76 



in those invaluable " Lists of Karnak/^ which give us hun- 

 dreds of local names in Palestine and Syria, agreeing well 

 with those of places named in the Biblical history of later 

 times. ''^It is well to remark here/^ says M. Rhone, 'Hhat 

 about 1,600 years before Jesus Christ, — that is to say, some 

 centuries before the Hebrews, — the promised land was an 

 Egyptian possession, and it is to be believed that if the tribes 

 of Israel succeeded in gaining possession of it, this could not 

 be but by virtue of the troubles which, some centuries after 

 Thothmes III., caused the dismemberment of the empire of the 

 Pharaohs/^ {Le Temps, 31 Mai, 1882.) I should mention 

 that the mummy of Thothmes III. was found dreadfully 

 broken, and that the stature of that great Pharaoh was only 

 about 5 feet. 



The shepherds and herdsmen, no less than the fishers and 

 fowlers, of the eastern lowlands and marshes of the Delta 

 were let alone by the native Egyptian Pharaohs of the 

 splendid eighteenth dynasty in " their useful toils, their homely 

 joys and destiny obscure,^^ as we may well believe ; and 

 Joseph had indeed given sage advice to his brethren in bidding 

 them avow their calling, so gaining from the friendly shepherd- 

 king '^ the best of the land, the land of Goshen, ^^ for their 

 occupation. The field of Zoan is one which, God willing, is 

 to be explored next spring at the instance of the Committee 

 of the Egyptian Fund. The way taken by the Israelites in 

 their Exodus was the way taken by our own forces as they 

 marched to Cairo, Tel-el-Kebir being the place where the 

 crowning victory was obtained ; while the spot where our 

 artillery were first planted and brought into action was the 

 ruin-heap of the ancient Pi-Tum, about 12 miles from 

 Ismailia. Due east of that place is the ancient road dis- 

 covered by the Rev. F. W. Holland, and I hope it will not 

 be long before some observations are taken of that road. 



It was along the southern border of this land of Goshen that 

 the great military road of the Pharaohs led out on the sandy, 

 stony waste beyond. We must never forget that the early 

 kings of the great twelfth dynasty, before the domination of 

 the Hyksos, had strongly fortified their eastern frontier by a 

 towered wall, from which their sentinels looked out on the 

 dreaded desert. A most important fortress was the key to 

 the great entrance and outlet by which the kings of the 

 eighteenth and succeeding dynasties led out their armies and 

 brought back their captives and spoils. It was called Zar (or 



Zaru) f^^ ® . 1 „ ; and must have been at least as old 

 JUS the twelfth dyuastV; if not the sixth, since a curious treatise 



