RESULTS OF EXCAVATIONS AT BUBASTIS. ils 
there are some details of the legend which shake one’s con- 
fidence ; for instance, this fact, which is mentioned by one of 
the Arab authors, that Joseph converted the king to the 
faith of the Mohammedans. However, it is certainly a curious 
coincidence to have found at the same spot the two kings who 
are considered as the protectors of Joseph, one by the 
Christians and the other by the Mohammedans. ‘This valuable 
base. which is all that remains of Raian, is now in the Boulak 
Museum. | 
Between the two traditions | incline to adopt that of 
the Christians, as reported by Synceilus, who adds that on 
this point the historians are unanimous. I know we have no 
Egyptian monumental evidence that it was so, but until the 
‘contrary is proved, I see no reason to question the statement 
of Syncellus. Apepi was the Pharaoh in whose reign 
Joseph became the powerful minister described by Scripture. 
I need not dwell at great length on this subject, which was laid 
before this society a few years ago in a learned paper by the 
Rev. H.G. Tomkins. Let me only mention that Joseph was a 
purely civil officer, entrusted with the control and collection 
of revenue and of rents chiefly paid in kind. Such officers 
frequently occur in Egyptian inscriptions, or even in pictures, 
and they bear this telling title: “‘'The Hyes and the Hars of 
the King.” 
We saw that the Hyksos raised at Bubastis great con- 
structions, probably larger than at Tanis, the city which had 
been called their capital because of the monuments discovered 
there by Mariette. Bubastis was an important Hyksos 
settlement, and we have every reason to believe that the kings 
often stayed there ; that it was one of the places of resort of 
Apepi and the other kings. They were thus very near the 
land of Goshen. I think I have proved through the exca- 
vations which I made at a short distance from Zagazig, in 
1885, that the original land of Goshen was the region 
situate between the present city of Belbeis and Tel el 
Kebir, and that at the time when the Hebrews settled 
there it was not part of one of the provinces of Kgypt. 
It was an uncultivated district, not divided among Kgyp- 
tian inhabitants regularly settled and governed, a kind of 
waste land sufficiently watered to produce good pasturage, 
and which might be assigned to foreigners without despoiling 
the native inhabitants. This agrees with the information 
given by the two most ancient Ar ab translators of the Bible,— 
Saadiah and Aboo Said. I believe even that there is an allu- 
sion to itin an Hgyptian inscription of the time of Menephtah, 
the king of the Exodus, in which it is said that “‘ the country 
