cal details, and so vivid and picturesque in his descriptions, he disappoints our expectation from him as a scholar in the settlement of disputed questions. Whenever he approaches such a question, he seems to lose confidence either in his own learning upon the subject, or in the results of his own logic; and, after arraying history and logic upon both sides, but usually with a preponderance toward one conclusion, he evades the conclusion toward which he points by some doubtful generalization. Thus he narrows down the controversy of the passage of the Red Sea to two points,-"the Wâdy Tuârick, opposite the Wells of Moses, or the immediate neighborhood of Suez"; and after a candid statement of the arguments in favor of each, he comes to the conclusion, that, "if the passage of 600,000 armed men was effected in the limits of a single night, we are compelled to look for it in the narrower end of the gulf, and not in the wide interval of eight or ten miles between the Wâdy Tuârick and the Wells of Moses." But Mr. Stanley does not adhere to this conclusion. A few pages later, he introduces extracts from his letters written at the Wells of Moses, bearing upon the same question. In these, after stating the two principal theories of the passage, he adds: :

"It is remarkable that this event almost the first in our religious history should admit, on the spot itself, of both these constructions. But the mountain itself remains unchanged and certain, and so does the fact itself which it witnessed. Whether the Israelites passed over the shallow waters of Suez by the means, and within the time, which the narrative seems to imply, or whether they passed through a channel ten miles broad, with the waves on each side piled up to the height of one hundred and eighty feet, there can be no doubt that they did pass over within sight of this mountain and this desert, by a marvellous deliverance." - p. 67.

This answers the purposes of religious feeling with one whose faith in the miracle is established. But the scholar who would test, illustrate, and confirm the miracle by topographical considerations, should aim at something higher than poetic sentiment.

Dr. Robinson, in his first volume, clearly defines the limits

of the land of Goshen. Lepsius* has identified the ruins of Abu-Keshêb with the ancient Rameses almost beyond a doubt. Osburn, in his Monumental History of Egypt, finds Rameses "on the western border of the Delta, about midway between the Canopic branch of the Nile and the Canal of Alexandria"; and hence argues that the Wady et-Tîh must have been the scene of the journey from Egypt to the Red Sea. This theory comports neither with the recorded itinerary of Exodus,, nor with the surface of the country. But if "the land of Goshen lay along the Pelusiac arm of the Nile, on the east of the Delta," and if Rameses is represented by Abu-Keshêb, a little to the west of Lake Temsah, where, according to Lepsius, has been found a monument of King Rameses II. as the divinity of the place, then the traditionary route from Rameses to the Red Sea by the far southern pass of the Wady Tuârik is clearly out of the question. But there is a decisive argument against this lower passage, which both Dr. Robinson and Mr. Stanley seem to have overlooked. It occurred to us with great force upon the ground. The route to the sea by Wady Tuârik would have been the worst possible in a strategic point of view, and therefore Moses, with his knowledge of the desert, would not have chosen it. There is no evidence that Moses was advised by Jehovah of an intended miracle, and so drew the people into a strait from which only a miracle could deliver them. He was commanded to lead the people out from Egypt, the ulterior design being to enter Palestine. The direct route to Palestine by the way of Gaza was impracticable, because of the hostile temper of the Philistines. Therefore Moses was instructed to lead the people "by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea." Of course he would aim for the head of the sea, above Suez, intending to pass round the neck into the desert. It is incredible that, aiming for the wilderness on the eastern side of the Gulf of Suez, he should have led the multitude through a narrow mountain defile that would bring them out upon the rocky western shore, ten miles from the head of the sea, and

* Letters from Egypt, &c., p. 438; see also Robinson's map.

*

The move

where the channel is at least ten miles broad. ment of the camp toward the sea-shore was a detour southward by express command of God; and at Pihahiroth they were shut in by the wilderness and the sea, with the army of Pharaoh in the rear. This strategic consideration should settle the question in favor of a passage near the neck of the gulf. Upon the ground, the argument to the eye is conclusive. The several conjectural points of the passage are finely presented in Laborde's Carte du Golfe de Suez. Laborde rejects the traditionary views of the lower passage, and also the view of Niebuhr, that the passage was made at the ford above Suez, and suggests nearly the course that Dr. Robinson has since indicated, from Suez diagonally toward the Wells of Moses. It was with no ordinary emotion that we made this passage in a small open boat, with a strong "east wind." +

*Exodus xiv. 2.

† Commentaire Géographique sur l'Exode.

Since the preceding paragraph was written, we have received the Notes of Horatius Bonar, D.D., of Kelso, upon The Desert of Sinai, and find the strategic disadvantages of the movement of Israel toward Jebel Atâkah urged as an argument against Dr. Robinson's theory that the passage was made near the neck of the Gulf of Suez. Dr. Bonar assumes that Moses had some premonition of the miracle, and on that ground defends this perilous movement of the camp. "In coming up to the sea at all, they were taking a circuit, a circuit which, without any compensating advantage, threw them upon their enemies, and made their position most perilous. But in going south along the western margin of the sea for miles, as they did, they were doing more than taking a circuit. They were deliberately interposing the sea between them and Sinai, and voluntarily imposing upon themselves the necessity for crossing a gulf which they could easily have avoided, thereby making their extrication almost impossible. Had any general done so with his army, he would have been declared either mad or utterly ignorant of the country. But Moses knew the region well. He had more than once gone to Sinai, and was fully acquainted with the way. He could not but know that he was misleading Israel, unless he was conscious of Divine guidance all the way, guidance which superseded and overruled his own judgment. His object was to reach the Sinaitic desert, yet he turns away from it, and throws a broad sea between himself and that desert! Only one thing can account for this, and acquit him of the greatest folly ever manifested by the leader of a people. That one thing is, that it was at the direct command of God that all this was done. God's purpose was to show his power both to Israel and to their enemies. For this end, he led them by a way which required the special and supernatural forthputting of that power. Either there was in this case a most enormous blunder, or a most signal miracle, a miracle deliberately fore-intended, - a miracle which owes its magnitude to the

Mr. Stanley does better service to Biblical topography in his description of Mount Sinai and its surroundings. To Dr. Robinson belongs the credit of having brought to the knowledge of the Christian world a plain at the base of the Horeb cluster, the Wady er-Râhah, lying north-northwest from esSăfsâfeh, — which meets all the requisitions of the narrative of the giving of the Law; a plain two miles long, and nearly half a mile in breadth, from the lower extremity of which the northern front of Sinai-Horeb, visible from all parts of the plain, rises almost perpendicularly to the height of about two thousand feet. A fine view of this plain and peak is given in Bartlett's "Forty Days in the Desert." Laborde has a good topographical plan of the Sinai group in his Commentaire sur peculiarly circuitous march which Israel was commanded to make. Deny the miracle, and you make this circuitous route a piece of reckless folly, or pure ignorance, on the part of Moses."- Notes of a Spring Journey from Cairo to Beersheba, pp. 82-84.

Dr. Bonar seems to have taken a just view of the location of Rameses, and of the general route of the Israelites from that point to the Red Sea, except that he bends their course too far to the south. We have shown that the direct route would have led them around the neck of the Gulf of Suez; and it is evident that Moses, as a good strategist, was conducting them thither when he was commanded to turn southward toward the sea. This fact is conclusive against any of the lower routes conjectured for the passage. No doubt the miracle was "deliberately fore-intended" by God, who does not act at haphazard, or by sudden expedients to meet emergencies. But was Moses advised of the intended miracle before he came to Etham ? That he was, Dr. Bonar assumes without evidence, or rather in face of evidence. It seems clear, from the narrative, that Moses was making for the head of the gulf, intending to go around it, when he was commanded to turn aside from his course, and to encamp by the sea (Exodus xiv. 1-12). Then it was revealed to him, on the day before the miracle, that Pharaoh was already in pursuit, and should be overthrown in the sea. This view of the case is rational, and corresponds alike with the narrative in Exodus, and with the natural features of the country; and this points to Suez as the place where the passage was made.

Dr. Bonar is severe upon Dr. Robinson for "paring down the miracle" by taking into account the ebb-tide. But the narrative in Exodus expressly recognizes natural agents, such as the "east wind," in producing the phenomenon of the divided waters; and as the use of natural agents does not set aside the supernatural direction and control of the same, neither does Dr. Robinson's recognition of those agents argue against his own belief in the supernatural. The foresight of the effect of wind and tide at that critical juncture, and a grand military movement founded upon it, point to a supernatural gift in the leader of that fugitive host. We believe that there was more than this in the case; but, in his zeal for the miracle, Dr. Bonar verges upon credulity; and we are not surprised to find him afterwards giving full credence to the legendary Sinai, in face of all the evidence for Sufsâfeh as the peak, and erRâhah as the plain.

l'Exode; a better one is given in Wilson's Lands of the Bible,* drawn after Russegger, by Johnston of Edinburgh; but better still is the colored map in Stanley's Sinai and Palestine. We are surprised not to find in the maps accompanying the Biblical Researches a separate plan of this mountain cluster, such as is given in Kiepert's map of 1842.

It will surprise no one that the plain er-Râhah, now so conspicuous in the topography of Sinai, should have been overlooked by travellers previously to Dr. Robinson's visit in 1838, when it is remembered that tradition, which seeks the highest peaks and the deepest caverns, had fixed upon Jebel Musa as the Sinai of the Law, and that, till quite recently, the visitors to Sinai have been either pilgrims of devotion, or travellers who placed themselves implicitly under the guidance of the monks as to sacred localities. Since Dr. Robinson's visit in 1838, there has been a general acquiescence in his view by intelligent travellers. Dr. Wilson, who follows the tradition of the Wady Tuârik as the point of the Red Sea crossing, and controverts Dr. Robinson's theory of the upper passage, most cordially concurs in his conclusion that er-Râhah was the place of encampment at Sinai. Lepsius, however, boldly transfers the whole scene to Mount Serbâl, which has in its favor neither name, tradition, nor topography. His arguments are, mainly, the prominent and striking character of the mountain, and the vicinity of Wady Feirân, which, he alleges, "in consequence of its incomparable fertility, and its inexhaustible rapid stream, must have been the most important and the most desirable central spot of the whole peninsula." + But Lepsius overlooks the fact, that Serbâl has no plain at or near its base adequate to the accommodation of such a multitude, and that the supply of the camp at Sinai is expressly stated to have been miraculous. He also exaggerates the fertility of Wady Feirân.

A very good reply to the arguments of Lepsius for Serbal is given seriatim by Graul, in the Appendix to his second volGraul is Director of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission

ume.

Vol. I. p. 160.

tters from Egypt, &c., p. 304, Bohn's edition.