Such were the position and influence of Egypt when the family of shepherds which was one day to become the Hebrew nation wandered in the valley of the Jordan and on the plains of Palestine――that family to whom those pastures, streams, and mountain gorges were already peopled with precious memories, and who were farther bound to the land by the promises of God and their own most cherished hopes. Too feeble then to overcome the races of Amalec and Chanaan, it was needful that this tribe should be for a time withdrawn into a country in which they would forget their nomadic habits and become habituated to the settled life of civilized nations; in which, moreover, they would be disciplined and strengthened, and where their numbers would increase, until the time appointed should arrive when God would deliver into their hands the country so repeatedly promised to their race. This time being come, he had recourse, if one may say so, to a touching stratagem, and drew the sons of Jacob into the land of the Pharaos by placing Joseph on the steps of the throne. During the gradual transformation of a wandering tribe into a settled people, another process, no less slow and difficult, was also preparing them for the future to which they were destined. On the arrival of the patriarch Jacob in the fertile plains of the Delta the great and powerful of that day hastened to meet him with royal magnificence. These shepherds, accustomed only to the shelter of the tents which they carried away at will on their beasts of burden, found themselves face to face with palaces and temples of which the very ruins strike us with amazement. And farther, what marvels were in store for the strangers in the various arts of civilization carried on in the cities of Mizraim, where painting and music flourished, where gravers and goldsmiths produced their excellent works, where unceasingly resounded the hammers of those who wrought in wood and stone, and the hum of a thousand looms, weaving those wondrous tissues[49] famous alike in the time of Solomon, of Ezechiel, and of Pliny――the “fine linen of Egypt.” The sight of all this must have vividly struck the imagination of the strangers; nevertheless, the prejudices and antipathies of race which speedily declared themselves, doubtless on the occasion of changes on the throne, would have kept them aloof from sharing in the pursuits by which they were surrounded, had not their new masters forced them away from tending their flocks and herds in the land of Goshen, and scattered them in the cities, mingling them with the Egyptian people. They now found themselves compelled to make brick, hew stone, and handle the workman’s hammer; to build, to cultivate the ground, and, in spite of any hereditary repugnance which might exist, to suffer themselves to be initiated into the arts and manufactures of ancient Egypt.