342 LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. [Chap. VIII. 



as seen in the beds of large rivers and of enormous lakes, 

 tells the same tale. Portions of the east coast have sunk, 

 others have risen, even in the Historic Period. The upper 

 or northern end of the Red Sea has risen, so that the place 

 of the passage of the children of Israel is now between forty 

 and fifty miles from Suez, the modern head of the Gulf. 

 This upheaval, and not the sand from the desert, caused the 

 disuse of the ancient canal across the Isthmus : it took 

 place since the Mohamadan conquest of Egypt. The women 

 of the Jewish captivities were carried past the end of the 

 Red Sea and along the Mediterranean in ox-waggons, where 

 such cattle would now all perish for want of water and 

 pasture ; in fact, the route to Assyria would have proved 

 more fatal to captives then than the middle passage has 

 been to Africans since. It may be true that, as the desert is 

 noiv, it could not have been traversed by the multitude 

 under Moses — the German strictures put forth by Dr. 

 Colenso, under the plea of the progress of science, assume 

 that no alteration has taken place in either desert or climate 

 — but a scientific examination of the subject would have 

 ascertained what the country was then when it afforded 

 pasture to " flocks and herds, and even very much cattle." 

 We know that Eziongeber was, with its docks, on the sea- 

 shore, with water in abundance for the ship-carpenters : it 

 is now far from the head of the Elaic Gulf in a parched 

 desert. Aden, when visited by the Portuguese Balthazar 

 less than 300 years ago, was a perfect garden ; but it is now 

 a vast conglomeration of black volcanic rocks, with so little 

 vegetation, that, on seeing flocks of goats driven out, I 

 thought of the Irish cabman at an ascent slamming the 

 door of his cab and whispering to his fare, " "Whish, it's to 

 desave the baste : he thinks that you are out walking." 

 Gigantic tanks in great numbers and the ruins of aqueducts 

 appear as relics of the past, where no rain now falls for three 

 or more years at a time. They have all dried up by a change 



