100 
namely, the seven years* famine of the Pharaoh of Joseph. 
Besides, Baba (or, if the term is preferred, the Babas, for the 
most part the contemporaries of the Xlllth and XVIIth dynas- 
ties), about the same time as Joseph exercised his office under 
one of the Hyksos kings lived and worked under the native 
king Ba-sekenen Taa III. in the old town of El-Kab. The only 
just conclusion is, that the many years of famine in the 
time of Baba must precisely correspond with the seven years 
of famine under Joseph’s Pharaoh, one of the Shepherd 
kings.” 
It is worth while to recur to the express statements of the 
Papyrus before quoted, that the whole land brought its pro- 
ductions to Apapi at Avaris, and that Ba-sekenen was under 
him as his suzerain. Thus the worthy Baba may well have 
acted under general instructions from the Delta. He says, 
“ I issued corn to the city.” Joseph “ laid up the food in the 
cities,”* that is, “ throughout all the land of Egypt,” f “and 
as for the people, he removed them to cities, from (one) end 
of the borders of Egypt even to the (other) end thereof.” J 
That is, where the food was, thither he gathered the people 
out of the famine-stricken open country. 
An interesting remark is made by Dean Milman § on the 
agrarian law of the Hebrews. He says, “ The outline of this 
plan may have been Egyptian. The king of that country, 
during the administration of Joseph, became proprietor of 
the whole land, and leased it out on a reserved rent 
of one-fifth, exactly the two-tenths or tithes paid by the 
Israelites.” 
Many facile but superficial objections have been urged 
against the likelihood of the narrative in detail. I have not 
time to take up these. But some of them have been so well 
anticipated by Dr. Thomson, || that I must quote a little by 
way of example “ When the crops of this country fail 
through drought or other causes [he is speaking of South 
Palestine], the people still go down to Egypt to buy corn, 
as they did in the time of the patriarchs. It has also fre- 
quently occurred to me, when passing a large company of 
donkeys on their way to buy food, that we are not to sup- 
pose that only the eleven donkeys on which the brethren of 
Joseph rode composed the whole caravan. One man often 
leads or drives half a dozen ; and, besides, I apprehend that 
# Gen xli. 48. t Gen. xli. 46. 
§ Hist, of the Jews, I. 231. 
+ Gen. xlvii. 21. 
jj The Land and the Book , 595. 
