ing acquainted with the works of Manetho than were enjoyed by Syncellus, Africanus, or Eusebius. He assures us that Menes lived many years before Abraham, and that he ruled more than 1300 years before Solomon.* Now the Father of the Faithful was born 2153, and the son of David ascended the throne of Israel 1030 years before the Christian era. These facts, combined with the account which is given in the Old Chronicle of the dynasty of kings which proceeded from Misraim or Misor, seem to justify the conclusions of modern chronology. The Greek historian farther mentions that the priests recited to him, from books, three hundred and thirty sovereigns, successors of Menes, among whom were eighteen Ethiopian princes and one queen called Nitocris. But as none of these monarchs were distinguished by any acts of magnificence or renown, he abstains from encumbering his pages with the unmeaning catalogues of their appellations and titles. He makes one exception in favour of Moris, famed for the excavation of the lake which still bears his name, and of which an account will be given in a subsequent chapter. To assist the recollection of the reader on this rather intricate subject, we shall abridge, from the New Analysis of Chronology, a list of the kings who fill up the space between the accession of the first human monarch of Egypt and the death of Moris :— FIRST DYNASTY, EGYPTIANS, 253 YEARS. The most interesting event that occurred during this long interval was the invasion of Egypt by the Shepherds, which, according to the chronology we have here adopted, took place two thousand one hundred and fifty-nine years before the birth of Christ. Manetho, the historian already mentioned, inserted in his work a very intelligible notice of the misfortune which had befallen his country at that early period; the accuracy of which cannot be called in question, except in the point where he is supposed to identify the savage invaders from the East with the peaceful family of Jacob who were invited to settle in the Land of Goshen. The fragment has been preserved by Josephus in his tract against Apion, and contains the following statement: "We had formerly a king named Timaus. In his reign, God, upon what account I know not, was offended with us; and unexpectedly men from the East, of obscure origin, boldly invaded the kingdom and subdued it without a contest. Having mastered the former rulers, they barbarously burnt the cities, demolished the temples of the gods, and treated all the inhabitants most cruelly; massacring the men, and reducing the women and children to slavery. They next appointed one of their leaders king, whose name was Salatis. He resided in Memphis, and imposed a tribute on the Upper and Lower Egypt, and put garrisons in the most important places. But chiefly he secured the eastern parts of the country, foreseeing that the Assyrians, who were then most powerful, would be tempted to invade the kingdom likewise. Finding, therefore, in the Saite-nome, a city placed most conveniently on the north side of the Bubastic channel, which in an ancient theological book is called Avaris, he repaired and fortified it very strongly, and garrisoned it with two hundred and forty thousand soldiers. Hither he used to come in summer to furnish them with corn and pay, and he carefully disciplined them for a terror to foreigners. He died after he had reigned nineteen years.* "The next, called Baion, reigned 44 years; and after him Apachnes, 36 years and three months; then Apophes, 61 years; and Janias, 50 years and one month; and after him Assis, 49 years and two months. These six were their first kings, who were continually at war with the Egyptians, and wished of all things to eradicate them. "At length the native Egyptian princes rebelled against these tyrants, and, after a tedious warfare, drove them out of the rest of Egypt, and shut them up in Avaris, where they had collected all their cattle and plunder, and besieged them with an army of 480,000 men. But, despairing of success, the Egyptians concluded a treaty with them, and they were suffered to depart unmolested from Egypt, with all their households, amounting to 240,000 souls, and their cattle. Accordingly they crossed the desert; but being afraid to return home on account of the Assyrian power, which then held Asia in subjection, they settled in the country of Judæa, and there built Jerusalem." Josephus imagined that this narrative describes the history of his own ancestors, the children of Israel. But it is much more probable that the * Avaris or Abaris, "the Pass," was afterwards called Pelusium. people who were thus expelled from Egypt were the fathers of the Philistines, who occupied the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and occasionally extended their power as far as the banks of the Euphrates. Every one knows that, in the language of Western Asia, the term Pali denotes shepherds, and stan or sthan means land; and accordingly the compound word Pali-stan, literally signifies Shepherd-land, or the country of shepherds. It is therefore extremely probable that the warlike nation who so frequently disputed with the descendants of Abraham the possession of the Syrian border, were the progeny of the royal herdsmen who so long subjected to their thrall the rich territory of Lower and Middle Egypt. The remembrance of the Shepherd expedition is not yet extinct even among the tribes of Central India. In one of the sacred books of the Hindoos, quoted by Captain Wilford, a record is preserved of two remarkable migrations from the East in remote times; first of the Yadavas or "sacred race," and afterwards of the Pali or Shepherds. These last, we are told, were a powerful tribe who, in ancient days, governed the whole country from the Indus to the mouth of the Ganges, and are called Pali-bothri by Pliny, and Pali-putras in the annals of Hindoostan. They were besides an active, enterprising, and roving people, who, by conquest and colonization, gradually spread themselves over a great part of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Crossing from the shores of the Persian Gulf, they took possession of Arabia, as well as of the lands on the western shore of the Red Sea; in the latter their country was, by the Greeks and Romans, called |