1^50 MARTIN L. ROUSE, ESQ., ON " PROCOPIUS's AFRICAN 



and gratifying reply, in which the President said that the 

 Society had resolved after reading my letter to incorporate 

 its substance in their annual report, and at an early date to 

 recommence the digging at Ain el Bordj. To this I quickly 

 Teplied with hearty thanks, and a question whether monetary 

 help from England would be agreeable to the Society, 

 in case they had not funds enough to complete the work; 

 ■Sbiid an answer came in February that the Society were 

 deeply touched by my offer to raise funds for them, but to 

 -accept funds from a foreign source would tend to create 

 difficulties for them (doubtless because of the strong 

 anti-English feeling recently shown in Algeria). On the 

 other hand, wrote the President, if the Society's fresh 

 operations did not bring the precious jnonument to light, 

 my English friends and 1 should apply direct for permission 

 for ourselves to excavate at Ain el Bordj. Unfortunately 

 "the Society's funds Avould allow them to make only a 

 ^' summary " search, but Ain el Bordj was " inscribed on the 

 progi'amme of their next operations." In his former letter 

 lions. JMercier had said that he would let me know what 

 were the results of their fresh excavations ; and, if those 

 ■are in the least encouraging, the Christian men of England, 

 the lovers of Bible antiquities who desire to make the stones 

 T3ear further witness to the Divine record, should not rest until 

 ihey have searched every corner of tins ancient Libyan town. 

 If this old stone record is again brought to light, it will 

 not only give us another striking proof of the truth of Bible 

 history, but it will most probably establish a momentous 

 point of chronology. We can hardly suppose that the two 

 pillars jointly contained the one bare sentence quoted by 

 Procopius. Rather is it to be expected that they contain 

 the whole narrative of the migration of the bands of 

 "Canaanites which he himself recounts ; and, if so, in telling 

 that these failed to settle in Egypt, does not the inscription 

 say what king of Egypt refused them a dwelling-place 

 there? Thus we should establish from Israelitish and 

 Egyptian sources combined the precise date of the Exodus ; 

 thus would be ended the seeming conflict between the 

 lapse of time noted at the founding of Solomon's temple 

 and the period obtained by summing-up the years of the 

 Judges ; and thus, too, Ave should make sure whether the 

 Tell Amarna tablets do or do not recount from Canaanite 

 •contemporaries the Divine conquest of Canaan by the hand 

 of Joshua. 



