As to the date of this Shepherd rule, the diversity in opinion among the best informed students of Egyptian antiquity is by no means comforting or assuring. Dr. Lepsius and others have placed their invasion of Egypt directly after the twelfth dynasty (B. C. 2101), and their expulsion about B. C. 1591. In his chronology, Jacob went down into Egypt B. C. 1414; Moses led the people out B. C. 1314――neither date having the least regard to the scripture chronology.――――Mons. Mariette dates it in the eighteenth century B. C., _i. e._ between B. C. 1700 and B. C. 1800. With this we might compare the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt from B. C. 2033 to B. C. 1603; or on the chronology of Usher, from B. C. 1706 to B. C. 1491.――――Brugsch dates their incursion B. C. 2115, and supposes them to have been Arabs from Arabia Petraea.――――Bunsen’s latest recension places their invasion B. C. 1983; their expulsion, B. C. 1548; and the Exodus of the Hebrews B. C. 1320――the last date being certainly wide of the truth.――――The evidence is conclusive that their expulsion preceded the resplendent eighteenth dynasty whose kings ruled over all Egypt, and among whom was the Pharaoh “who would not let the people go.” Dr. Thompson argues at considerable length that the entire occupation of Lower Egypt by the Hyksos must have _preceded_ the residence of the Hebrews there; but feels the difficulties of the problem. He says――“As yet the _terminus a quo_ remains in obscurity” [the point at which their occupation begins]; “while the _terminus ad quem_ is beginning to take a fixed place in history.” The date of their expulsion is mostly relieved of doubt. The war which resulted in their expulsion was begun by Seneken-Ra, about the commencement of the 18th dynasty of Thebes [Upper Egypt], and was prosecuted by Ahmes I, otherwise called Nebpeh-Ra, in whose fifth year they were finally expelled. The reign of Ahmes I is proximately assigned to the 17th century B. C., _i. e._ from B. C. 1600 to B. C. 1700.――――A curious inscription has recently been discovered by Mons. Dumischen, referring to a brilliant triumph over the Lybians, achieved by a certain king Menephtah――this war being dated nearly 400 years after the expulsion of the Hyksos. The scribe appended the remark――“One could not have seen the like in the time of the kings of Lower Egypt when the country of Egypt was held by the ‘_Scourge_,’ and the kings of Upper Egypt could not drive them out.”――――This authority seems to prove that the Hyksos held only Lower Egypt; that Upper Egypt was under another dynasty, for a time unable to expel the Shepherd race, but ultimately successful, and subsequently attaining much greater military power; also that the Hyksos people were accounted a savage and barbarous race.