the former, doubtless the Patoumos of the Greeks, on the canal, near the western embouchure of the wady Saba Byar;16 and the latter situated probably about the middle of that valley, at Aboukeyshid, a place where ruins are still found. This is the opinion of M. Rozière and Du Bois Aymé, and also of lord Valentia;17 it is adopted and confirmed by Champollion;18 and is followed by Rosenmüller and Professor Stuart. This, as we have seen above, (II. 1,) is doubtless the Rameses, from which the Israelites are said in Ex. xii. 37, to have set out upon their journey. If thus located, Rameses lay on the borders of the great canal; or, if this were not yet in existence, it lay in the great valley or wady, up which the waters of the Nile flowed, so as sometimes nearly to meet those of the Bitter lakes, which anciently were doubtless connected with the Red Sea. It would thus have been not far from forty miles distant from Suez.19

Such then would seem to have been the situation and general character of the land of Goshen; and such the location of its principal cities.

II. Route of the Israelites towards the Red Sea.

We turn now to consider the departure of the Israelites out of the land of Goshen, and their route towards the Red sea.

We are told in Ex. xii. 37, and Num. xxxiii. 3, that the children of Israel departed from Rameses "on the fifteenth day of the first month, on the morrow after the passover." It is therefore not improbable, that in expectation of the permission of Pharaoh to depart, so often foretold by Jehovah, the Israelites had already congregated at Rameses, during the continuance of the previous plagues. This probability is strengthened by the fact, that Pharaoh had already several times given this permission; although he had ever retracted it after the ceasing of each plague. Before the last great plague, too, the Israelites were 16 Champollion, Egypte sous les Pharaons, II. p. 58.

17 Mod. Traveller in Arabia, Amer. edit. p. 185.

18 Egypte sous le Pharaons, II. 88 sq.-Strabo speaks of Heroöpolis in the following manner, XVI. 4. 2. ̓Απὸ ̔Ηρώων πόλεως, ἦ τις ἐστ τι πρὸς τῷ Νείλῳ μυχός τοῦ ̓Αραβίου κόλπου. Pliny also mentions it as the chief city of a nome of the like name, Hist. Nat. V. 9. The Egyptian name was Aouari, according to Champollion, 1. c.

19 Stuart, l. c. p. 173. Mod. Traveller in Arabia, p. 185 Amer. edit.

directed to borrow of their neighbours jewels of gold and silver, Ex. xi. 2, 3; in order to be ready to depart at a moment's warning. It would therefore seem reasonable to suppose, that the people were already collected at Rameses as a rendezvous, waiting the signal of departure from their leader, like the great Hadj caravans of modern days; that they celebrated there the passover on its first institution, on the night of, i. e. according to the Jewish mode of reckoning, the night preceding, the fourteenth day of the first month; that Moses and Aaron, being called by Pharaoh soon after midnight, and dismissed by him from the capital immediately, were able to reach Rameses so as to have the Israelites break up from thence on the morning of the fifteenth day. This would allow Moses nearly or quite thirty hours in which to reach Rameses, viz. the remainder of the fourteenth night, the whole of the fourteenth day, and the whole of the fifteenth night, a time amply sufficient for this purpose, since even caravans often pass between Cairo and Suez, a distance of nearly 100 miles, in about the same number of hours.-This supposition permits us to understand Num. xxxiii. 3, in its full and literal sense; nor do I well see how any other can be assigned to it.

From Rameses (Heroöpolis), Moses had before him the choice of two routes to Palestine; the direct one along the coast of the Mediterranean to El Arish, and the more circuitous one by the head of the Red sea and the desert of mount Sinai. The Lord directed the latter; Ex. xiii. 17, 18. This would appear to have been a known and travelled way, by which passed doubtless the commerce that must have subsisted between Egypt and Arabia, and leading probably around the present head of the Red sea, at the same, or nearly the same point, where the caravans now pass. The first day's march was to Succoth, a Hebrew word signifying booths, being probably nothing more than a usual place of encampment. The second day brought them to Etham, "in the edge of the desert," Ex. xiii. 20. Num. xxxiii. 5. We know that the encampments of caravans in every age are regulated by the situation of watering-places; and if we may suppose that these watering-places have remained the same from remote ages, then we may well coincide with Niebuhr and others, who have found Etham in the modern Adjeroud. This is now a fort or castle, which in Niebuhr's time was in ruins, but has been repaired by the present pasha of Egypt,20 who keeps a

20 Niebuhr's Reisebeschr. I. p. 216. Burckhardt's Travels in Syria etc. p. 454.

garrison there. In it is a well two hundred and fifty feet deep, the wheels of which are put in motion only to fill the great tank before the time of the great annual Hadj caravan; during the rest of the year the building which encloses the well, is kept shut up and locked. Burckhardt was once detained there for two days; and the only water to be had was that of the tank, which was then saline, putrid, and of a yellow green colour. The garrison are usually supplied with water from the well Emshash, about two miles farther west. Adjeroud lies about twelve miles N. W. of Suez, and is literally in the "edge of the desert," being the first place where the caravans from Cairo find water.

Had now the Israelites pursued the usual route from Adjeroud or Etham, they would have taken a course due east, and passed around the head of the gulf, where the Hadj caravan now passes. Admitting, as we must, that the sea was then higher than it now is, and extended further up; still, the nature of the ground is such, that there must have been an easy ford at that point, which is now dry. Of this we shall speak again in the sequel. Instead of taking this route, the Lord directed the Israelites to turn off from the direct and usual way, (not turn back,) and take a position which brought the gulf directly in front of them. It is worthy of remark, that Niebuhr here uses the very same language. "The caravans," he says, "which go from Cairo to Mount Sinai or Mecca, pass on from Adjeroud eastward round the extreme point of the Red sea; we however turned off here, and travelled in a more southern direction nearly S. E. three hours (about nine miles) to Bir Suez."

22

This Bir Suez, or Well of Suez, is about three miles from the city. There is here a copious spring enclosed by a massive building, whence the water is drawn up by wheels turned by oxen, and emptied into a large stone tank on the outside of the building. In Niebuhr's time, it was drawn up by hand. The water is brackish, but serves for drinking. If now we may suppose, that this was a watering-place 3400 years ago, and even then perhaps defended by a tower, it would correspond entirely to Migdol, between which and the sea the Israelites next encamped. It is so assumed by Niebuhr, and he is followed by most critics; although it must be, of course, a matter of conjecPi-hahiroth is most probably an Egyptian word, signify

ture.

21 Burckhardt, ibid. p. 628.

22 Burckhardt, ibid. p. 465. Niebuhr's Reisebeschr. I. p. 217.

ing a place of sedge; the other, or Hebrew signification, mouth of the caves, being less probable, as there is no trace of caverns in the whole region. Of Baal-zephon there is no trace remaining; unless we suppose it to have been the ancient Clysma or Arsinoë, called afterwards Kolsum by the Arabs, which lay just north of the present site of Suez.23

We have thus far traced the probable route of the Israelites from Rameses to the Red Sea near Suez; a distance of about forty miles in three days. A greater distance than this they could not well be expected to travel in that time, since their numbers were "six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children, and a mixed multitude, and flocks and herds, even very much cattle," Ex. xii. 37, 38. In this interval, Pharaoh had pursued them with his cavalry and chariots, xiv. 9, from the vicinity of the Nile, a distance of at least one hundred miles, and overtook them here on the borders of the sea. In this position the Egyptians might well say that the Israelites were "entangled in the land, the desert hath shut them in ;" for they now had the sea in front, the mountains of Attaka on their right, the desert in their rear, while the way by which they had come was occupied by the Egyptian army. It was only a miracle which could rescue them from impending destruction.-We find also in all these circumstances, a confirmation of the opinion, that Rameses was not Heliopolis (near Cairo), nor any place in the vicinity of the Nile; since it would have been impossible for such a company to have travelled the distance of one hundred miles in three days.

III. Passage of the Red Sea.

All the foregoing premises lead irresistibly to the conclusion, that the Israelites passed through the Red sea at, or in the vicinity of, the modern city of Suez.

The traveller, in going from Adjeroud to Suez, sees this city while yet distant from it, lying apparently at the eastern part of the broad northern end of the gulf, which here presents a coast of five or six miles in length, running nearly east and west. But at the N. E. angle of the gulf, and still east of the city,

23 Niebuhr's Reisebeschr. I. 218. Quatremère's Mem. sur l'Egypte I. 162. Description de l'Egypte, (par la Commission,) XI. 306, 366. Edrisii Africa, ed. Hartmann, p. 448 sq.

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is an inlet or arm of the sea which extends farther north, and which formerly doubtless communicated with the Bitter lakes. This part of the gulf, which thus flows up by Suez, seems, at first, in comparison with the rest of the gulf, to have only the breadth of a river, and to be almost too small for the scene of a miracle so celebrated. But when it is remembered that this arm, directly opposite the city, is almost three quarters of a mile broad, and that further north it is much broader; and when we call to mind also that the gulf has evidently retired from its ancient limits; this difficulty vanishes.24 That the sea bas thus retired, is stated by Niebuhr, and by Du Bois Aymé and other travellers.25 The proofs of the fact it is not necessary here to adduce; except to remark, that the ancient Clysma or Kolsum, the ruins of which are now to be seen about three quarters of a mile to the northward of Suez, appears to have been once the head of navigation, and to have been abandoned on account of the retreating of the waters, or perhaps the filling up of the sea by sand. At the present day, the tide rises here about six feet;26 and during the ebb, the arm of the sea over against Suez is daily forded. Niebuhr forded it on his return from Mount Sinai; he and his companion on dromedaries, and their Arabs on foot; and the water came hardly up to the knees of the latter. Ehrenberg remarks, upon his map, that the sea is here daily forded at the time of ebb; and that the place is still called Dorb el Yahudi, the Jews' passage.

The circumstances then of the miraculous passage, were these. Hemmed in as they were on all sides, the Israelites began to despair of escape, and to murmur against Moses, Ex. xiv. 11, 12. Jehovah now directed Moses to stretch out his rod over the sea; " and the Lord caused the sea to flow (go, Thi) by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry (ground); and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left," Ex. xiv. 21, 22. It would follow, that the Israelites, who were probably all night upon the alert, entered on the passage towards morn

24 Niebuhr's Beschreib. von Arabien, p. 410.

25 Niebuhr, ibid. p. 403, 404. Description de l'Egypte, Tom. VIII.

p. 114 sq. Tom. XI. p. 371 sq. Tom. XVIII. p. 341 sq.

26 Two French metres. Descr. de l'Egypte, VIII. 114 sq.

27 Reisebeschr. I. p. 252.