had pitched "their tents before Pi-Bailos" (or Belbeis) at the western
extremity of the land of Goshen, and the Egyptian "kings found
themselves cut off in the midst of their cities, and surrounded by
earthworks, for they had no mercenaries to oppose to" the foe. It would
seem that the Israelites effected their escape under cover of the Libyan
invasion in the fifth year of Meneptah's reign, and on this account it
is that their name is introduced into the pæan wherein the destruction
of the Libyan host is celebrated and the Pharaoh is declared to have
restored peace to the whole world.

If the history of Israel thus receives light and explanation on the one
side from the revelations of Oriental archaeology, on the other side it
sometimes clears up difficulties in the history of the great nations of
Oriental antiquity. The Egyptologist, for instance, is confronted by a
fact towards the explanation of which the monuments furnish no help.
This is the curious change that passed over the tenure of land in Egypt
during the period of Hyksos rule. When the Fourteenth dynasty fell, a
large part of the soil of Egypt was in the hands of private holders,
many of whom were great feudal landowners whose acknowledgment of the
royal supremacy was at times little more than nominal. When, however,
the Hyksos were at last driven back to Asia, and Ahmes succeeded in
founding the Eighteenth dynasty, these landowners had disappeared. All
the landed estate of the country had passed into the possession of the
Pharaoh and the priests, and the old feudal aristocracy had been
replaced by a bureaucracy, the members of which owed their power and
position to the king. The history of Joseph accounts for this, and it is
the only explanation of the fact which is at present forthcoming. Famine
compelled the people to sell their lands to the king and his minister,
and a Hyksos Pharaoh and his Hebrew vizier thus succeeded in destroying
the older aristocracy and despoiling the natives of their estates. It