In the narrative of Manetho we can accept no more than the facts that Egypt succumbed to the attack of the shepherds, and that they, to take the lower estimate, ruled over Egypt for five centuries. Herodotus also learnt in Egypt that the shepherd Philitis had once pastured his flocks at Memphis. There is nothing wonderful in such an occurrence. Nomad tribes dwelt in the deserts on the east and west of Egypt, to whose poverty and scanty means of subsistence the abundance and cultivation of Egypt must have presented a continual temptation. That temptation would increase in force when the tribes became more numerous, when unusual heat diminished the springs in the oases, and robbed these shepherds of the produce of their scanty agriculture. The tradition of the Hebrews tells us that their ancestor Abraham went to Egypt when "there was a famine in the land," and the sons of Jacob bought corn in Egypt. According to Manetho's account, the tribes from whom the attack proceeded were not famous, and he regarded the invaders as coming from the east. The peninsula of Sinai, Northern Arabia, and the Syrian desert sheltered in the Amalekites, Horites, Edomites, and Midianites, tribes who were rendered hardy and warlike by life in the desert, tribal feuds, and raids for plunder; and these may very well have united in considerable number under some leader of military genius, and attempted the invasion of the rich river-valley in their neighbourhood. According to Manetho, the invaders were Phenicians or Arabians. The name of the shepherd Philitis, given by Herodotus, points to a Semitic tribe, and one immediately bordering on Egypt on the Syrian coast--the Philistines (Pelischtim), from whom the whole Syrian coast was called by the Greeks Palæstina. The name of the stronghold of the shepherds, Avaris, or Abaris, recurs in Hauara, a town of Arabia on the shore of the Red Sea.[180] If the shepherds who conquered Egypt had not been Semitic, and closely related to the Hebrews, Manetho would not have made them the ancestors of the Hebrews and founders of Jerusalem after their expulsion from Egypt.