They first made their way from ‘Rameses to Succoth.’ Succoth is the Thukut of the Egyptian texts, the district in which Pithom was situated, and which extended from the land of Goshen to the line of fortifications that enclosed Egypt on the East. It is mentioned in the letter sent to Meneptah three years after the Israelitish Exodus, which we have already had occasion to quote.[179] The flight of the Israelites had left the district uninhabited, and it was not very long before it was again handed over to some of their Edomite kinsmen, who wanted pasture for their herds. The site of the town of Rameses is still uncertain. It is called Pi-Ramses, ‘the House of Ramses,’ in the hieroglyphic texts, and, like Zoan, it lay near the canal of Pa-shet-Hor. A long description is given of it by the scribe Paebpasa, who was stationed at Zaru, on the eastern frontier of Egypt, during the early part of Meneptah’s reign. He tells us (according to Brugsch’s translation)[180] how he had ‘arrived at the city of Ramses and found it excellent, for nothing can compare with it on the Theban land and soil.... Its canals are rich in fish, its lakes swarm with birds, its meadows are green with vegetables, there is no end of the lentils; melons with a taste like honey grow in the irrigated fields. Its barns are full of wheat and durra, and reach as high as heaven.... The canal, Pa-shet-Hor, produces salt, the lake-region of Pa-Hirnatron. Their sea-ships enter the harbour, plenty and abundance is abundant in it.’ And then the scribe goes on to describe the annual festivities of its inhabitants in honour of their founder Ramses II. In Thukut or Succoth were fortresses which protected the Delta from Asiatic incursions, and at the same time prevented those who were in Egypt from escaping out of it without the permission of the Government. One of them was called ‘the Khetem,’ or ‘Fortress, of Thukut’; another the Khetem of Ramses II. Both seem to be mentioned in a report sent to Meneptah’s successor, Seti II. Here we read: ‘I set out from the hall of the royal palace (in Zoan) on the 9th day of the month Epiphi, in the evening, after the two (fugitive) slaves. I arrived at the Khetem of Thukut on the 10th of Epiphi. I was informed that the men had resolved to take their way towards the south. On the 12th I reached the Khetem. There I was informed that grooms who had come from the neighbourhood [had reported] that the fugitives had already passed the Wall to the north of the Migdol of king Seti Meneptah.’[181]