossed lower 

 down, opposite the desert of Shur. Supposing Ra- 

 meses to have been Cairo, there are two roads, he 

 remarks, by which they might have been conducted 

 to Pihahiroth on the coast ; the one through valleys 

 which are bounded on each side by the mountains 

 of the Lower Thebais ; the other, more to the north- 

 ward, having these mountains for several leagues 

 on the right, and the desert on the left, till it turns 

 through a singular ravine in the northernmost range 

 into the valley of Baideah. The latter he presumes 

 to have been the course taken by the Israelites. 

 Succoth, the first station, signifies only " a place of 

 tents ;" and Etham, the second station, he considers 

 as probably on the edge of the mountainous district 

 just alluded to. Here the Israelites were ordered 

 to turn from their line of march, and encamp before 

 Pihahiroth, in the mouth of the gullet or defile 

 between Migdol and the sea. This valley he sup- 

 poses to be identified with that of Baideah, which 

 signifies miraculous, and which also bears the name 

 of Tiah-Beni-Israel, or the Path of the Israelites. 

 Baal-zephon, over-against which they encamped, is 

 alleged to be the mountain still called Gebel Atta- 

 kah, or the Hill of Deliverance ; and at the distance 

 of ten miles from this is the desert of Shur, where 

 the Israelites landed. The gulf in this quarter would 

 be capacious enough to cover a numerous army, and 

 yet might be traversed by the Hebrew fugitives in a 

 night ; whereas lower dowai, from Wady Gharendel 

 to Tor, the channel is from ten to twelve leagues 

 broad, which is too great a distance to have been 

 travelled by a multitude with so many encumbrances 

 as they carried with them. Having once entered 

 this valley, it might well be said that the wilderness 

 had " shut them in," inasmuch as the mountains of 

 Mokattem would deny them a passage to the south- 

 ward, while those near Suez would be a barrier 

 towards the north. 



