And for the moment, in or about 1500 B.C., the Israelites as a nation are not in Palestine at all. They are in the land of Goshen, undergoing that oppression of which you know. Within 300 years or so they will make their Exodus and begin their forty years of wandering in the wilderness, to re-appear in the story, under the leadership of Joshua; conquering the Canaanites and so establishing themselves right in the most dangerous position of all, in Palestine, on the highway between the two great empires. {86} CHAPTER VI THE MEETING OF THE EMPIRES It rather looks as if the casting out of the Hyksos, the foreign "shepherd kings," made the Egyptians realise that they must combine and unite and not go on fighting among themselves, if they meant to be strong enough to resist the attacks of their neighbours. Whether that was the reason or not, the records seem to show that just at this time there began to be far less fighting between the big landowners; and the king, Pharaoh, began to have more power in his own hands, and to be able to give effect to his will, by means of his vizier or prime minister, and the rest of his officers over all the country. Thus more strong by being united, the Egyptians drove out the Hyksos. They also took forcible measures against the African tribes that were pressing them on the south, and established their power right up to the fourth cataract on the Nile, a long way farther south than the boundary of the more ancient empire. Against Nubia, farther south again, and against Libya, on their west, they fought effectively, and thus we may suppose that they made themselves more safe than they ever had been before from invasion by these African peoples. There were two great kings of the name of Thothmes or Tethmosis, of this eighteenth dynasty, under whom {87} most of these big achievements were done--Thothmes I. and Thothmes III. The second Thothmes reigned for a year or two only. Thothmes I. led the Egyptian armies up through Palestine, overcame Syria, and went as a conqueror as far east as the Euphrates, where he set up a column, with an account of it all, to commemorate his victories. But Thothmes III. was a more splendid Pharaoh still, and under him Egypt came to the height of its military power. Syria had revolted; so he marched north and utterly defeated the Syrians at Megiddo. Then he turned east and fought his way across the Euphrates, where he set up a column to his own glory beside that of Thothmes I. It is recorded of him that he had presents given him by the king of Babylon, and even by the king of the Hittites--that people from the north who had established themselves in Asia Minor and who were constantly giving trouble down in Syria. [Sidenote: The Elamites]