THE SHEPHERD KINGS OF EGYPT. 277 



■wlio had formerly ruled in the country which they now invaded. 

 Did time permit, it would be a simple matter to show the identity of 

 their costume, armament, modes of warfar-e, government and worship, 

 with those described in the heroic stories of Greece, India, &c. The 

 Bible narrative, the Egyptian and early Assyrian and Babylonian 

 monuments, affoi-d scraps of information concerning these Ashchurites, 

 subsequent to their return to Palestine, and previous to their dispersion 

 to the north, east and west, which not only illustrate, but confirm, 

 even to mimitise, the accounts given by Greek, Indian and other 

 early histories that have been deemed purely mythical, of the move- 

 ments of the Ashchurite ti-ibes in the latter part of the heroic age. 

 The earlier part of that age belongs principally to Egypt. Northern 

 Africa has its own history of migration, as the legends of Rome and 

 of the Celtic peoples testify, but for the verification of these in their 

 particulars we have no such evidence as is afibrded in the case of 

 Palestine. Here ethnology must take the place of history to a 

 great extent. It is a remarkable fact, and one that explains the 

 prevalence of certain Israelitish customs and the existence of frag- 

 ments of revealed truth among Gentile peoples, that the germs of all 

 civilized nations were to be found, some of them till the. tenth century 

 before the Christian ei'a, dwelling in intimate contact with the 

 descendants of Jacob. The transition period to which belong the 

 migi'ation of the Dorians and the return of the Heraclidae, was that 

 which immediately preceded the entrance of the tribes of Israel into 

 the land of promise, the wars which marked it being a pi'eparation 

 for an easier conquest of the country by those to whom it was 

 divinely apportioned. Joshua and Ms host, however, met no hordes 

 of efieminate and undisciplined Canaanites, but all the chivalry and 

 prowess of the ancient world. The so-called myths which identify 

 the Palestinian Nyssa, Ascalon, Joppa, Accho, and other places with 

 the scenes in which the deeds of great heroes were wrought, are in 

 the main narratives of fact. *^ 



*i Already it must have appeared to the candid reader that the connections established in 

 this paper do not rest upon mere nominal identities, although these, as extending to many 

 generations and relationships, are of themselves sufficient confirmation of their truth. Many 

 remarkable resemblances in the facts handed down concerning the members of the Ashchurite 

 family in different communities attest the connections made, in a manner appealing more 

 directly to those who are not in the habit of weighing philological evidence. The Ashchurites 

 are persistently mentioned as the men of the horse and of the sea. The' tradition of a deluge 

 belongs almost exclusively to them. One has but to read Mr. Cox's admirable chapters which 

 treat of mythological serpents and dragons to see that in the Ashchurite Aehuzam all of these 



