THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 213 



Tents) or Makfar (the Hollo wed- out Place where the 

 old canal passed). 



" Chap. 13, v. 20. ' And they took their journey 

 from Succoth, and encamped in Etham, in the edge of 

 the wilderness.' 



" Etham, which is in fact at the edge of a vast 

 wilderness bounded by the basin of the Bitter Lakes, 

 where the Eed Sea then reached, is a spot which we 

 visited this morning, and where the second Perse- 

 politan monument is to be found. The tribe which 

 at certain seasons encamps there is known as the 

 Ethamis. 



" Y. 22. * He took not away the pillar of the cloud 

 by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before 

 the people.' 



" Moses having in his youth killed an Egyptian 

 who was maltreating an Israelite, had to fly to Mount 

 Sinai, where he married the daughter of Jethro, 

 the priest of Midian, whose flocks he tended for 

 forty years. His brother Aaron came to tell him of 

 the death of the Pharaoh during whose reign he had 

 slain the Egyptian, which period corresponds with the 

 length of the reign of Ehamses II., the Sesostris of 

 the Greeks. He was acquainted with the customs of 

 the numerous caravans, which in our own day and at 

 certain places are preceded some distance in advance 

 by bearers of machallahs (torches), which produce a 

 pillar of fire at night. They had passed over the 

 fords of the last lagoons of the Eed Sea, as is still 



