their subsequent importance as a nation has been over-estimated, they did not at least share the fate of many foreign tribes, who, when transplanted into Egypt, waned and died out, or, at the end of two or three generations, became merged in the native population.* In pursuing their calling as shepherds, almost within sight of the rich cities of the Nile valley, they never forsook the God of their fathers to bow down before the Enneads or Triads of Egypt; whether He was already known to them as Jahveh, or was worshipped under the collective name of Elohim, they served Him with almost unbroken fidelity even in the presence of Ra and Osiris, of Phtah and Sutkhu.

* We are told that when the Hebrews left Ramses, they were “about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children.  And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks and herds, even very much cattle” (Exod. xii. 37, 38).

The Hyksos conquest had not in any way modified the feudal system of the country.  The Shepherd-kings must have inherited the royal domain just as they found it at the close of the XIVth dynasty, but doubtless the whole Delta, from Avaris to Sais, and from Memphis to Buto, was their personal appanage.  Their direct authority probably extended no further south than the pyramids, and their supremacy over the fiefs of the Said was at best precarious.  The turbulent lords who shared among them the possession of the valley had never lost their proud or rebellious spirit, and under the foreign as under the native Pharaohs regulated their obedience to their ruler by the energy he displayed, or by their regard for the resources at his disposal.  Thebes had never completely lost the ascendency which it obtained over them at the fall of the Memphite dynasty.  The accession of the Xoite dynasty, and the arrival of the Shepherd-kings, in relegating Thebes unceremoniously to a second rank, had not discouraged it, or lowered its royal prestige in its own eyes or in those of others:  the lords of the south instinctively rallied around it, as around their natural citadel, and their resources, combined with its own, rendered it as formidable a power as that of the masters of the Delta.  If we had fuller information as to the history of this period, we should doubtless see that the various Theban princes took occasion, as in the Heracleopolitan epoch, to pick a quarrel with their sovereign lord, and did not allow themselves to be discouraged by any check.*

* The length of time during which Egypt was subject to Asiatic rule is not fully known.  Historians are agreed in recognizing the three epochs referred to in the narrative of Manetho as corresponding with (1) the conquest and the six first Hyksos kings, including the XVth Theban dynasty; (2) the complete submission of Egypt to the XVIth foreign dynasty; (3) the war of independence during the XVIIth dynasty, which consisted of two parallel series of kings, the