78 



frontier to chastise the insolent Shasu^ the Bedouin hordes of 

 the age. 



He sweeps thi'oug-h the open portals of the twofold fortress 

 of Zar, across the canal where crocodiles disport themselves, 

 along the ancient road of the desert which our lamented 

 traveller, the late Rev. F. W. Holland, found stretching " due 

 east from Ismailia,'^ far away over deserts and through 

 Wadies, strewn abundantly with flint-flakes, with here and 

 there a beautiful arrow-head of flint, '^ the route of Abraham 

 from the Negeb into Egypt,^^ as he wrote to me in May, 1880, 

 adding : — '' It is a very remarkable road, evidently much 

 used in ancient times, and it is curious that it has remained 

 unknown." 



I trust that this important road will be soon carefully 

 explored, for I think it quite within hope that the several 

 fortified watering-places represented in Seti^s great tableaux 

 at Karnak as the halting-places in the desert may yet be truly 

 identified. 



This expedition of Seti^s first year gives us as his object of 

 attack not only " the land of Canaan " (Kanana), but very 

 notably '^the fortress of Canaan," and in the October (1883) 

 " Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund," my friend 

 Captain Conder, R.E., gives a very probable identification 

 of the spot marked by the very name, south-west of Hebron 

 {Great Map, sheet xxi., Name Lis^ts, p. 399) Khiirbet Kan'au, 

 the ruin of Kanaan, Heb. ii'J3). I consider this an excellent 

 discovery, but the advance was made not (as Captain Conder 

 says) " from the vicinity of Gaza," but by that ancient route 

 found by Mr. Holland, and in the latter part, perhaps, much 

 in the line followed by the ever-regretted Palmer in 1869 

 (Palestine Exploration Fund, 1870). "The ruin occupies a 

 knoll in a very important position on high ground. The two 

 main roads to Hebron, one from Caza by Dura (Adoraim), one 

 from Beersheba on the south [this was Seti^s route] join 

 close to the knoll of Khurbet Kan an, and run thence, north- 

 west, about one and a half mile to Hebron. West of the 

 ruin is ^Ain el Unkur .... which issues from the rock and 

 gives a fine perennial supply, forming a stream even in 

 autumn." I wish I could quote the rest of this most 

 interesting description. 



We have now approximately the starting-point, much, at 

 least, of the route, and actually this point of attack of Seti's 

 celebrated expedition. In his tableau we see the fort on its 

 rocky knoll and the stream forming a pool in the valley ; and 

 the Shasu making their submission to the Phai'aoh. It is 

 curious that this particular spot, where the old name still 



