Then Abram believed God. We, O Sesostris, are his posterity. Are we not as the stars of heaven in number, and as the sands of the shore? The four hundred years are drawing to a close. Will not He who has brought about the fulfilment of one part of His prophecy, accomplish also the other? Therefore do I look with hope to our release, ere another generation passes away. Who shall live to behold it? Who shall be so blessed as to see this deliverer that is to lead them forth to the promised land? I may not live to see that day of joyful deliverance! Perhaps thy son Remeses may behold it. That land, according to our tradition, is Palestine, through which I journeyed when I visited the ruins, visible above and beneath the Lake of Bitumen; near which, also, I beheld that extraordinary statue of an incrusted woman, on whom the shower of salt fell until it had encased her alive, and transfixed her to the spot, as if hewn from a column of salt. The people of that region informed me, that she was a niece of Prince Abram, overtaken in her flight, when the five cities of the plain were overthrown by fire from heaven. How beautiful is all that land of Palestine! It is like a garden for fertility, and is filled with populous cities, and a cultivated and warlike people. I also visited the city of Salem, where, anciently, King Melchisedec, the wise sage, and friend of God and of Abram, dwelt. It is now but a rock covered with fortresses and the treasure-city of the land. Is this land yet to be given by God to our people? Is it, indeed, already ours by the title of God to our Abram, only waiting for us to go up and possess it? We are then not without a country, though in bondage. This idea elevates my heart; and I have sought to rouse the dormant feelings and hopes of our elders and people, with the faith that our nation has a country reserved for us, by the God of our fathers. But they shake their heads. They have so long sat in the dust of despair, that they have ceased to hope. Still, my brother Aaron and I everywhere try to lift up their feeble hearts, and to encourage them with the bright future. But one of the old men answered-- "Thou sayest that it is a land filled with a warlike people; that they are the descendants of the old Phœnician shepherd-kings, who once conquered Egypt. How, O son of Pharaoh's daughter," he added, giving me this appellation in his anger, "how can we Hebrews, who know not an arrow from a lance, or a spear from a bow, who are crushed in spirit and dwarfed by toil, how are we to conquer such a land, even if the God of our fathers has given it to us?"