22 Some conjectures on the progress of [Jan. 



succeeding year, 2567 before Christ, began the reigns of the Hyksos 

 dynasties, which lasted 866 years. To them succeeded the restoration 

 of an enchorial monarchy, in what is called the 18th Egyptian dynasty, 

 rich during its period of 229 years, with the names and acts of conquer- 

 ing monarchs ; and it is during this period, more especially in the 

 victorious reigns of Totmes the 3rd, and the great Remses, that the 

 external triumphs of the Egyptians are pictorially celebrated, by those 

 savage records of victory, of which I have previously made mention. 

 Now as we cannot trace vestiges of the like cruelties before the 

 Hyksos' period ; and as "the intimate relation and almost exact paral- 

 lelism that has been traced between the Egyptians and the Hindus,' ' 

 (Prichard ut supra) allow us to infer that the former were guided, 

 while unpolluted by foreign intercourse, by similar laws with those 

 which regulated the conduct of their supposed congeners ; — the ques- 

 tion arises, whether it were imitation of the savage customs of their 



Great). Let me remark upon the exact similarity at all times here noted as 

 obtaining in Egyptian usages, before proceeding to the one ancient exception so 

 at variance with the customs current (v. Wilkinson) in this respect among the kings 

 dominant, after the 866 years of the Hyksos rule. " But," continues Chev. B. 

 " there is a pictured record in the above-named tomb of peculiar importance, dating 

 in the sixth year of our monarch's reign, wherein are brought before Nevotp in 

 great ceremony as a present from his lord 37 strangers, (perhaps meaning -^ T of 

 the strangers taken,) as remarkable as such, by their complexion, dress, and the 

 growth of their hair, as by being mentioned in that character in the inscription. 

 A leader appears at the head of his followers, equipped with club, bow, shield, and 

 lance ; one of them strikes a seven-stringed lyre with the plectrum. The inscrip- 

 tion terms them " the great captured strangers." Champollion seems to have 

 maintained that they were Greeks. * * * Others have thought them to be 

 the patriarch Jacob and his troop : and certainly the strangers appear depicted, 

 although described as conquered, not as prisoners, with bounden hands, but free, 

 and armed. This points at the embassy of some subjected northern people, per- 

 haps too, depicts a tributary present, as shown in the gazelles, and the weapons 

 which they bring." — I am at a loss to comprehend from what country of the 

 North the gazelle could have come ; but in another place the Chevalier repeats — 

 "The remarkable representation of those light complexioned ' great strangers' in 

 Nevotp's tomb points to the subjection of a northern people," — not necessarily 

 northern; but certainly to their humane treatment as " captured" (gefangenen) by 

 Sesortosis TI. — H. T. 



