for them a house of bondage, and they had to toil under the lash of the
taskmaster at the cities and temples which the Pharaoh built. Ramses
held his court at Zoan, like the Hyksos of old days, but it was to keep
guard over the Asiatic frontier, not to be in touch with a kindred
people in Canaan. Canaan itself was conquered afresh, and the
Canaanitish captives--the "mixed multitude" of the Bible--assisted the
Israelites in erecting the monuments of their conqueror.

Nevertheless, the people multiplied. The memory of the Hyksos invasion
had not passed away, and the Pharaoh and his subjects alike feared the
possibility of other invaders from Asia being joined by their
disaffected kinsfolk in Egypt itself. That their fears were justified is
shown by what happened less than a century later. When the Nineteenth
dynasty fell in the midst of civil war, a Canaanite, Arisu by name,
seized the throne and made himself master of Egypt. Ramses determined to
prevent such a catastrophe by destroying as many as possible of the male
children of the Hebrews. The men were worn down in body and mind by
constant labour, the children were not allowed to live.

Egyptian testimony confirms the statement of Scripture that this policy
was actually carried out. A hymn of victory addressed to Meneptah
alludes to "the Israelites" to whom "no seed" had been left. But the
policy was ineffectual. The opportunity came at last when the serfs
could fly from their enforced labour and escape into the wilderness.

It was in the fifth year of Meneptah (B.C. 1276). Egypt was threatened
by formidable enemies. The Libyans advanced against it by land, the
nations of the Greek seas attacked it by water. Achæans came from the
north, Lycians from Asia Minor, Sardinians and Sicilians from the
islands of the west. The Delta was overrun by swarms of barbarians, who