THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GEOGRAPHY OF PALESTINE. 187 



bad many acres under the plough, as have the Bedouin at 

 present, and had both wheat and barley, but not sufficient for 

 their vast multitudes. 



In the year 1883, when in the desert, east of Suez, I climbed 

 up a mountain to get a view, and on the flat top I found 

 ploughing going on by slaves in the employ of a Bedouin tribe 

 and though little rain ever falls on this part, yet there was no 

 lack of water for irrigation, as the humid wind from the Ked 

 Sea struck against the side of the mountain, and being driven 

 upwards was forced to deposit its moisture on the land in the 

 form of vapour or mist. It was an exemplification of what is 

 stated to have taken place in another part of Arabia : " There 

 went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of 

 the ground." We may assume that there was food in the desert, 

 but not enough, and the manna was required to eke it out. 



Now, the scheme was first to destroy Pharaoh's army so com- 

 pletely that it would take a long time to organize another 

 adequate force, and in the meantime to bring the Israelites into 

 the Sinai Wilderness and rapidly train them into fighting men 

 but little by little, so as not to frighten them at their task and 

 drive them back into Egypt. This scheme was not divulged to 

 the people at first, and all that Moses let out to them and 

 Pharaoh was that they would go three days' journey into the 

 wilderness to sacrifice there. It was not until the die was cast 

 and the people had spoiled the Egyptians, and were sensibly 

 under the immediate protection of the cloud by day and the 

 pillar of fire by night, that they were entrusted with the infor- 

 mation that they were on their way to the Promised Land, on a 

 mission of exterminating the Canaanites : and the night of the 

 Passover was to be a memorial to thein (Ex. xviii). At this time 

 they had advanced as far as Etham, on the verge of the desert, 

 north-west of the Bitter Lakes. The events of the last days in 

 Egypt appear to have rendered the Israelites docile for a wdiile, 

 and when the order came to them to turn about again and move 

 towards Egypt, to a most hazardous position on the inner side 

 of the Bitter Lakes, they obeyed without a murmur. Pharaoh 

 at once grasped the situation, and saw that there was, humanly 

 speaking, no escape for Israel, and that they were in his power. 

 He exclaimed, " They are entangled in the land, the wilderness 

 hath shut them in." Thus was the strategy accomplished for 

 the destruction of Pharaoh's host. Israel, enclosed between 

 Egypt and the sea, was a bait too tempting for Pharaoh to 

 resist. And he made ready his chariots and took his people 

 with him — all the chariots of Egypt. And a passage was 



