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had possession. They also conquered Nubia, and added it to Egypt, up to the very borders of Ethiopia; driving out from both districts the descendants of Cush, who, though as far advanced in civilization as the Egyptians, were, from their numerous divisions into petty kingdoms, unable to contend with them. The monuments of the twelfth dynasty are the unerring witnesses of these historical facts.

The inevitable consequence of this concentration of the efforts of the kings of Upper Egypt to the southward of their dominions, would be the neglect of their northern border. To the condition of northern Egypt in these remote epochs, we have already frequently alluded. The Delta was common ground to Egypt and Canaan. Even in the palmiest days of the successors of Menes, the shepherds of Canaan not only ranged undisturbed over the grassy plains of the Delta, but also depastured their flocks beneath the very walls of Memphis, and were evidently acknowledged as the allies or subjects of the monarchy.* This state of things shortly before the visit of Abram to Egypt, renders perfectly harmonious and intelligible, all the particulars of it recorded in the inspired narrative. Attached by the fertility of

* The shepherd Philitis was said by the priests to have been the builder of the pyramid of Suphis. He doubtless assisted in its construction. It was through hatred of the memory of Suphis that this legend was preserved. Suphis, then, was more hateful than the shepherds. Herod. 11. 28.

the soil, vast multitudes of Canaanites had settled. in the Delta in cities and encampments. They had adopted the religion of Egypt. This was inevitable, for the doctrine of local gods was universal in all ancient idolatries. They likewise adopted the manners, the language, the dress of Egypt, as well as its religion. They were, in a word, Egyptians in every thing but descent. This, however, was a point which, at this remote epoch, when the memories of the first dispersion were yet fresh in the minds of all men, would never be for a moment forgotten. This difference of race in ancient Egypt would operate in exactly the same manner as the tinge of colour in modern colonies.* Notwithstanding the exactitude of his outward conformity, notwithstanding his useful, or social, or amiable qualities, the Canaanite would always remain a shepherd, an unclean person, an abomination, in the eyes of the pure Egyptian. Such we apprehend to have been the state of things in the Delta during the period which the reforms of Mencheres brought to a termination.

The high praise which the priesthood of Egypt was never weary of pouring upon the name and memory of Mencheres, render it quite certain that the reforms in religion introduced by him, had for

* The misethiopism of all European colonists is an infatuation, the fearful consequences of which are not yet developed.

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one especial object the increase of the power and influence of their order. In closer connection therewith, both the mythology and the ritual of worship were likewise settled by them, rendering the religion more exclusively Egyptian, and therefore more intolerant of all foreigners; so that their very nature, and probably enough design also, would be to exclude the Egypto-Canaanites in a body from their communion. This very powerful cause would combine with the alliance and friendship they had so long enjoyed with the old kings, to keep the shepherds true to the religion of the pyramids. It does not, however, appear that they took any part in the civil war that followed. They seem rather to have retired to their fastnesses amid the swamps of the Delta, and received there as refugees their co-religionists from the cities of Middle Egypt, whence they were expelled by the Mencherian reformers. Their force would thus be concentrated and increased.

The peace between the two factions does not appear to have been of any long duration. The monumental facts of Heliopolis leave us to infer that this city was lost to the successors of Sesortosis I. So that either the civil war broke out again during his life-time, and Heliopolis was surprised and taken by the king-worshippers of the Delta, or it was ceded by treaty; the Nile being made by mutual consent the boundary of the territories of two cotemporary

and rival Pharaohs; for with the single exception of the grottoes of Benihassan, there is not a locality in Egypt Proper on the eastern bank where any remains of the twelfth dynasty have been found.

During the reigns of the three successors of Sesortosis I. there appears to have been between the two Pharaohs an armed truce. It was nothing more; for the monuments show that both successions always pretended to the sovereignty of all Egypt. This lasted for about a century. The period corresponds with the declining years of Abraham, and the youth and manhood of Isaac. During this interval, while the western Pharaohs pursued their triumphs over the southern Cushites, the kings of the Delta, and of eastern Middle Egypt, seem to have been developing the fertility of the soil, planting cities and cultivating commerce with their eastern neighbours in the Desert and in Canaan. The only evidence of this fact is negative, but very strong. The arts flourished greatly in their reigns; and at the termination of the period, they were in force enough to cross the Nile and to take Memphis by a coup de main from their western neighbours. The cause of this revival of hostilities had been forgotten in the times of Josephus, and there is nothing yet found in the monuments whence it could be inferred. They do however make it evident that Amun-Timæus made no strenuous efforts to dis

possess his rival Saites of the possession of Memphis. On the other hand, he evidently submitted to it as a divine dispensation: a token of the anger of the gods. This was precisely the account of the fall of Memphis, which Manetho found written in the temple-records. The proceedings of Amun-Timæus, on the loss of his capital, are highly characteristic of ancient idolatry, and of the modes of thought that it produced. He made peace with the victor, pursued his conquests over Cush in the south, and with the spoils built, at the point nearest to Memphis which remained in his possession, a stately palacetemple, which he dedicated to the local divinity, -Sevek, "the crocodile," or Seba. He adopted this god as the tutelary of his own family, naming all his sons and daughters after him. This change of gods was doubtless suggested by the loss. of Memphis. Nevertheless Amun-Timæus showed his respect for, or fear of, the religion which had dispossessed him of his capital, by building a pyramid for his own tomb close by his new palace a form of sepulchre so strictly peculiar to the old religion, that it seems on this account to have been unanimously rejected by all the other royal adherents to the reforms of Mencheres.

The city in which Amun-Timæus built his palace was situated in the Faium, to the fertility of which district his ancestors had so largely contributed by

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