=The Trend Toward Egypt.= The Hebrew narratives imply that some of these tribes lived in the South Country of Judah, beside the great highways which led to Egypt. The early Egyptian records contain frequent references to the movements of Semitic nomads from southwestern Asia toward the Valley of the Nile. In the tomb at Beni-Hassan there is a picture of thirty-seven Semitic warriors being received by a local Egyptian ruler. To-day, at certain seasons of the year, the visitor at Cairo may find encamped on the eastern side of the city hundreds of Bedouin, who after months of wandering in the Arabian desert find the banks of the Nile a desired haven of rest. All the highways from southern, eastern, and northeastern Arabia, as well as from Palestine, converge at the Wady Tumilat, the natural gateway of Egypt. When the pressure of population increased in Palestine and Egyptian rule was re-established, as it was by 1280 B.C., the nomadic ancestors of the Hebrews sought homes elsewhere. For them a change of abode to the attractive pasture land along the eastern delta of the Nile was easy. The biblical narratives state that they also went at the invitation of their powerful kinsman, Joseph. =The Land of Goshen.= According to the oldest Hebrew records, the part of Egypt in which the Hebrews settled was the land of Goshen. The word has not yet been found on the Egyptian monuments, but there is little doubt regarding its general situation. In its broadest bounds, it apparently included the Wady Tumilat, and extended from the Crocodile Lake, the modern Lake Timsah, to the Pelusiac or the Tanitic branch of the Nile. It was a narrow strip of land thirty or forty miles long. On the west, where the Wady Tumilat opened into the Nile Delta, it broadened into an irregular triangle. Its angles were at the modern cities of Zigazig, in the northwest, Belbeis in the south, and Abu Hammâd at the beginning of the valley on the east. By many scholars this triangle is regarded as the original land of Goshen. Until the days of Ramses II the entire region, including the Wady Tumilat, was given up to the shepherds. Here, therefore, the Israelites could keep their flocks and maintain their tribal unity and practical independence.