ose of worship, and for obtaining the "judgment" of God. The
country is a poor one, arid and burnt up, but it contains wells which
never fail, and wadys suitable for the culture of wheat and for the
rearing of cattle. The tribe which became possessed of a region in
which there was a perennial supply of water was fortunate indeed, and
a fragment of the psalmody of Israel at the time of their sojourn here
still echoes in a measure the transports of joy which the people gave
way to at the discovery of a new spring: "Spring up, O well; sing ye
unto it: the well which the princes digged, which the nobles of the
people delved with the sceptre and with their staves."**

* The site of Kadesh-Barnea appears to have been fixed with
certainty at Ain-Qadis by C. Trumbull.

** _Numb._ xxi. 17, 18. The context makes it certain that
this song was sung at Beer, beyond the Arnon, in the land of
Moab. It has long been recognised that it had a special
reference, and that it refers to an incident in the
wanderings of the people through the desert.

The wanderers took possession of this region after some successful
brushes with the enemy, and settled there, without being further
troubled by their neighbours or by their former masters. The Egyptians,
indeed, absorbed in their civil discords, or in wars with foreign
nations, soon forgot their escaped slaves, and never troubled themselves
for centuries over what had become of the poor wretches, until in the
reign of the Ptolemies, when they had learned from the Bible something
of the people of God, they began to seek in their own annals for traces
of their sojourn in Egypt and of their departure from the country. A
new version of the Exodus was the result, in which Hebrew tradition was
clumsily blended with the materials of a semi-historical romance, of
which Amenothes III. was the hero. His minister and namesake, Amenothes,
son of Hapu, left ineffaceable impressions on the minds of the
inhabitants of Thebes: he not only erected the colossal figures in the
Amenophium, but he constructed the chapel at Deir el-Medineh, which was
afterwards restored in Ptolemaic times, and where he continued to be
worshipped as long as the Egyptian religion lasted. Profound knowledge
of the mysteries of magic were attributed to him, as in later times to
Prince Khamoisit, son of Ramses II. On this subject he wrote certain
works which maintained their reputation for more than a