Orus have with a king of Argos What relationship could possibly subsist between them? Carry the antiquity of Argos as high as it will possibly bear; and make Inachus, if ever there was such a man, contemporary with Abraham: yet the arrival of the Shepherds in Egypt, which is here alluded to, must have been prior to it: at least we may venture to affirm that it could not be seven generations 25 later. But there is otherwise no correspondence between the terms: nor can they possibly relate to one another. The original history, of which the above is a bad copy, I imagine was this. Sub Acherre in Egyptum se recepit, et partem regionis occupavit Rex alienigena Pastor; ab Oro Babylonio ortus, et septimus a Noacho. This last word had been probably transposed to Onacho from whence the Greeks altered it still farther, and

:

25 Ιωσήππος, και 185ος, Κλημης ὁ ἱερος τρωματεύς, Τατιανος τε, και Αφρικανος συνομολογεσι κατα Ιναχὸν γεννηθηναι Μωσέα. Syncellus. pag. 121. edit. Paris. 1652. O de paтos Agysia nyestas [IvaXOS] κατα τον πέμπτον μετα Σεμίραμιν Ασσυριων βασιλέα, κ και ύτερον ETEσIV AUTNG TE Hai Mwσews. Eusch. Præp. Evang. lib. 10. cap. 9. The king who reigned after the expulsion of the first Shepherds was but equal in time with Inachus: how could a person that preceded some centuries be the seventh from him? Amosis laid the city Auris in ruins: κατεσκαψε δε την Αθυριαν (Αουρίαν) Αμωσις, κατα τον Αργείον γενόμενος Ιναχον. Apion apud Clement. Alex. Strom. lib. 1. pag. 320. edit. Potter. O de AuμWσIS EYEVETO NOT Ivaxov Baσthea. Ptol. Mendes. apud Tatianum. §. 59. edit. Oxon. 1700. See Theophilus ad Autolycum. lib. 3.

reduced it to a name they were acquainted with. If this be, as I imagine, the true reading, it makes the migration of the Shepherds to be about the time of Serug or Nahor. What is extraordinary, this is the very time when it is supposed by that very great chronologist archbishop 26 Usher to have happened: who refers it to the year of the world 1920, according to the Hebrew computation; in the hundred and first year of the life of Serug the seventh from Noah; and in the forty-second of Terah, eighty-eight years before the birth of Abraham. But this is a degree of exactness that I do not pretend to arrive at. Let it suffice, that near this period I imagine this event to have happened.

26 A. M. 1920. Ex vicina Arabia irrumpens gens eorum quos Hyc-sos, id est, Reges Pastores, Ægyptii vocabant, Memphim ceperunt, &c. Usserii Annales. pag. 3. edit. Paris. 1673. Bishop Cumberland supposes that the Shepherds invaded Egypt A. M. 1937; in the time of the same patriarchs, according to the Hebrew chronology. Remarks on Sanchon. pag. 170.

OF SOME

EVIDENCES STILL REMAINING,

WHICH ILLUSTRATE

THESE EARLY OCCURRENCES.

THE lower part of Egypt being annually overflowed, must have been liable to some alteration in a long course of years. Among other changes that it has undergone, it has suffered some in respect to its streams and canals. One of the principal of these, if not the very chief arm of the Nile, was the Canobic, or great channel; which is in many places dry, except at the time of the inundation: by this means, all the interamnian country which we have been speaking of, the nome of Cushan and part of the Heliopolitan province, is joined to the firm land, and constitutes a portion of Libya. The Nile, that was first divided at Cercasora between Babylon and the pyramids, is not separated till you come eighteen miles lower: so that the extreme part of Delta is now formed by some broken land, that probably belonged to the inferior part of the

antient Heliopolitan nome. By this means the extent of lower Egypt is in some degree abridged.

It may seem wonderful, if, after an interval of so many ages, and after such alterations, any traces should now remain of those early transactions that we have been speaking of. Yet I think some evidences may still be found amid the ruins of this antient kingdom. 7 Marcellinus observes that, though the Grecians, and particularly Seleucus Nicator, rebuilt many cities in Asia, and arbitrarily imposed names taken from their own language and country; yet the antient and original names given by the first founders of those places, and which were in the Assyrian tongue, were never intirely effaced. The same observation will hold good in respect to many places in Egypt. In a province, that seems to have been formerly part of the Heliopolitan nome, is a village at this day called Cofru Cossin, or "village of Cossin:" which, from its situation and the similitude of its name, I should think had a reference to the antient land of Goshen. The temple at Heliopolis was called Beth-shemesh

T

27 Nicator Seleucus abusus multitudine hominum, quam tranquillis in rebus diutiùs rexit, ex agrestibus habitaculis urbes construxit, multis opibus firmas et viribus: quarum ad præsens pleræque licet Græcis nominibus appellentur, quæ iisdem ad arbitrium imposita sunt conditoris, primogenia tamen nomina non amittunt, que eis Assyria lingua institutores veteres indiderunt. lib. 14. cap; 8,0 3 757 25tulní ost of!